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morningcoffee · Decorated Joined: 24 Nov 2008 Posts: 277 Location: England

DROP ACQUIRED!!

Thanks to a very kind user, jalbertbowdenii, from subreddit r/Norfolk, we were able to acquire the Norfolk, VA drop in less than 24 hours!

Some nice snowy scenery from the park where the drop was:

Our drop was taped to the back of this sign.

Ta-da!

Close-up:

We're trying to work out how to use this in the IRC channel now. Remember you can join us if you want to help us out or play along with the ARG!
webchat.freenode.net and join channel #ARG

**Posted:** Fri Jan 31, 2014 6:26 pm

bambusar · Unfettered Joined: 02 May 2012 Posts: 684

This looks super interesting. Big thank to retriever and whoever placed the drop aswell Cool

We also revisited that cemetery near Montevideo (that was third drop in histoy of OTP22, back in 2012)
SuperDan went there but he didnt find any code. Crying or Very sad

So no bellcode was found.

Reason for revising Montevideo drop site were two messages we found recently that referenced Bell Code and Montevideo:

No1:
Oct 16 2013

Agent code 6880#:
http://dialer.otp22.com/2013-10-16%2011-36%20UTC%20-%20202-999-3335%20-%206880%23.wav

**Posted:** Mon Feb 03, 2014 4:32 pm

bambusar · Unfettered Joined: 02 May 2012 Posts: 684

Current status of "new AS". All numbers except 22# and 33334# spell numbers. And all mubers have that bloob right after dialtones.

22#

http://dialer.otp22.com/2014-02.dir/2014-02-03%2021-14%20UTC%20-%20202-999-3335%20-%20%2322.wav

bloop (morningcoffee noticed "bloop" in the dialtones on 22# and crashdemaons converted binary bloop to 1320, it was the clue to dial 1320 to get drop info a few days ago) followed with horrible scream that sounds to me like seagull or baby seal screaming.

http://dialer.otp22.com/2014-02.dir/2014-02-01%2000-13%20UTC%20-%20202-999-3335%20-%2022%23.wav
<aquinas> yeah we didn't notice the bloop at the beginning of that and other AS #'s was the same as the bloop embedded around 24 secs on that 22# recording
<aquinas> i think 22# "screech" sound was just PM saying "COME ON, listen to the bloop"

33334#
http://dialer.otp22.com/2014-02.dir/2014-02-03%2021-16%20UTC%20-%20202-999-3335%20-%2033334%23.wav

This is only number that is the same than it was on good old Agent System AS36 (but on AS36 33334 and 33335 were same which is no longet the case.)
3 noises + 3 beeps repeated a few times (where was this used before?) You can enter DTMF tones
http://otp22.referata.com/wiki/Agent_Systems/33335

Number was found on Pennsylvania_Tree_Trunk_drop.

**Posted:** Mon Feb 03, 2014 5:40 pm

bobdamnit · Boot Joined: 06 Dec 2013 Posts: 66

To elaborate on bambusar's post:

*# is the same from original Agent System
**# is the same from original Agent System

In that neither are playing strings of numbers, but playing tones, albeit old tones that we have either figured out or really have nothing to do with anything recent.

*#: http://dialer.otp22.com/2014-02.dir/2014-02-05%2020-54%20UTC%20-%20202-999-3335%20-%20*%23.wav

**#: http://dialer.otp22.com/2014-02.dir/2014-02-05%2021-41%20UTC%20-%20202-999-3335%20-%20**%23.wav

Both have been figured out, I think. (Not so sure about **#, as I cannot find anything about it on Wiki) Please feel free to let me know if I am incorrect.

**Posted:** Wed Feb 05, 2014 9:56 pm

Xkeeper · Veteran Joined: 12 Dec 2012 Posts: 87

I wrote an ABISM decoder today while bored. Decided to look through old messages I could find using ABISM.

Format changed early last year, not really sure on the details. Observe:

Early:

**Posted:** Thu Feb 06, 2014 5:33 am

arthurdent11389 · Decorated Joined: 01 Oct 2010 Posts: 184

**Posted:** Thu Feb 06, 2014 12:24 pm

Xkeeper · Veteran Joined: 12 Dec 2012 Posts: 87

It changed again recently, to "33334" now. Another pointer to that number.

