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 Forum index » Archive » Archive: General » GAME: Virtucube
[Puzzle] 1. Red Face - Moon
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gambit
Greenhorn

Joined: 07 Nov 2004
Posts: 8

 		Here's a modification of the javascript program that should allow you to specify the starting order of the deck and then apply a passkey (or not) to get the keyed deck. Give it a try, but remember I'm not a real programmer. So try some test vectors first, as Leo did earlier (good catch, Leo).

You can type the deck order in the Starting Deck text box or click Forward or Reverse. Reverse gives you 52..1, 53, 54. I hardcoded it that way, but anything can be typed in the text box.

Proceed as before with or without a key, generate the keytext, etc.

We need the correct keyed deck. Do we just need to order the start deck correctly (forward, reverse, bottom club is won, etc) or do we need a passkey, too?

Hopefully this program will help test some theories more quickly than the manual method.

PostPosted: Sun Nov 07, 2004 7:49 pm
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Leo
Boot

Joined: 06 Nov 2004
Posts: 25
Location: Derbyshire, UK
Varin wrote:
But, I had previously thought that the starting deck in a solitaire cipher was supposed to be the deck straight out of the box.


It makes no difference what order they come out of the box (it obviously varies according to the two accounts published on here today) for the purpose of Solitaire encryption I refer to the official order in my earlier post:

"With the deck FACE UP in your hand, start with the Ace of clubs on the bottom, with the rest of the cards in order through diamonds, hearts and spades, so that you would have the King of spades on the top. Then Joker A (JA53) and Joker B (JB54) to finish off."

http://www.schneier.com/solitaire.html

Varin wrote:
So that would be Clubs-Diamonds-Hearts-Spades, Ace to King just like the first site said. So according to both of these solitaire cipher sites the King is the bottom club.


Yes that's right, Clubs-Diamonds-Hearts-Spades, Ace to King - but how do you make the King the bottom club Question Remember the cards are face up, so if the deck was arranged like you said, the Ace of clubs would be on the bottom.

We then have to work out whether the deck needs to be reversed in accordance with the 'reverse52' clue at the top of the code, and if the 'bottom club is won' clue is also an indication of this.

PostPosted: Sun Nov 07, 2004 7:59 pm
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Leo
Boot

Joined: 06 Nov 2004
Posts: 25
Location: Derbyshire, UK
gambit wrote:
Here's a modification of the javascript program that should allow you to specify the starting order of the deck and then apply a passkey (or not) to get the keyed deck.


Gambit, you are amazingly clever Exclamation

PostPosted: Sun Nov 07, 2004 8:04 pm
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aznxasazn
Boot

Joined: 07 Nov 2004
Posts: 62

 		//start idea dump

Leo wrote:
Varin wrote:
But, I had previously thought that the starting deck in a solitaire cipher was supposed to be the deck straight out of the box.


It makes no difference what order they come out of the box (it obviously varies according to the two accounts published on here today) for the purpose of Solitaire encryption I refer to the official order in my earlier post:


Yeah, it does differ deck to deck though most decks seem to be like enaxor's deck. Actually one of my decks (non-brand name) was ordered 10D-2D,10H-2H,AH-JH,AD-JD,2 jokers, KC-JC,AS-2S,10C-AC

So I'm a bit clueless on how to even start before throwing in a passkey, etc. I've tried many different combinations and resulted in nothing. One thing is interesting to note, however, is that a passkey will not alter the outcome of the first letter if you start using the "standardized" new deck order, unless the first letter of the passkey is rather high in the alphabet. This is because of the K-A ordering of hearts and clubs. As an example, suppose that a 10H is on top of the deck after step 4. Without a passkey you would go down the deck 36 cards. Now suppose the passkey starts with an "A". You would remove the 10H, leaving a 9H on top. Now you would go down 35 cards and you would yet again arrive at the same card as you would without a passkey.

All of that aside, the main things that are still stumping me are the "Bottom club is won" and the "reverse 52".

Bottom club is won could mean a variety of things such as ace is won, one is won, etc. The problem is that still doesn't get you far. I thought maybe ace is won or one is won were perhaps clues to get the card ordering as Schneier mentions:
Quote:
1. The first rule of an output-feedback mode stream cipher, any of them, is that you should never use the same key to encrypt two different messages. Repeat after me: NEVER USE THE SAME KEY TO ENCRYPT TWO DIFFERENT MESSAGES. If you do, you completely break the security of the system. Here's why: if you have two ciphertext streams, A+K and B+K, and you subtract one from the other, you get (A+K)-(B+K) = A+K-B-K = A-B. That's two plaintext streams combined with each other with no key involved, and is very easy to break. Trust me on this one: you might not be able to recover A and B from A-B, but a professional cryptanalyst can. This is vitally important: never use the same key to encrypt two different messages.
Thus, if you knew a plaintext message and it's corresponding cipher text message and the same key was used to encode that as another ciphertext message, you could extrapolate the plaintext message without knowing the key. Obviously ONE, ACE, and WON are only 3 characters long each, however, so you would only be able to decipher the first 3 characters of the side 2 code. With those 3 deciphered though and knowing the start of the keystream you could go back and figure out what combination of cards would result in the same 3 digit keystream and go from there. My attempts at trying this were also a failure, however.

