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 Forum index » Archive » Archive: MetaCortechs » MetaCortechs: Puzzles
[SOLVED] November 8 posts on paintover
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Azathoth666
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Joined: 09 Oct 2003
Posts: 321
Location: OZ-tralia

 		Actually, it sounds to me like the Texel Whomp is out of control... everything else in the past has been little things (well, apart from the exploding house) but here, Tex is describing a bad trip... changes to temperature, feeling lost, he can't get out of the "whomp area", all this apparent reconstruction... plus s/he describes it as different to previous whomps...

I'm not sure how to interpret it... I am sure Tex is probably in trouble though. Crying or Very sad poor tex...
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PostPosted: Mon Nov 10, 2003 6:38 pm
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Dark_Niles
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Joined: 09 Nov 2003
Posts: 32
Location: DeKalb, IL

 		To me, it seems that Jesse is (was?) texel and the whomp was some how related to altering time. He said he could sort of see himself in the past, and I believe that the building he saw (from brick to steel and glass) may have been a push forward in time, rather than back. This is all spec...

Perhaps the whomp started off simple and slowed time. Anyone seen Cube 2: HyperCube? You probably don't want to admit it if you have, but; there was a room where the people inside could see themselves doing what they had already done. They described it as 'variable time constants' or something similar. Sounds to me texel experienced something like this.

Then texel says things started escalating. Maybe the whomp began to speed time up. He said the thing affecting the surroundings began moving faster. It accelerated. He said he couldn't see his past selves anymore. Is it possible he was able to get a glimpse of the future? If so, parts of his message may be clues to what will happen soon.
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PostPosted: Mon Nov 10, 2003 6:39 pm
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BrianEnigma
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enaxor wrote:
Sorry to ask, but can someone give the steps, with examples, of how this was solved? Pretty please? Very Happy

I am not sure how great this will translate to the screen, but it looks great on paper. First, you start out with the bytes of the encrypted message up top and your starting XOR value (which is zero). So, the first letter of the encrypted message is the same as the plaintext:
Code:
Code:     0x74 0x11 0x16 0x07 ...
XOR With: 0x00
You Get:  0x74
Which is: t

Then, you plug the most recently outputted character (0x74) into the next XOR slot, so you're XOR'ing 0x11 with 0x74:
Code:
Code:     0x74 0x11 0x16 0x07 ...
XOR With: 0x00 0x74
You Get:  0x74 0x65
Which is: t    e

This gives you an "e" (0x65). You cycle that 0x65 back around to the next XOR, giving you:
Code:
Code:     0x74 0x11 0x16 0x07 ...
XOR With: 0x00 0x74 0x65
You Get:  0x74 0x65 0x73
Which is: t    e    s

And just keep repeating this:
Code:
Code:     0x74 0x11 0x16 0x07 ...
XOR With: 0x00 0x74 0x65 0x73
You Get:  0x74 0x65 0x73 0x74
Which is: t    e    s    t

When you reach the end of the input, you have your message. It's a feedback cipher, meaning you HAVE to decode it starting at the beginning. You can't really decode the 9th letter without first decoding the 8th letter and can't decode the 8th without the 7th, etc.
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PostPosted: Mon Nov 10, 2003 6:42 pm
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xnbomb
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Joined: 13 Oct 2003
Posts: 660
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 		Whomp dates and times
Omnie wrote:
Did anyone ever try to chronologically arrange the paintover crew's whomps and Beth's anomalies?

Unfortunately, we don't have a lot of information about when and where whomps have taken place. In unjust2.jpg, Caesar writes:

Caesar wrote:
Last monday, right?

That was posted on paintover on Thursday, October 16th. If he's referring to Monday, October 13th then I'm at a loss. If last Monday means Monday, October 6th, then we're in business: Event 100 took place in Arkansas on Oct. 6th, not that far from Oklahoma. The only processor load average log in the unjust conversation that is identified specifically with a location is the one that Statik (well whoever uses .mp3) provides from Oklahoma City, and it has high load average numbers suggesting that is near the epicenter of that whomp.

