unforum

Holycowcow · Boot Joined: 10 Nov 2004 Posts: 12

Exactly my point.

**Posted:** Wed Nov 10, 2004 9:24 pm

PotVsKtl · Greenhorn Joined: 07 Nov 2004 Posts: 8

Sorry, I see what you are saying now and agree that it is unusual.

As a result, the actual output is

YOUYOUYOUY
SHOULDSHOU
USEUSEUSEU
THOSETHOSE
FRESHFRESH
EFFECTIVEE
CARDSCARDS
ITITITITIT
BENEFITSBE
THETHETHET
GAMEGAMEGA
BOTTOMBOTT
CLUBCLUBCL
ISISISISIS
WONWONWONW
SOLITAIRES
ISISISISIS
THETHETHET
FORMULAFOR
CRACKCRACK
DECKDECKDE
PLAYPLAYPL
WELLWELLWE
ENJOYENJOY
AAAAAAAAAA
STRENUOUSS
CODECODECO

Which makes the "extra" cycle

YUUEHESTETATLSWSSTRKELEYASO

Shrug. Could be programming limitations. Could be meaningful.

[edited, thanks aznxasazn]

aznxasazn · Boot Joined: 07 Nov 2004 Posts: 62

**Posted:** Thu Nov 11, 2004 2:24 am

gambit · Greenhorn Joined: 07 Nov 2004 Posts: 8

SPEC

**Posted:** Thu Nov 11, 2004 11:29 am

Holycowcow · Boot Joined: 10 Nov 2004 Posts: 12

Just a thought...

YES, USE LAST TWO LETTERS AS KEY

And the last two letters would be, UH

Can a key be two letters? I'm struggling with that whole solitaire thing though I know it is probably right...

**Posted:** Thu Nov 11, 2004 12:05 pm

Holycowcow · Boot Joined: 10 Nov 2004 Posts: 12

Or...

HEY, USE LAST TWO LETTERS AS KEY

and then the two letters would be US...

Sigh... Do those Script things work for you other guys? Everytime I put in a keyed deck and generate a keystream, it reshuffles... can someone who can use them try it with UH or US as Passkeys, please? anything... it does seem weird that there are words there...

**Posted:** Thu Nov 11, 2004 12:20 pm

gambit · Greenhorn Joined: 07 Nov 2004 Posts: 8

I tried UH, HU, US and SU as the key with deck order as 1..54, 54..1, and 52..1,53,54 and didn't get anything.

Stretching even further, what if we read the clue like this:

UH, YES, USE THE LAST TWO LETTERS AS KEY

I tried YZ and SW (last two letters of the coded page) and WB (from the KWB sequence) and nothing. What else can we try as we're disproving theories?

**Posted:** Thu Nov 11, 2004 12:31 pm

rose · ...and then Magic happens Joined: 26 Nov 2003 Posts: 4117

key??

**Posted:** Thu Nov 11, 2004 3:58 pm

kendelsmith · Kilroy Joined: 10 Nov 2004 Posts: 2

Just got done doing a brute force on the solution. If -
A. the deck is 52..1,53,54
B. the modified javascript decoder provided by gambit for solitaire works
then no two letter key combination worked.

Please double check my work before taking this as 100% true.

Any other meanings for "last two letters"?
I doubt such a good anagram is chance and it explains the strange wording of face one's solution, however it could be a red herring.

**Posted:** Thu Nov 11, 2004 4:47 pm

Holycowcow · Boot Joined: 10 Nov 2004 Posts: 12

I too believe that Gambit's script works. (Finally figured out my own problems there...uh, I'm a dork!) And I too think that too many anagrammatic words are in that string for sheer coincidence, especially key words. So that leaves us with figuring out that either the starting deck may be wrong... (reverse 52 or whatever) or didn't somebody here say that the script didn't do the final Joker switch required by Solitaire? It was only done manually? That's my goal for tonight, to try it with actual cards. With a small passkey, that won't be quite so tough if the two letter thing is correct.

Which of course, we don't know.

**Posted:** Thu Nov 11, 2004 5:03 pm

gambit · Greenhorn Joined: 07 Nov 2004 Posts: 8

Assume for a moment that we've missed the key we're supposed to use. But we've found this anagram that talks about using the last two letters as key.

I was rereading the Solitaire instructions (http://www.schneier.com/solitaire.html) and noticed this at the end of the section titled 'Keying the Deck':

Optional step: (This is NOT used in the examples below.) Use the final two characters to set the positions of the jokers. If the second to last character is a G (a 7), put the A joker after the seventh card. If the last character is a T (a 20), put the B joker after the twentieth card.

Could the phrase we're working with indicate that the last two letters of the key (whatever it is) are to be used as part of the key and not to optionally position the jokers?

Pretty thin, huh?

**Posted:** Thu Nov 11, 2004 8:09 pm

Silicon · Greenhorn Joined: 10 Nov 2004 Posts: 7

**Posted:** Thu Nov 11, 2004 11:41 pm

aznxasazn · Boot Joined: 07 Nov 2004 Posts: 62

**Posted:** Fri Nov 12, 2004 12:20 am

aznxasazn · Boot Joined: 07 Nov 2004 Posts: 62

[spec]Another random thing to consider...

The 5th cycle of face 1 is the only one in which "KEY" can be read in consecutive letters. Once again I doubt this is going to go far..but..

**Posted:** Fri Nov 12, 2004 12:25 am

Ciaran_H

I think that's more likely to be coincidence than anything else... we already know the messages in the inner square and the outer border. Both of them are cyclic, so this is probably just a chance combination of cycles, especially as the messages in both parts of the grid need to be preserved as well. If you wanted to be sure, though, you should probably go through 20 cycles of the whole grid - after the 20th cycle the grid will be exactly the same as it started (based on a cycle of 10 in the outer border and a cycle of 4 in the inner square).

Not saying that you're necessarily wrong, but it seems a bit more like chance to me than anything else.

**Posted:** Fri Nov 12, 2004 2:21 pm