Another possibility is that if it is "ONE is WON" it could simply mean that "Side 1 is won" as we know it was...

"Reverse 52" could mean many more things.. It could be a hint at card ordering. It could also be a hint to change one of the rules of solitaire to something reversed. It could also be hinting at the reverse of the 52nd card which would be the king of spades. The reverse of 52 is 25 or the Queen of Diamonds=passkey?Another possibility is that it means to reverse the order side 2 is decoded. Perhaps you start at the end of each line or the bottom of the page. Starting at the end of the line would explain why I can't think of many questions that end in an '_? Really the only word I can currently think of to fit in that spot would be some sort of possessive rather than a contractive.

Or the other idea: starting from the bottom.. The image in the background is of trees which grow from the bottom up. This may be another dead end, but on side 1 the moon may have hinted at the cyclical nature of the puzzle. Here perhaps the picture alludes to the way you are supposed to decipher the code.

//end dump

PostPosted: Sun Nov 07, 2004 11:30 pm
Last edited by aznxasazn on Sun Nov 07, 2004 11:44 pm; edited 2 times in total
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aznxasazn
Boot

Joined: 07 Nov 2004
Posts: 62
gambit wrote:
Here's a modification of the javascript program that should allow you to specify the starting order of the deck and then apply a passkey (or not) to get the keyed deck. Give it a try, but remember I'm not a real programmer. So try some test vectors first, as Leo did earlier (good catch, Leo).

You can type the deck order in the Starting Deck text box or click Forward or Reverse. Reverse gives you 52..1, 53, 54. I hardcoded it that way, but anything can be typed in the text box.

Proceed as before with or without a key, generate the keytext, etc.

We need the correct keyed deck. Do we just need to order the start deck correctly (forward, reverse, bottom club is won, etc) or do we need a passkey, too?

Hopefully this program will help test some theories more quickly than the manual method.


Great job, however there are some flaws I noticed. Every so often the plaintext output I got was different than a previous plaintext output when all the starting data was the same. Also, sometimes there would be an error on the page if I entered in certain passkeys, though it would then take the passkeys if I entered them in all caps..odd

PostPosted: Sun Nov 07, 2004 11:32 pm
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gambit
Greenhorn

Joined: 07 Nov 2004
Posts: 8

 		The last line of the coded side 2 message is repeated.

CA BGESI IV TYXSW?

That would not normally appear in a Soltaire cipher, only in a ROT.

PostPosted: Sun Nov 07, 2004 11:39 pm
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PotVsKtl
Greenhorn

Joined: 07 Nov 2004
Posts: 8
gambit wrote:
The last line of the coded side 2 message is repeated.

CA BGESI IV TYXSW?

That would not normally appear in a Soltaire cipher, only in a ROT.


The last line is repeated only to emphasize that it is the question you are intended to answer in the text box below. The entire last line:

JA53 CA BGESI IV TYXSW? JA54

should be left out of decoding attempts. At least that's my assumption.

PostPosted: Sun Nov 07, 2004 11:43 pm
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PotVsKtl
Greenhorn

Joined: 07 Nov 2004
Posts: 8

 		Could easily be coincidence but if we assume the "bottom club" is the King, then google "king of clubs is won" you get a bridge hand:

http://users.rcn.com/hobo.nai/holdupg2.htm

Bridge hands are suggested as a way to generate a keyed deck on the Solitaire page.

Of course, the problem is that any attempt to interpret a Bridge hand or to read "fresh effective cards" as "fresh out of the box" contradicts the "reverse 52" clearly stated on the puzzle. I still think we are looking for a keyphrase to key a 52-1,53,54 deck.

Anyone analyzed the audio played when you hit "kwb"?

PostPosted: Mon Nov 08, 2004 12:01 am
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gambit
Greenhorn

Joined: 07 Nov 2004
Posts: 8
aznxasazn wrote:

Great job, however there are some flaws I noticed. Every so often the plaintext output I got was different than a previous plaintext output when all the starting data was the same. Also, sometimes there would be an error on the page if I entered in certain passkeys, though it would then take the passkeys if I entered them in all caps..odd


I don't know about the differing text output, but the instructions (from the original coder) are to enter everything in ALL CAPS and with no spaces. Adding spaces will make a difference to what you see. I didn't redo the program, I just added enough to allow for a specific starting deck. So all of the previous restrictions of inputting data still exist.

