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Old trailhead? stumbledupon.com
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montaigne
Greenhorn

Joined: 29 Jun 2010
Posts: 5

Old trailhead? stumbledupon.com

Came across this last night

http://www.stumbledupon.com

Don't know much about these things but it seems like an old trailhead. Don't know why it's still up though, that domain must be worth a fair bit considering the traffic they must get from people looking for stumbleupon.com. Anyone know if this has been played out yet?

PostPosted: Tue Jun 29, 2010 6:14 am
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demonpunk
Boot


Joined: 21 May 2008
Posts: 61
Location: Schenecta' Dreamin' in the 518

You know I could swear I've seen this somewhere before. The pii symbol and the quotes seem really familiar but I can't place it. Can't find anything on a search either though so who knows....
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My left hand is lightning and my right is thunder.My eyes are flame.My heart is ashes.LOOK UPON ME AND TREMBLE! Twisted Evil

PostPosted: Tue Jun 29, 2010 8:32 am
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montaigne
Greenhorn

Joined: 29 Jun 2010
Posts: 5

Did a bit more poking around, if you click on the participating sites link you get linked to something called Gold Stork. There's a dialogue there which seems pretty staged, dated some time in 2008. Must be a trailhead for something.
Clicking on the disclaimer link gives this page http://stumbledupon.com/disclaimer.htm, definitely a trailhead.

The website is run by something called Mango Labs. www.mangolabs.com is an acronym of the person the last quote is attributed to.

Really curious now, would love to know what happened with this

PostPosted: Tue Jun 29, 2010 9:01 am
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Arcas
Veteran


Joined: 14 Oct 2007
Posts: 147
Location: In a van down by the river

goldstork

Then there is this link:

www.stumbledupon.com/goldstork.htm

Which has a counter in the middle and this text:

Unity without verity...
i haven't got much time... i think they may be on to me. i know you're curious or you wouldn't be here but i need you to show me you're smart, that you can help. i wanna bust this whole thing open but i can't do it alone.

i need to lie low, somewhere safe for a little while then i'll get in touch, leave you a message, but not here...

i need you to show a bit of virtue to work out where, then...
When the time is right...
and when the shifting sands, in part, align the tumblers then start...

478960to seek the message...

wh1t3h8t (Π)

ETA: this site also seems associated:

www.goldstork.com/backdoor.htm

PostPosted: Tue Jun 29, 2010 9:21 am
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montaigne
Greenhorn

Joined: 29 Jun 2010
Posts: 5

Results of further poking

I can't place the end of the shifting sands line, but phrase "unity without verity..." is the start of a quote by John Trapp http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Trapp which goes "unity without verity is no better than conspiracy"

Presumably the counter is supposed to indicate when 'the time is right', have yet to work out when that might be though, or where to look when it is.

Also, had a quick look at the source code for the main page, the image for each of the quotes which flashes up are the same as the sponsors which have links at the bottom of the page.
For example, image for the first quote, the one on the left from Galileo, is called 'plastic-bags.gif'
The images for both of the other quotes correspond to the sponsors listed at the bottom of the page

PostPosted: Tue Jun 29, 2010 9:49 am
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demonpunk
Boot


Joined: 21 May 2008
Posts: 61
Location: Schenecta' Dreamin' in the 518

I notice the user on goldstork asking questions is going by the name jtrapp and that wh1t3h0t mentions SU which is Stumbled Upon and how he left a message. Mangolabs is a site about earthquake and tsunami prevention I guess with a name,contact # and address. Also a place to put your email address. I'll call the # when I get to work before I shoot an email though.

Well scratch that. I typed mangolabs not mangolab so I was on the completely wrong site. I realized right before i called. All this stuff seems to go in a big circle though cuz mangolab has a product called polybags.
_________________
My left hand is lightning and my right is thunder.My eyes are flame.My heart is ashes.LOOK UPON ME AND TREMBLE! Twisted Evil

PostPosted: Tue Jun 29, 2010 10:34 am
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montaigne
Greenhorn

Joined: 29 Jun 2010
Posts: 5

Timer

I had another look at the counter on http://www.stumbledupon.com/goldstork.htm
First digit changes every second, going from 0-9 and the second every minute, also going from 0-9. The last four don't seem to change.

I know absolutely nothing about webdesign or programming or anything, but I had a look at the source code for the page and beside the line for each tumbler there was a value, so I think when the tumblers match those value is 'when' you're supposed to do whatever it is you're supposed to do. 0 5 7 0 6 0 are the values given.
(The values given for the last four digits match the ones those tumblers currently show - 7060, which is what makes me think they don't change...)

Now just to figure out what to do in that one minute window.

