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 Forum index » Archive » Archive: General » Low-Volume Games
[WF][Trailhead] Whitechapel Foundation: Open Cases
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petunia
Unfettered

Joined: 10 Jan 2007
Posts: 616
Location: MS
Rogi Ocnorb wrote:
The idea that "Smoke" was a bot had crossed my mind. But there's not much to go on, there.

If we could figure out why she stayed available for one person while disconnecting from another, we might see the beginnings of a trigger.


She seems to disconnect from you as soon as you reply with the wrong answer, at least that's what's happened with me.

Sylvia wrote:
That's sort of what happened to me earlier today. mort contacted me and let me know she was on. I imed her with "hello" and she disconnected from me but mort said she was still on for him, odd.


Had she asked mort "?" yet when that happened, and had he responded?

She was just on, so I grabbed this block (good idea Rogi) and threw it at her...

Quote:
Green Blue Green Yellow Hot Magenta Inch Worm Indian Red Indigo Jazzberry Jam Jungle Green Laser Lemon Lavender Lemon Yellow Macaroni And Cheese


... and waited, and waited. I was starting to think I broke her Shocked but after several minutes she did sign off. So maybe she is a bot. (Or maybe she's not, and the PMs had to have a really fast meeting to decide whether or not to give us partial credit. Laughing)

While Smoke was processing thinking over my answer, I considered hitting her with another bunch of colors, but was afraid of what that would do. Maybe next time.

Got email from Jade, but I'll post it separately.

PostPosted: Wed Jan 23, 2008 1:02 am
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petunia
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Joined: 10 Jan 2007
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 		email from Jade
(bold is mine)

Quote:
I haven't spent much time on the RN stuff, because frankly I think they're a bunch of morons. I think it was Mort who mentioned a method they used for securing data on their site, and that alone is enough to tell me I want nothing to do with them. There is the funk of incompetence about them (I like the sound of that one Very Happy). I've no doubt that they THOUGHT there was risk in what they were doing, but in my vast experience all delusional people THINK their delusions are valid. Sure it would be fun to know what they are up to (it's that good 'ole psychotic allure), but I doubt it would mean anything.

Speaking of psychotic allure, any luck with Ms. Smoke? I'll tell ya, I had one of those woowoo moments when I saw those crayons. Isn't that silly? Were you cats able to get anything useful out of that? I checked out the wiki page Mort mentioned. I see that both those colors are in the 48 box and on up (didn't even know they made a 48 box, if they still do. I'm a fan of the old school 64, myself, although I see from this handy reference that there is no jade green - smarmy buggers).

I don't have a lot of experience with carcinogenic online oracles, but I have occasionally needed to set up ways for people to authenticate themselves. A table like that wiki page could work for something like that, if you knew the right pattern. I'll look at it some more, maybe something will jump out at me. If any of you are so inclined, I hope you'll do the same. If someone is using crayon colors as a way to code in, it's probably reasonable to assume that the whole protocol will change at some point - so the more brains the better.

Thanks for checking out the show. I admire your willingness to risk the taint of goofiness (that's in the box right next to the funk of incompetence). I'm hoping to do some more in the near future - so don't say you weren't warned.

More soon,
Jade


Okay, so, I guess we drop RN for now. Maybe it was a red herring that got out of hand, I dunno. I'll still be waiting for Feb. 6, though.

Heh, either Jade or the PMs seem to be making the same mistake I did, assuming Midnight Blue is in the box of 48. Maybe I won't have to buy that big 120 box after all. I shall, however, refrain from telling him we tried "jade" on Smoke. Foily!

PostPosted: Wed Jan 23, 2008 1:30 am
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mortality
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 		On the wikipedia list of all 120 Crayola colors, Salmon is a jump of 10 colors down on the list from Midnight Blue. Another 10 color jump down from Salmon is Tan.

I think I had contacted Sylvia after I guessed Orchid. If you want it verified, I'll check the time on the logs.

We'll hear more from Reality Now on February 6, methinks. Ethan doesn't seem to be taking them seriously, either. I mentioned that initiation is happening a mile away from the WF London office and he completely ignored it.

He updated his blog.

Ethan wrote:
The last summary I got from the uC group had a huge amount of info and it seemed to be making a lot of sense. Perhaps that should be "seemed to be making well reasoned connections", because I'm not sure any of this case "makes sense". Yet. But the King Solomon track with the demons and the ring (that was not a ring) really seems to fit.