Other than that, we haven't got much to go on. The content of the carelessly (Sunday, Oct. 5) and silvia (Sunday, Oct. 12) discussions suggest that there was a whomp sometime before each of them, but there really isn't much to narrow down when and where.
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PostPosted: Mon Nov 10, 2003 6:47 pm
Last edited by xnbomb on Mon Nov 10, 2003 6:52 pm; edited 2 times in total
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Ehsan
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Posts: 992
enaxor wrote:
yeahyeah wrote:
good work Anthrax101 and BrianEnigma, Guess I woke up a bit late to help Smile

so you did have to %256 all the unicode, then xor with the texel.zip offset by one char? as in texel(i) ^ texelzip[i+1] ?


Sorry to ask, but can someone give the steps, with examples, of how this was solved? Pretty please? Very Happy


Let's take for example cc-texel-08-11-03-10-44-54.txt

These are the first few characters:

ɣᘄጒ౞义䵊ൈ᜗佅Ěᨇč䕅ĉἛሌ䝗伆䐎́܏ᴇऑ夕䅁ὗȇ..........etc

Now convert each to it's decimal value (using a hexeditor for example)

The first few characters are:

99 - 2 - 4 - 22 - 18 - 19 - 94 - 12

Now XOR each one the previous, the first one with 0 because there's nothing before.. so

99 XOR 0 = 99 -> convert to ASCII and you get c

Now do the next with the previous result (the one in italic)

2 XOR 99= 97-> a
4 XOR 97= 101 -> e
22 XOR 101= 115 -> s
18 XOR 115= 97 -> a
19 XOR 97= 114 -> r
94 XOR 114= 44 -> ,
12 XOR 44= 32 -> [space]
** XOR 32= etc....

And that gives us "caesar, "

Anthrax101 found the method.. I remember him complaining about the initial 't' in one of the files Smile BriEnigma wrote the code to automate the very tedius process. All in all, great teamwork and spec from everyone..

PostPosted: Mon Nov 10, 2003 6:47 pm
Last edited by Ehsan on Mon Nov 10, 2003 6:54 pm; edited 2 times in total
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Azathoth666
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 		The PM's are going to be screaming about this... that's two hardcore puzzles in a row (tapestry and this) that have been chewed up and spat out here... Great stuff!

Good work again Bri. Now the three-days-of-torturous-speculation begins: do we need to start a new thread or are we happy to keep running here?
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PostPosted: Mon Nov 10, 2003 6:47 pm
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enaxor
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Joined: 25 Feb 2003
Posts: 2395

 		Thanks!! BriEnigma and Ehsan for taking the time to explain how the solve was done. Very Happy
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PostPosted: Mon Nov 10, 2003 7:09 pm
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ParityBit
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Joined: 17 Oct 2003
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Location: London Above
BriEnigma wrote:
I am not sure how great this will translate to the screen, but it looks great on paper. First, you start out with the bytes of the encrypted message up top and your starting XOR value (which is zero). etc...


Thanks for this explanation, I had no way of working this out for myself, but I have Python installed on my machine and so I had a play around and duplicated the method.

My crypto and comp knowledge is increasing!

PostPosted: Mon Nov 10, 2003 7:35 pm
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Primal
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Joined: 21 Oct 2003
Posts: 61
Location: Cubeville

 		Elmview, GA huh??? So I missed a Whomp just 2 hours away... That sucks. On the other hand, the way Texel described the Whomp

Quote:
wind, rain, bright sun


it would describe the wierd weather we've had around here the last few days!!! Laughing
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PostPosted: Mon Nov 10, 2003 7:37 pm
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AnthraX101
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Joined: 18 Mar 2003
Posts: 797
enaxor wrote:
Omnie wrote:

BTW, I have no idea what an XOR even is, but all that matters is that you guys do. Very Happy I'm very impressed...


XOR is the only thing I understood in the solve, at least I think I understood it. It is a "One Time Pad Cypher" I think Confused You guys are awesome in how you solve these things...Thanks


You are close. XOR is simply a bitwise operation meaning "One or the other, but not both". If you are familiar with truth tables, here is one: (1=true, 0=false)

Code:

A     B     |     A XOR B
0     0     |        0
0     1     |        1
1     0     |        1
1     1     |        0


XOR is -used- in one time pad (at least the most common variants). However, a one time pad would have used completely random variables instead of the previous letter. The neat thing about OTP's is that they are completely unbreakable. From "ABCD", you can either get "CAKE" or "BOMB", and they would both be equally accurate.