PostPosted: Mon Nov 08, 2004 9:53 am
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aznxasazn
Boot

Joined: 07 Nov 2004
Posts: 62
gambit wrote:
I don't know about the differing text output, but the instructions (from the original coder) are to enter everything in ALL CAPS and with no spaces. Adding spaces will make a difference to what you see. I didn't redo the program, I just added enough to allow for a specific starting deck. So all of the previous restrictions of inputting data still exist.


Yeah, I saw that. It was just odd to me that sometimes it "worked" in lowercase and sometimes it didn't but I guess it's because it's based on ascii values or similar (haven't looked at the code) and some values were out of the range it was looking for. I'm not sure why things were differering before as I can't seem to get results that change now..no idea.

PostPosted: Mon Nov 08, 2004 10:47 am
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Varin
I Have No Life


Joined: 02 Dec 2002
Posts: 2456
Location: South of where I used to be
Leo wrote:
Varin wrote:
So that would be Clubs-Diamonds-Hearts-Spades, Ace to King just like the first site said. So according to both of these solitaire cipher sites the King is the bottom club.


Yes that's right, Clubs-Diamonds-Hearts-Spades, Ace to King - but how do you make the King the bottom club Question Remember the cards are face up, so if the deck was arranged like you said, the Ace of clubs would be on the bottom


Ahhh, I took it as Clubs on top ...to... Spades on bottom, Ace on top ...to... King on bottom.
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PostPosted: Mon Nov 08, 2004 11:15 am
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Kizmet
Greenhorn


Joined: 04 Nov 2004
Posts: 8
Location: California

 		Virtuquest changed the look of their site and added this to the main page:

Quote:
Although we are not keeping track, a player having solved Face1 and Face2, has informed us that a duplicate line on Face2 made its way onto the version currently being played. The second "CA BGESI IV TYXSW?" at the bottom of Face2 will result in gibberish and should not be considered "in game". This does not impact any aspect of the VIRTUCUBE, but should save you time and confusion by knowing not to focus on the duplicate line. The duplicate line will be removed by Wednesday, November 10. Again, its removal should not be considered "in game".


well i guess now we know for sure to leave it out eh?

PostPosted: Mon Nov 08, 2004 3:29 pm
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aznxasazn
Boot

Joined: 07 Nov 2004
Posts: 62

 		Here's another idea to throw out there. On side 1 we were told "X does not mark the spot" so the question may arise, "ok then what does?" The A is the only other character in the entire puzzle that does not change positions. What is so special about the A you may ask? If I'm not mistaken it is placed right where the Tycho Crater is on the moon.

Relevance if any? No idea but it may lead to a passkey.

PostPosted: Mon Nov 08, 2004 6:08 pm
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FrcknFrckn
Boot

Joined: 05 Nov 2004
Posts: 11
aznxasazn wrote:
The A is the only other character in the entire puzzle that does not change positions. What is so special about the A you may ask? If I'm not mistaken it is placed right where the Tycho Crater is on the moon.


The A doesn't change because it represents a word with only one letter - 'a'. I highly doubt there's any more significance to it than that. I think people need to chill out a bit about the whole moon thing - I mean there's a forest behind puzzle 2, but nobody is going on about how the cipher key must be tree related.

PostPosted: Mon Nov 08, 2004 6:47 pm
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gambit
Greenhorn

Joined: 07 Nov 2004
Posts: 8

 		I have no idea how Virtuquest works/thinks when it comes to a puzzle like this. Does everything have significance or are there a lot of red herrings to be sorted through?

I'm inclined to agree with FrcknFrckn about the moon thing. However, when he mentioned that there are two phases to this puzzle, I though of the moon having four phases. What if we're not done with this puzzle?

I question this because the wording of the phrase from the outside ring seems stilted. The phrase from the inside 6x6 was smooth enough. The whole "BOTTOM CLUB IS WON' thing makes me wonder. And what's up with 'FRESH EFFECTIVE CARDS'? What does 'effective' cards have to do with it?

I started to get excited thinking about using every other word of the last phrase:

YOU SHOULD USE THOSE FRESH EFFECTIVE CARDS IT BENEFITS THE GAME BOTTOM CLUB IS WON SOLITAIRE IS THE FORMULA CRACK DECK PLAY WELL ENJOY A STRENUOUS CODE

becomes:

YOU USE FRESH CARDS BENEFITS GAME CLUB WON IS FORMULA DECK WELL A CODE

The 'You use fresh cards' seems like more natural language, but am I trying too hard? The rest of it doesn't really mean anything. So is the language of the outer ring phrase odd just be odd or is it because there's something else for use to find? An anagram? If so, I haven't found it yet!

PostPosted: Mon Nov 08, 2004 10:30 pm
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