Only had the briefest time to go through some of the info we have today, but one thing that looked interesting was a bit in the vast store of Freemasonry data that mentioned Hiram (or CHiram) Abiff and the fact (within the Masonic framework anyway) that he was the chief architect of the temple and that he was murdered by "three ruffians" who were trying to get him to divulge the secret password of Master Mason (which appears to be Tubal Cain - shame those ruffians didn't have the Internet at the time of the first temple).

Now, I don't think anyone (Masons included) buys that there even was such a thing as Freemasonry at the time of the first temple. All allegory and symbolism, right? But this "three ruffians" definitely caught my eye with the obvious reference to three. And if there was a murder involved, it's not too much of a jump to connect a punishment (as Luke posits) to the three; perhaps banishment, execution and shunning? Kind of breaks down there, though, maybe. What's the difference between banishment and forcing someone to wander? For a really long time? More allegory? Within the Mason legends they were all three executed.

Really interested in what MSG4 is saying now. But completely at a a loss as to how to attack it. As I mentioned to Mort, I'm sure it will call for searching outside the box. Thinking outside the box, I mean (damn, I am tired).


Sounds like we were on the right track with puzzling out MSG4. Especially the Mason/Temple connection.

That's the second time Ethan has mentioned searching. In one of his recent emails he mentioned the thrill he got when he found "weebly" by a search and he looked forward to doing more of that.

Sounds like MSG4 might lead to a website if we can put the pieces together.
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 23, 2008 2:28 am
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petunia
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Joined: 10 Jan 2007
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mortality wrote:
On the wikipedia list of all 120 Crayola colors, Salmon is a jump of 10 colors down on the list from Midnight Blue. Another 10 color jump down from Salmon is Tan.

I think I had contacted Sylvia after I guessed Orchid. If you want it verified, I'll check the time on the logs.


I noticed that too, about Tan. Worth a shot. I was confused by the different columns, because the number of colors in between salmon & midnight blue can differ depending on what column you're in. But if you know that the columns are just by year, not what colors are actually in each box (like I was thinking before), then yeah it does make sense. Note that Wisteria is #117, just a couple more 10-color jumps further down.

So you guessed Orchid, and she didn't reply but didn't hang up on you either? Now THAT'S interesting. Surprised That'd be great if you could double check.

I requested a wiki on despoiler after people in chat told me it's not that hard to get - apparently all you really have to do is ask nicely. Very Happy Stay tuned.

PostPosted: Wed Jan 23, 2008 3:07 am
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badaim68
Boot

Joined: 26 Nov 2007
Posts: 38
Location: Sussex, UK

 		MSG4
Quote:
As I mentioned to Mort, I'm sure it will call for searching outside the box. Thinking outside the box, I mean (damn, I am tired). If anyone sees this, please don't take it as anything other than initial, and somewhat idle, musings on my part


As Mort has pointed out this is the second time Ethan has mentioned "outside the box" for MSG4.....so we should just be searching based on Duke of Manchester, No, Confusion, Again?

He also hints at initial, and therefore an anagram, but taking the initials of the above doesn't seem to give us anything apart from Cadmon who was the first Christian poet of England (although domnca does take you to a dominant submissive in California for anyone interested Shocked I'm English, so obviously far too repressed for that kind of thing Embarassed Wink )

Can't remember in the past 40 odd pages whether anyone had tried an anagram with all the initial letters in MSG4...although "daemonic tofus" is my favourite!

PostPosted: Wed Jan 23, 2008 5:07 am
Last edited by badaim68 on Wed Jan 23, 2008 3:57 pm; edited 1 time in total
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mortality
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 		I like the way you're thinking, badaim. I just had that thought, too.

It definitely sounds like either by initials, by anagram, or by both we have a Web site to find in the letters outside the box. Now we just have to figure out the parameters.

If the freemasonry stuff is right, and we aren't working with only initials, maybe we can pull "mason" and "free" out of all those letters. Which leaves dukeonchconfusionagain.

Alternatives: pull out "hiram" or "chiram," although there's no "b" so we can't get "abiff"

FYI: wordpress says there's a protected blog at http://cadmon.wordpress.com
l:p hiram:abiff; chiram:abiff; tubal:cain; and various permutations do not work. (Tried them on the theory that a Masonic password might be a pairing of a significant Masonic name, phrase, or concept.)