Nothing seems to work in it.

**Posted:** Thu Feb 06, 2014 10:28 pm

bobdamnit · Boot Joined: 06 Dec 2013 Posts: 66

Earlier today sometime (not sure exactly when) all numbers besides 888-854-2402 started playing a busy signal. It is a legitimate busy signal, not a recorded busy signal.

Cleveland Direct is busy.
Control/Deploy is busy.
All 0004 numbers are busy.
Agent System is busy.

888-854-2402 is playing the "dot matrix printer" noise.
Message Desk is still playing the normal beeps/boops.

This activity is very similar to when we wardialed Agent System and somehow broke it. The only difference is that Cleveland Direct, Control, and Deploy are also playing the busy signal.

We are unsure what caused it, but a few theories are:
-PM ran out of funds to keep his Twilio account active
-PM messed up his configs for Twilio somehow
-PM scrapped the game (unlikely, due to 888 still "working")
-PM is having a "grandpa moment"

Hopefully we dont have another 2-3 month outage.

**Posted:** Fri Feb 07, 2014 4:11 pm

aquinas · Greenhorn Joined: 02 Dec 2013 Posts: 9

so, after the brief outage of a few minutes, AS came back with some new stuff:

1320# gave us this: http://dialer.otp22.com/2014-02.dir/2014-02-07%2020-41%20UTC%20-%20202-999-3335%20-%201320%23.wav

**Posted:** Fri Feb 07, 2014 5:58 pm

Xkeeper · Veteran Joined: 12 Dec 2012 Posts: 87

Since about that time yesterday, CONTROL number (3337) has been saying it has a corrupt bootloader and is asking for a bootloader to be input over the phone. So, who knows what to do next.

**Posted:** Sat Feb 08, 2014 7:16 pm

crashdemons · Boot Joined: 04 Aug 2013 Posts: 12

We noticed that a user tumblr user has been posting high-quality book cover originals matching some of our OTP22 Books. http://exciting-books.tumblr.com/

Molds and lichens (full quality from tumblr): http://exciting-books.tumblr.com/post/71478300222/molds-and-lichens-of-nova-scotia
Molds and lichens (from our drop): http://i.imgur.com/JsgZGbX.jpg

In one case, they posted a book about punchcards one day before we retrieved the Norfolk drop containing a punch card.
http://exciting-books.tumblr.com/post/75031471828/adaptive-reuse-of-punched-cards-in-public

It's not far-fetched for me to see that this user has at least some minor connection to OTP22's PM.

See also: http://pastebin.com/XEeJsBDQ relevant IRC log

**Posted:** Sun Feb 09, 2014 6:52 pm

Xkeeper · Veteran Joined: 12 Dec 2012 Posts: 87

All of the OTP22-style book covers are tagged. Most of the rest are reblogged or reposted from other places:

http://exciting-books.tumblr.com/tagged/exciting-books

**Posted:** Sun Feb 09, 2014 6:54 pm

L0j1k · Boot Joined: 10 May 2013 Posts: 36

I went through all of the posted covers so far as of this writing, and scanned each image's barcode to see if there was something up. Here are some observations I noticed, as originally posted in #ARG:

**Posted:** Sun Feb 09, 2014 9:23 pm

TheCrimsonGhost · Greenhorn Joined: 10 Jan 2014 Posts: 9

I would agree that page is run by someone on the inside. All the otp22 style books are original posts and the rest are reblogged/posted from other places. And as mentioned before these are not just pictures, res is sooo clear, they look like they could be the original designs, like whoever made the books is posting them. Another crazy turn of events.

**Posted:** Sun Feb 09, 2014 11:51 pm

Xkeeper · Veteran Joined: 12 Dec 2012 Posts: 87

Apparently there's a Exciting Books Twitter account as well, that's been tweeting exclusively OTP22style books.

Interestingly, it started with the first ones we had, too.

**Posted:** Mon Feb 10, 2014 3:43 pm