Return to Unfiction unforum
 a.r.g.b.b 
FAQ FAQ   Search Search 
 
Welcome!
New users, PLEASE read these forum guidelines. New posters, SEARCH before posting and read these rules before posting your killer new campaign. New players may also wish to peruse the ARG Player Tutorial.

All users must abide by the Terms of Service.
Website Restoration Project
This archiving project is a collaboration between Unfiction and Sean Stacey (SpaceBass), Brian Enigma (BrianEnigma), and Laura E. Hall (lehall) with
the Center for Immersive Arts.
Announcements
This is a static snapshot of the
Unfiction forums, as of
July 23, 2017.
This site is intended as an archive to chronicle the history of Alternate Reality Games.
  

The time now is Thu Nov 21, 2024 5:48 am
All times are UTC - 4 (DST in action)		 View posts in this forum since last visit
View unanswered posts in this forum
Calendar
 Forum index » Archive » Archive: General » Old News & Rumors
Possible Trailhead for a Splinter Cell ARG or Puzzle?
View previous topicView next topic
Page 1 of 2 [26 Posts]   Goto page: 1, 2 Next
Author Message
Ripp
Greenhorn

Joined: 28 Jul 2004
Posts: 8

 		Possible Trailhead for a Splinter Cell ARG or Puzzle?
Hello!

I stumbled across this today while looking for info on Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory and I wanted to bring it to your attention. At worst this is some sort of puzzle, at best it might be a mini-arg? After Ilovebees I'm suspicious of these sorts of ad campaigns, but I also can't make heads or tails of this, so I'm hoping you talented folks can help.

The site is http://www.littlechiquita.com/default.html. Until 12am today this URL displayed a picture of a banana with the date 3/1/2005 scrawled on it (unfortunately no one saved a screenshot, and I'm doing this from memory, so that's as detailed as I can get).

As far as I could tell the source of that page didn't contain any puzzles. But the source now contains the following block of text near the top:

Code:
<!-- Message as follows:
      MJCRC BCORO YEXIW VDFGU NNTHA KDQDP JGOHR VYDBN FZBLO NOQSV
      LPXQG MMPNU QOPUL XGLSJ ZUHPC RAJEY BKAOQ IGWXC CESIH ASQNB
      SAQVM BWTYU HKORV OJXPM BUKJX KRIXL WUVRJ HYXOO LPNUP LRNLZ
      BGCED YGEHC MDUCM VIQNR TZZSP BBXJV ZHXRH ALRMB BJUOE RAAGY
      YJIIP SOXYJ LSVND EGNJK NNACM OJKKL FMQNY RDRWO IVWUW EOQQG
      RPQEK QRAQF CIZKZ TZVGQ HEBCP ODIPP XZLPT UYWZZ FSLWW SQBYJ
      YPYXK TBHUQ XKXKJ XWXGW WLGZI UVVCQ WOBLS HYEIP
-->


That's why I think this is a puzzle. Those certainly look like blocks of code, and considering that the image on the main page comes from a server at Ubisoft, and references Splinter Cell (a game dealing with spycraft and espionage), I don't think that's too big an assumption.

So I present this to you for review. If I've wasted your time and this is just some cheap marketing ploy then I apologize, and I won't do it again. But this just seems ripe for dissection, and so I'm hoping there's some meat to be found here that I can't see.

It's 7pm CST now. I'll be home at about 9pm CST, so if you'd like to contact me then please feel free to use the email address or IM info in my profile.

Thanks!


EDIT: The one thing I have figured out is that the website displayed on the monitor is a real site, it's http://www.surfingtheapocalypse.com. I haven't figured out how it ties in yet, though.

We go the name of the little chiquita site from an in-game email in the Xbox version of the Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory demo. I'm not sure if that will help, but I thought I'd post it anyway to clarify how this began.

PostPosted: Tue Mar 01, 2005 9:10 pm
 View user's profile Visit poster's website AIM Address
 ICQ Number 
 Back to top 
C_Brennan
Decorated


Joined: 02 Sep 2004
Posts: 236
Location: Pittsburgh, PA
Code:
var _prefixe="Games/Splinter+Cell/Splinter+Cell+3/Little+Chiquita


That's in the source for the page. Kinda proves that it's Ubi-Soft and Splinter Cell 3 related, heh.
_________________
"Here's a kitty, there's a kitty, my kitty too! Kitty, kitty, kitty, kitty... um... I ran out of rhyme..."
-Synagoga, after getting her first cat from "Auntie" Seraphina

In-Play: The Dark Knight

PostPosted: Tue Mar 01, 2005 9:19 pm
 View user's profile Visit poster's website
 Back to top 
miss_seph
Unfettered


Joined: 05 Aug 2004
Posts: 395
Location: New Zealand

 		the picture suggests that the cipher has either
a) No key necessary to break
or
b) the key word is aceofspd (aceofspades with repeating letters removed) or something similar??

Surfingtheapocalypse.com is, erm, an interesting site, to say the least.

Anyway, that's a long cipher to break by hand - anyone else want to give it a go with some applety thing or something? (new pc, no apps Sad )
_________________
Caro xoxo
http://caronz.blogspot.com
XBL: SephNZ

PostPosted: Tue Mar 01, 2005 9:29 pm
 View user's profile Visit poster's website AIM Address Yahoo Messenger MSN Messenger
 Back to top 
GuyP
Unfettered


Joined: 15 Sep 2004
Posts: 584
Location: London, UK

 		Doesn't ROT. Doesn't vigenere with splinter, cell, splintercell, ubisoft, thereisnokey, ace, spades, aceofspades, globe, apocalypse, potatohead, loomroom. Just to save us repeating ourselves...