I think that's probably OOG.
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 23, 2008 5:31 am
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badaim68
Boot

Joined: 26 Nov 2007
Posts: 38
Location: Sussex, UK

 		cadmon
The cadmon.wordpress.com blog is only visible to chosen users (which is the most private setting available for wordpress blogs). As far as I'm aware you cannot request to be added, the blogger has to add you to the allowed list.

The password screen that comes up via the link is a wordpress account login, so if you are already logged in to your own wordpress account and type in the cadmon url it will just take you straight to your own dashboard. It would therefore mean guessing both the username and password and, effectively, logging in as that blogger. So chances are it is oog (but we may find the permission levels are changed soon so that it has public access).

PostPosted: Wed Jan 23, 2008 8:45 am
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mortality
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 		Smoke signed off for Sylvia within a minute of my reply. Signed off for me w/in about 4-5 minutes.

Quote:
[1/21/2008 4:39:08 PM] Smoke says: ?
[1/21/2008 4:39:43 PM] Mort Kuolevaisuus says: orchid

[1/21/2008 4:39:39 PM] Mort Kuolevaisuus says: smoke is on
[1/21/2008 4:40:41 PM] Sylvia says: and just signed off


I think she's been signing on about 20 minutes before 5PM and 20 minutes before 7PM Eastern.
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 23, 2008 5:47 pm
Last edited by mortality on Wed Jan 23, 2008 7:07 pm; edited 1 time in total
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petunia
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 		And how much later did she disconnect from you?

She's been signing on later than that for me. Around 11PM-midnight Eastern the past two nights, although Sunday it was between 3-4PM.

I heard from SpaceBass, and we're getting a real live bona fide despoiler wiki! He said it should be up later today, and may I say I think he sounds rather pleased. Smile

EDIT: badaim, Laughing at "domca" - I can relate! Awhile back I was googling "capnomancer" and found a story written by one Simon Whitechapel... it was most definitely NSFW. Shocked

PostPosted: Wed Jan 23, 2008 7:01 pm
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mortality
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 		Petunia tried "tan" and received naught but the now familiar mocking silence.

Jade replied shortly thereafter (coincidence?)

Quote:
Hey, Mort. Been thinking a little more about that the crayon connection. Were those two messages the only communication anyone had with Petra? I think she mentioned that the two times that Philly contacted Smoke were a couple days apart, but did she ever mention to anyone exactly which days they were? I was thinking that if there is a pattern to the colors it could very easily be a rotating-day pattern.

Who knows what the pattern could be, though, if there even is one; could be fiendishly crazy or ridiculously easy. Anyway, just brainstorming.

More soon,
Jade


Quote:
So you're thinking something like Midnight Blue = Monday and Salmon = Saturday? Today's Wednesday, so Wisteria or the like?

Our most recent logical stab was that Midnight Blue was mentioned first, Salmon second. Salmon is 10 colors down on Wikipedia's list of Crayola's 120 colors. Tan was the next up in that pattern. No go.

We'll check with Petra if she's game for answering more questions.

-Mort

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PostPosted: Wed Jan 23, 2008 10:46 pm
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petunia
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mortality wrote:
So you're thinking something like Midnight Blue = Monday and Salmon = Saturday? Today's Wednesday, so Wisteria or the like?


Although (as Mort pointed out to me in chat) Smoke is in Switzerland, so she's in a completely different time zone from most of us.

If/when we do get the right color, there's a possibility that she may not respond with "anything" like she did with Philly. "Anything" implies that he could ask any question he wanted - maybe we should be prepared for a different response (like "where," "who," "what" for example) and have our questions ready with that in mind.

PostPosted: Thu Jan 24, 2008 1:32 am
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petunia
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 		 we has a wiki!
Jetpack http://whitechapel.despoiler.org/ Jetpack

I've no experience in building wikis, so pointers are welcome. I'm researching it now (just typed "wiki" into Wikipedia, how's that for meta Laughing) but I wanted to let everybody know in the meantime.

PostPosted: Thu Jan 24, 2008 12:53 pm
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Sylvia
I Have No Life

Joined: 21 Apr 2006
Posts: 2062

 		I emailed Petra trying to get some help.

Sylvia to Petra wrote:
Petra,

I hate to bother you again, but you were so helpful in the past I'm praying you can be once again. Not knowing were else to turn, we felt that I should contact you once more.

