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[Serial_Thriller]

PCPS

[EclecticMunk]

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Re: PCPS

[Nik_Doof]

In reply to the text stegging, i think its more print artifcats than actual stegging, cause Jonas described the print to be 3 dot printing method much like every printed publication uses

[tanner]

stegging is just hiding info -- so it looks like something else -- been done for thousands of years --- stegging in files is just the modern computer method

[Seej]

Right, well I've tried a few more cryptanalysis techniques to try to make sense of that number but not come up with much I'm afraid. Below are details of what I've tried since the last post. I'll tell you the bad news first though; it all looks pretty inconclusive and I'm only posting it to save anyone else wasting their time going down the same path. I feel like it's gonna be a fairly simple code when we crack it but right now I just can't see what it is.

In my conversions to ASCII NP means a non-printing or non-textual character. I've also checked these with the Windows character map as it deviates from ASCII on non-English alphabet characters in some instances and any such alternate characters are noted in brackets after the ASCII character.

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Splitting original number into numbers no bigger than 256 we get:

221 54 54 84 84 84 65 100 50 32 15

converting to ASCII gives us:
NP (or Ý) 6 6 T T T A d 2 (space) NP

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Splitting original number into 3 digit numbers and running a modulo 256 calculation on the numbers to bring them within ASCII range

221 545 484 848 465 100 503 215
221 033 228 080 209 100 247 215 mod 256

converting to ASCII gives us:
NP (or Ý) ! sigma (Greek capital S) P NP (or Ñ) d ÷ NP (or ×)

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Splitting original number into 2 digit numbers gives us:

22 15 45 48 48 48 46 51 00 50 32 15

Treating as decimal and converting to ASCII gives us:
NP NP - 0 0 0 . 3 NP 2 (space) NP

Treating as hexadecimal and converting to ASCII gives us:
" NP E H H H F Q NP P 2 NP

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All quite inconclusive so I tried the suggestion (earlier in the thread) of multiplying the number string by 2210:

string x 2210 = 489615521515107872112105150

Splitting into 2 digit numbers:
48 96 15 52 15 15 10 78 72 11 21 05 15 0

Treating as decimal and converting to ASCII:
0 ' NP 4 NP NP NP N H NP NP NP NP NP

Treating as hexadecimal and converting to ASCII:
H û (or -) NP R NP NP NP x r NP ! NP NP NP


Splitting into numbers below 256 and converting decimal to ASCII:

48 96 155 215 151 078 72 112 105 150
0 ' ¢ (or >) NP (or ×) ù (or —) N H p i û (or -)


Splitting into 3 digit numbers and doing a mod 256 calculation:
489 615 521 515 107 872 112 105 150
233 103 009 003 107 104 112 105 150 mod 256

Treating as decimal and converting to ASCII:
theta (Greek Q) g NP NP k h p i û (or -) from mod 256

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I tried dividing the string instead and got the following, but my instincts tell me it's an unlikely solution.

string ÷ 2210 = 100246825723287375793.30995475113

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I then tried a ROT analysis and a frequency analysis on my original character strings from my earlier post (as they were the only ones that exclusively contained alphabetic characters). Not enough characters to make a frequency analysis work I'm afraid, and the ROT analysis just gave me gibberish as well.

I then considered reversing groups of the digits (i.e. taking 123 and changing it to 321 - I've seen this technique used before to make an otherwise clear sentence illegible) but doing this with both pairs and trios of numbers doesn't look like it'll yield anything useful (though I need to go to sleep so can't be bothered checking this).

It also has too many digits to be longitude and latitude coordinates in degrees, minutes and seconds.

OK, I'm pretty much out of basic decryption techniques now and while I could try some more elaborate tricks I feel like Sente wouldn't make a message any more difficult to decipher than what I've already tried unless he really didn't want us to decipher it. If that's the case why would he include the number on the postcard in the first place? My gut feeling is that it's something else fairly simple that we're missing.

EDIT: I've just thought of something else I can try that's so brutally obvious I can't believe I didn't think of it sooner. Which means it's probably wrong, but bear with me....

[Olorin]

[Seej]

[Serial_Thriller]

Postcard Number

[tanner]

no cards in the pompey - gunwharf quays starbucks today

.

[yanka]

Ok, more things not to try with the number: don't try to map the locations of its digits within e (that means taking a digit from the string, recording its location within e, and doing that in order 24 times).

If you start with the first 2 in e:

[Nik_Doof]

i think me and beano are gonna go on a postcard hunt tomoz in liverpool, i may be taking my laptop and digicam with me just incase of any finds on the spot....and maybe get some anonymous hints on cards privmsg to my email account

not like im providing a hint to the PM if they read here

Also guys, if ur nice would u put what you've tried on the Postcard Puzzle wiki page?

http://www.incognitus.net/wiki/index.php/Postcard_Code

[Olorin]

[Nik_Doof]

[Sasuntsi Davit]

sorry what I meant with the stegging is....

Could the actual message on the postcard have another message stegged into it. After all, steganography was orginally used to hide a message within the lines of other messages...

The message on the card is not very flowing, it is rather laconic, and that could be becuase the message facade is made that way to facilitate the hidden message...anyway, its just an idea...

keep working on the number thing...hopefully something will turn up..