I can't help but think the objects in the image are some kind of rubric/riddle in themselves. "There is no key to the end of the world... potatohead." Close, much?

PostPosted: Tue Mar 01, 2005 9:34 pm
 View user's profile Visit poster's website AIM Address MSN Messenger
 Back to top 
Recoil42
Guest


 		Just thought I should let you guys know that we've been working on this one a bit at Penny-Arcade:

http://penny-arcade.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=87620&start=325

PostPosted: Tue Mar 01, 2005 10:09 pm
 Back to top 
The Watcher
Unfettered


Joined: 29 Jul 2004
Posts: 493

 		What could possibly be a clue in the picture:

+"There is no key/Ace of Spades"
+Website on monitor
+Numbers below table
+Pattern of thumbtacks on board.

PostPosted: Tue Mar 01, 2005 11:27 pm
 View user's profile
 Back to top 
Recoil
Guest
The Watcher wrote:
What could possibly be a clue in the picture:

+"There is no key/Ace of Spades"
+Website on monitor
+Numbers below table
+Pattern of thumbtacks on board.


As was stated, we already know that the website is:

http://www.surfingtheapocalypse.com/

PostPosted: Tue Mar 01, 2005 11:48 pm
 Back to top 
Recoil
Guest


 		Ok, I just did DNS lookups on both sites, and I think SurfingtheApocalypse is a red herring...

littlechiquita is registered by one Andrej Todosic, a Ubisoft employee, and is hosting on Ubisoft servers.


SurfingtheApocalypse, on the other hand....


here




Quote:
Registrant: Make this info private
Durbin, Theresa
(30759522I)
P.O.Box 6345
Tulsa, OK 74148
US
Phone: (918) 582-3012
Fax: 999 999 9999

Domain Name: SURFINGTHEAPOCALYPSE.COM

Administrative Contact , Technical Contact :
Durbin, Theresa
(30759522I)
v2o777@sbcglobal.net
P.O.Box 6345
Tulsa, OK 74148
US
Phone: (918) 582-3012


EDIT - URL - SG

PostPosted: Tue Mar 01, 2005 11:53 pm
 Back to top 
Zaknafein
Guest


 		Other clues
Well there are other strange things that could be clues in the Littlechiquita picture.

- The earth looks really contrasted, as if it was added by post-process. Maybe the white-colored country is a clue? Or just the earth's orientation... (I don't have a world map handy...)
- A pot with a flower outside it is kind of wierd on a computer desk, no?
- The potato-head looks like it's taking a photo, or it holds some red device at the screen. Though I doubt this means anything.

And the thumbtack placement is definitely meaning something. It doesn't look random at all...
And the TeamXBox forums have done a bit of thinking too, if you wanna check : http://forum.teamxbox.com/showthread.php?t=326752

PostPosted: Wed Mar 02, 2005 12:53 am
 Back to top 
Zaknafein
Guest


 		A post on the STA forums
I found a post on the Surfing The Apocalypse forums about that...

http://www.surfingtheapocalypse.net/cgi-bin/forum.cgi?read=59403

They sound really confused about it all, and some have actually pointed out that it looks like an ARG so they're definitely out of it.
They do mention the javascript source in Littlechiquita which is obfuscated and really hard to read, I don't really know what it does but it'd be good to take a look.

PostPosted: Wed Mar 02, 2005 1:05 am
 Back to top 
treebiter99
Veteran

Joined: 25 Sep 2004
Posts: 128
Location: Pittsburgh, PA

 		WARNING: They've made some very good, but suspicious progress over at the Penny Arcade forum. Someone posted one or more very random links from the littlechiquita.com site without explaination as to how they found them. They may have just brute forced them for all we know, so read that forum at your own risk.

PostPosted: Wed Mar 02, 2005 10:35 am
 View user's profile AIM Address
 Back to top 
Recoil
Guest


 		He stated it right in his post -- The homepage is set as default.htm rather than the standard index.htm, so when you view it through opera, it shows yoy the root of the site, rather than the page.

That can't be a mistake.

PostPosted: Wed Mar 02, 2005 1:34 pm
 Back to top 
treebiter99
Veteran

Joined: 25 Sep 2004
Posts: 128
Location: Pittsburgh, PA

 		That post was made after my warning post. Also, I just tried Opera and it took me directly to the default.html page. I still think it could have been a mistake.

Edit: The image on the page has been updated.

PostPosted: Wed Mar 02, 2005 2:57 pm
 View user's profile AIM Address
 Back to top 
catherwood
I Have 100 Cats and Smell of Wee

Joined: 25 Sep 2002
Posts: 4109
Location: Silicon Valley, CA

 		Re: Other clues
Zaknafein wrote:
- The potato-head looks like it's taking a photo, or it holds some red device at the screen. Though I doubt this means anything.

Mr. PotatoHead has one arm growing out of the top of his head, and he is holding Mrs.PotatoHead's red purse from that arm. The yellow things on the side are a pair of earrings attached to one ear.

PostPosted: Wed Mar 02, 2005 4:02 pm
 View user's profile AIM Address Yahoo Messenger
 Back to top 
Majestic Vet
Guest


 		looks like solitaire to me.

PostPosted: Wed Mar 02, 2005 4:04 pm
 Back to top 
Display posts from previous:   Sort by:   
Page 1 of 2 [26 Posts]   Goto page: 1, 2 Next
View previous topicView next topic
 Forum index » Archive » Archive: General » Old News & Rumors
Jump to:  


You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
You cannot attach files in this forum
You can download files in this forum
You cannot post calendar events in this forum



Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group