Of course, then you end up having the problem of passing out a key that is the same length of the data. You are right back at square one. (Although quantum cryptography might start to take care of this problem)

AnthraX101

PostPosted: Mon Nov 10, 2003 8:37 pm
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xnbomb
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Joined: 13 Oct 2003
Posts: 660
Location: J302B S8JDC

 		More about whomps
Going back a little while, I see that wix pondered the location and date of whomps previously. He did note that the discussion of the whomp in unjust sounded like a continuation of the silvia conversation, meaning they were talking about Monday, Oct. 6th (since silvia occurred before the following Monday the 13th, they could only be referring to the 6th) which coincides with the house collapse in Arkansas.

We also have one other faint piece of evidence that ties whomps to paranormal events: In unjust.txt, texel notes that the box where the previous whomp was recorded (presumably where the highest load averages were recorded) was named horshack. Wix did a nice job mapping the logged machines to time zones. Horshack is located in the mountain time zone (MST) based on Wix's work. The event before the Oct. 6th event was on Wednesday, Oct. 1st at Medicine Bow National Forest in Wyoming (ID 99, Watch Your Step, where the boy falls down the ravine), in the mountain time zone.

With the scant evidence that we have, having the whomp phenomenon coincide with paranormal events seems reasonable. We certainly cannot rule it out ... it'll be interesting if Beth comes up with an event 104 in Western Georgia on Nov. 8th or so ...
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My location is a little tricky, but sooner or later, you'll get the knack.

{J302B S8JDC, 8996N M8L4W, 92D40 Q1JX5, 4PPRN R2B97, 8DC7C NZJNV, 8CH7V Q891H}

PostPosted: Mon Nov 10, 2003 9:17 pm
Last edited by xnbomb on Mon Nov 10, 2003 9:29 pm; edited 1 time in total
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BrianEnigma
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Posts: 1199
Location: Pacific Northwest
AnthraX101 wrote:
You are close. XOR is simply a bitwise operation meaning "One or the other, but not both". If you are familiar with truth tables, here is one: (1=true, 0=false)

Code:

A     B     |     A XOR B
0     0     |        0
0     1     |        1
1     0     |        1
1     1     |        0


XOR is -used- in one time pad (at least the most common variants).

...and to build off of Anthrax and take this one step further (is anyone still awake after all this information?), XOR is specifically used because it is reversible. If we take the three columns and say the first (A) is the original message, the second (B) is the XOR key, and the third is the encrypted message, XOR shows its interesting property. If we move that vertical bar so that it is between the A and B columns and we only know the third column (encrypted) and second column (key), the same bit operations apply to calculate the first column (unencrypted).

This is a special property you get with XOR that you do not get with the other binary operators (AND, OR, NAND, NOR, etc), making it a useful cryptographic operator for certain things.
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PostPosted: Mon Nov 10, 2003 9:23 pm
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Insomniac
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Joined: 14 Oct 2003
Posts: 234
Location: 01

 		Came back to this site to find this thread now 4 pages and solved! You guys seem to do the hardest stuff the quickest! Anyway just finished reading everything and it seems credit is due to Anthrax101 and BriEnigma. I'm glad there's guys like you around, my puny brain can't comprehend any of how you did it yet. Maybe when I shake this headache and catch up on my sleep...
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PostPosted: Mon Nov 10, 2003 9:27 pm
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SquareKnight
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Joined: 30 Oct 2003
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 		Ow.

I just imagined quantum cryptography in an ARG.

I do NOT want to have to search particle research laboratories for a poperly entangled particle and then decipher the communication mechanism, THANK YOU VERY MUCH.

-Square Knight
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PostPosted: Mon Nov 10, 2003 10:27 pm
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Lucent
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Posts: 95
SquareKnight wrote:
Ow.

I just imagined quantum cryptography in an ARG.

I do NOT want to have to search particle research laboratories for a poperly entangled particle and then decipher the communication mechanism, THANK YOU VERY MUCH.

-Square Knight


Yeah, and I don't want to have to pretend that I understood what you said. So yeah, it's bad.

PostPosted: Mon Nov 10, 2003 10:44 pm
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