You remember our smoke lady we talked about. Well, she's not much of a lady, she's a real b., a really big pain in the butt. We have managed to catch her online but when we try to communicate with her she just disconnects. And that stupid ? just keeps haunting us.

We were thinking that maybe there is a system she uses. Maybe the pass code changes depending on what day it is when she is online. Is there any chance you might remember what days of the week it was that Philly was in contact with her. For example, maybe the day he used midnight blue was a Monday while salmon might have been a Saturday. Any help you can give will be greatly appreciated.

We haven't been able to find Philly, yet. We're concerned that since Philly hasn't been online, maybe he didn't run away. maybe something happened to him. we hope that by speaking to ctrix we can find out the details.

Have you heard anything from Slider lately. What kind of places did he usually hang out at, you know, what kind of parties did he like. You said he would always talk to you at the parties. Did he say anything that might help us in any way. Maybe he could help us find Philly. But then again, he could also be missing.

I guess you can tell, this has pretty much wore me out. I'm at a loss as to what to write to you about. I guess if you can remember anything that might help us it will be greatly appreciated by all of us. Because we are truly stumped.

perplexedly yours,
Sylvia

Petra to Sylvia wrote:
Hi Sylvia,

Its nice to hear from you again. He still hasn't shown up huh. Doesn't really surprise me though. Haven't seen Slider, but I didn't figure I would I only ever saw him at parties that Philly went to and they weren't with people that I ever knew. I didn't know Slider before I met Philly. Also doesn't really surprise me that you haven't seen him online. He never really mentioned it but I kinda got the feeling that he changed his screen names and stuff all the time. Mystery man I guess.

Well I definitely know what day it was that he used salmon with that chick because remember that was the same day he dumped me. It was a sunday cause we were planning to go out to some sports bar to watch a game, it was sunday the 6th. January 6th. I don't know about the other day though. I know it was a couple days before. No wait it was monday cause that was the same day that we got my cat back and I had made a note in my datebook about the cat being missing. It was the last day of December, the 31st. I just checked. I dont see how that could help at all but I hope it does all the same. Its really nice of you to still be trying to figure out whats going on, even if he is a jerk.

P


PostPosted: Thu Jan 24, 2008 11:42 pm
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Sylvia
I Have No Life

Joined: 21 Apr 2006
Posts: 2062

 		points of interest
Just some things I want to add in case one of you guys might see something that will help.

on Msg 4 the following phrases have exactly 16 letters each.

Code:
D U K E O F M A N C H E S T E R
N O C O N F U S I O N A G A I N
S E A L E D I T S O W N F A T E


Code:
D U K E
O F M A
N C H E
S T E R

N O C O
N F U S
I O N A
G A I N

S E A L
E D I T
S O W N
F A T E


day of the week, planet, associated colors, color/possible color for capnomantrix code

Sunday = Sun (yang) = orange, yellow, red = Salmon (confirmed)
Monday = Moon (yin) = blue, orange, yellow, green white = Midnight Blue (confirmed)
Tuesday = Mars (fire) = Red = Torchred (speculation)
Wednesday = Mercury (water) = blue purple mixed, blue grey mixed, pink, yellow = Wisteria (speculation)
Thursday = Jupiter (wood) = brown, green, white, purple = Tumbleweed (speculation)
Friday = Venus (gold) = yellow, white = ?????
Saturday = Saturn (earth) = black, dark = Shadow (speculation)

PostPosted: Fri Jan 25, 2008 12:57 am
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petunia
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Joined: 10 Jan 2007
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 		Latest tries from last night: I tried Fuzzy Wuzzy Brown (hee) and Mort tried Turquoise Blue. It was Friday Switzerland time when I tried FWB. No dice.

EDIT:
Sylvia wrote:
Tuesday = Mars (fire) = Red = Torchred (speculation)

That would be a great fit, but Torch Red was changed to Scarlet, so we'd lose the alliteration with the day name there. OTOH Smoke could very well be using the old name.

In addition to planets, there are the Norse gods associated with some of the days... dunno if they have colors to go with them though.
Tuesday = Tyr
Wednesday = Odin
Thursday = Thor
Friday = Freya

Looking at the big color list again, I'm not sure the planet idea really works. Sunglow and Sunset Orange would seem to fit with Sunday much better than Salmon does, for example. OTOH those colors might not be in Smoke's box, if that's what she's using. Confused

PostPosted: Fri Jan 25, 2008 9:02 am
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