unforum

[Maldax]

Hello all,

I have been giving this a bit of a rest and picked it up again today and have had a thought

What We Know

We know there is enough information on this card to solve it

We know there are 54 cards in a pack with jokers

We know there are 108 letters on the pack

We know there is 'Made in China' writen on the side

We know 'If Entropy wins, outward looks should leave you cold.'

So

Maybe there is more that one way to solve this card

Maybe the 108 letters are the key if we know what order to put the cards

and

Maybe one of the other clues would also give us the order of the cards

so why not try and make them match at least know what we are trying to end up with

Not sure this makes any sense

I know what I mean honest

Mal

[locqust]

Im guessing with this card its going to say something like, "The virus was created by so-and-so" Right?
So were going to end up with a name of a person or even an organisation (maybe even 3P) Its going to have to be a name we would recognise or at least have already come across maybe in the papers or through other cards or the blogs/websites so that we wouldnt dismiss it as gibberish when we decoded it.
(ok the fact it may say "the virus was created by..." may be a big clue it is decoded right but you know what I mean!)

List of possiblities of culprits:-
A rival tech organisation
A religious group opposed to the use of key networks
Someone at the Academy (Can everyone say Sente??? lol)
A completely random person off the streets
A bored kid with a lot of computer technical know-how
The 3P or other cube theft related group.
Someone mentioned in the Sentinel as a passing item.
maybe Madame Bianca??? lol
The PXC police, ie Helena Frye and co.

[doomsdayred]

This is pure speculation at this point and I've said it before but no one seems to have picked up on it. Judging from the message given when the cards are handed over there is a strong indication that no one is responsible.

All references I've looked at that relate to the word Entropy indicate a closed system. Given that description in this situation implies that no one could hack into the academy computer as it is not networked. If it were hackable then the system wouldn't be "closed".

Therefore there is the distinct possibility that the system could be causing the virus itself.

On the flipside of this, it doesn't explain how the virus gets outside the academy if it is infact a closed system.

I'd definitely be interested in other peoples thoughts on this.

[Phill4269]

I think that it is time to summarise what we know about this card. This is what I have so far:

The hint implies that all of the information required is on the card. I also think that the solution must be relatively simple as per the other silver cards which have been solved.

The text strongly suggests a solitaire cipher. There is a very good article on solitaire: http://www.schneier.com/solitaire.html Making that assumption there are four questions which need to be answered:
1 What is the initial card order?
2 What is the cipher text which needs to be decoded?
3 Is the deck keyed with a passphrase?
4 Is the keystream on the card?

There are two things which could imply an initial card order.
1 The picture of the deck shows the seal intact. This implies manufacturer's ordering. Unfortunately, different manufacturer's card decks seem to have different initial orders. This leaves the only possibility that the deck pictured exists and has a well defined order. This is unlikely.
2 The non-heat sensitive 108 letters are 54 letter pairs which could indicate card order. I can't see how the numbered cards could be represented. We need a sequence like AC2C...KCJAJB. There are also the two dupliate pairs.
If there is a passphrase the initial order is assumed to be "bridge order".

What is the cipher text? The heat sensitive and non heat sensitive sequences must be significant. I thought of some letter blocks being cipher text and some being keystream. I tried all combinations and only got about 3 sensible substrings and no possible message.
The message only needs to name someone so it could be quite short. This could suggest that the heat sensitive letters are the ciphertext.

It would make sense if there was a passphrase which is used to produce the initial deck ordering. The keys need to be 64 characters or more to make the cipher secure. I have tried various combinations of the heat sensitive letters being the cipher text and the rest the key, and vice versa, with no luck. I have also tried "MADEINCHINA" and a few other phrases with no luck.

One thing bothers me. Many cards have typos. If the letter blocks are part of a passphrase and there is a typo in them there is no chance of solving it!

A few observations:
There are 26 letter groups - one for each letter of the alphabet
There are 108=2x54 non heat sensitive letters
The 3 letter group LUL breaks the rules for solitaire which suggests that it is not part of the ciphertext.
Card titles seem to be significant. Shuffled implies some reordering has been done or needs to be done.

Any ideas? Have I missed anything obvious?

Phill

[padge]

Summary

[donstobbart]

[bertyb]

Is the "Made in China" relevant to the code order in anyway? - do the chinese write in a different order?

or perhaps the deck order is the same as the chinese deck order?

[Ashin]

ooooooh, you may be onto something there bertyb.

In traditional Chinese you write from top to bottom, and the columns go right to left.

In current times, because English has become such a predominant language, they also now write in rows from left to right like we do.

We may have been using the 108 chars in the right, but backwards way, this whole time...

[Guin]

Re: Summary

[padge]

Re: Summary

[Guin]

Re: Summary

[doomsdayred]

I'm going out on a limb here but anyway...

The deck on the card is face down with the code on the visible side but the subject of the card opens the pack and spreads them out face up to see that they are all unmarked except the joker.

By doing this the subject reverses the order of the cards so we should surely be looking at the code from the wrong way as well (if the 108 char's relates to 2 per card)

In which case the original code of

[Tufty]

'fraid not.

I think you have missed out an "O" at some point. If you reverse them you should get the same number of duplicates - just the other way round.

If you reverse them you get:

[Stratman]

This threw me for a second...
There are an even number (108) so the pairs should be the same even if you start from the back...the duplicates reading forwards (I think) were VM and so still should be. You must have missed something early in your pairs list as you have only 53 pairs.
The suggestion that the duplicates must be the jokers has come up before and I am not convinced. Why have duplicates at all? The jokers are numbered 53 and 54 (for the Solitaire cipher this puzzle seems to steer us towards) so a deck order given to us in code could have 54 unique letter pairs.
Even though the 108 letters is so tempting at twice 54 to be the deck order, I still think it more likely to be the message.
Incidentally the deck pictured on the card is obviously a card box, and on the Bicycle deck I have here, the cards inside would be face up in this orientation as this is the opening side. ( I think - I will check on a new sealed deck).

Some of the thoughts that keep recurring in my struggles on this one...
I dont think it is a sealed deck. If so, how was a joker marked with a star?
I assume this card was handed over hoping the cipher was secure. If someone else stole or acquired the deck, the only thing they would not know is the whispered phrase 'If entropy...etc'. So the phrase itself may be important to the key. Unless the idea is that not knowing the significance of the heat sensitive letters is what makes it secure...and the phrase is showing us that significance - ie ignore them? Von's clue seems to imply the same, but isn't the wording strange? Overly sensitive (meaning ???) (?) Outward looks (meaning appearances?).
Sorry if I seem to be rambling...supposed to be working!
This card is driving me nuts too!

[bertyb]

Along the same thought process, by saying the deck might be the other way up, might mean we need to start with the deck numbered 54-1 rather than 1-54?

On a seperate note, I was looking at this card long into the night last night, which is probably why I feel awful today, but just got so into it I didnt see the hours ticking by.

The bit I noticed at the top of the pack has been whited out which looks like a brand name or something. I was trying to work out what letters would fit in there but struggled - I did however notice how similar the whited out bit looks like Garnets signature which is on the card also - but could not make any link whatsoever.

Also stumbled across this in my searches on the word Djinn:

[url]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Djinn

[/url]

Then this:

[url]

http://wiki.incognitus.net/ppc/index.php/Tales_From_Earth:Tower_of_Cards

[/url]

Then researching tower it led me back to Tarot and this:

[url]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tower_%28Tarot_card%29

[/url]

Which has been mentioned before when people were talking about the "Five of Cups".

Everything here is probably irrelevant but I thought I would share anyhow.