PostPosted: Wed Jun 30, 2010 12:11 pm
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rykar
Boot

Joined: 11 Jun 2010
Posts: 33

Findings

I analyzed the code behind the tumblers. (http://www.stumbledupon.com/j_timedate.js) Yes that's in game, it starts with
Quote:
Hi Guys, yeah of course you can solve it this way... just as fun... but there'll be some that are a bit harder for you later Wink


I got this.

1st number is the ones digit of the seconds of the current time.
2nd number is the ones digit of the minutes of the current time.
3nd number is the ones digit of the hour of the current time.
4th number is the ones digit of the current date.
5th number is the ones digit of the current month.
6th number is the ones digit of the current year.

So (hh:mm:ss) 10:16:18 on 06/30/2010 would give
860060.

Also, at http://www.stumbledupon.com/goldstork.htm, the source has this comment.
Code:
<!--<p>when the shifting sands align the tumbler = dd:mm:yy = hh:mm:ss</p>-->


As far as I can tell, the script doesn't do anything for any given combination. It just displays.

In http://goldstork.com/backdoor.htm, there's an unused javascript function called bless() that does ROT-7 to any input you give it. Dunno what it's used for, or if it's some kind of clue.

Furthermore, both the http://www.stumbledupon.com/goldstork.htm and http://www.stumbledupon.com/disclaimer.htm pages link to the http://www.stumbledupon.com/index.htm with the text "virtue" or "virtuous". Wonder what it means?

I think this might be more of a straight-up series of puzzles, rather than an ARG, especially given how code-oriented the things I've found are. but maybe that's just because that's what I'm best at finding.

PostPosted: Wed Jun 30, 2010 1:20 pm
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phantomaz
Veteran

Joined: 14 Jun 2006
Posts: 99
Location: italy

Thought that i found the solution but doesn't work....

They say we have to :
when the shifting sands align the tumbler = dd:mm:yy = hh:mm:ss

the "tumblers" are from the local clock of the pc so i thought that i have to set my clock to something like:

2/2/2 02:02:02

or
11/11/11 11:11:11

or since the month is +1

11/10.11 11:11:11

but for the moment nothing...
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PostPosted: Wed Jun 30, 2010 1:35 pm
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rykar
Boot

Joined: 11 Jun 2010
Posts: 33

Did anyone else notice that the last quote on the main page isn't a quote from anyone? And what's up with the trailing text?

Quote:
What many have sought but failed to find, a few, by chance, have stumbled upon...

-A. G Lamb (Monaco) www.


PostPosted: Wed Jun 30, 2010 1:58 pm
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natas
PHP Ninja


Joined: 06 Oct 2007
Posts: 3177
Location: Northwest Indiana

the tumblers are correct as is, but seems to be only showing the last digit of the time/date and backwards S,M,H,D,M,Y

for example, right now the numbers are

092060

0 seconds
59 minutes
12 hours
30th day
6th month
2010th year

take the last number of each of those values and
No idea where to go from there though.

PostPosted: Wed Jun 30, 2010 2:01 pm
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phantomaz
Veteran

Joined: 14 Jun 2006
Posts: 99
Location: italy

Yes, they show only the last digits think because are taken with a function called
GetRightDigit();
that should take the last digit on the right...

they say us to aligh our clock to something like :
dd:mm:yy = hh:mm:ss

a lot of try but still nothing...
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Italian ARG Portal

PostPosted: Wed Jun 30, 2010 2:29 pm
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natas
PHP Ninja


Joined: 06 Oct 2007
Posts: 3177
Location: Northwest Indiana

rykar wrote:
Did anyone else notice that the last quote on the main page isn't a quote from anyone? And what's up with the trailing text?

Quote:
What many have sought but failed to find, a few, by chance, have stumbled upon...

-A. G Lamb (Monaco) www.


It was stated above. It's an anagram

www.mangolab.com

but there is an extra "a". Hmm.

a

PostPosted: Wed Jun 30, 2010 2:45 pm
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montaigne
Greenhorn

Joined: 29 Jun 2010
Posts: 5

In-game or not?

I haven't one one of these things before, so I'm just wondering is it normal for them to be built into legit sights? http://www.mangolab.com for example seems fairly extensive to be mocked up just for this. All the sponsor sites seem genuine too. [url]http://www.goldstork.com seems a little more suspect, but still surprisingly extensive, to my untrained eye anyway. What's the normal protocol here? I only ask because I was about to go shooting off emails to the contact section of all of the linked sites, but I don't want to be harassing some clueless sales rep.

Also, any ideas about what's up with this obsession with packaging, particularly bags?

PostPosted: Wed Jun 30, 2010 7:58 pm
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odiec
Greenhorn

Joined: 23 Jun 2010
Posts: 7

Could the tumbler have to do with Pi? Maybe it has to get to 314159, but that would have to be in May of 1999/2009/2019/etc. I tried setting my computer's clock back, but it didn't seem to change the numbers on the website.

PostPosted: Wed Jun 30, 2010 9:44 pm
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