FARK.com: (7928839) If you can crack this code you could be the next James Bond: AWVLI QIQVT QOSQO ELGCV IIQWD LCUQE EOENN WWOAO LTDNU QTGAW TSMDO QTLAO QSDCH PQQIQ DQQTQ OOTUD BNIQH BHHTD UTEET FDUEA UMORE SQEQE MLTME TIREC LICAI QATUN QRALT ENEIN RKG

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		If you can crack this code you could be the next James Bond: AWVLI QIQVT QOSQO ELGCV IIQWD LCUQE EOENN WWOAO LTDNU QTGAW TSMDO QTLAO QSDCH PQQIQ DQQTQ OOTUD BNIQH BHHTD UTEET FDUEA UMORE SQEQE MLTME TIREC LICAI QATUN QRALT ENEIN RKG ( mirror.co.uk)		186
		More: Interesting, GCHQ, Umor, Qosqo, Bletchley Park, Alan Turing

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186 Comments (+0 »)

View Voting Results: Smartest and Funniest

This is a late parrot

2013-09-11 02:15:49 PM

Be sure to drink your ovaltine.

flucto

2013-09-11 02:16:33 PM

"Geniuses who can solve this cryptic code could be on their way to a £60,000-a-year job as a SPY."

No expensive clothes or Aston Martin for you then.

MaudlinMutantMollusk

2013-09-11 02:18:18 PM

Be sure to... goddammit

FloydA

2013-09-11 02:21:52 PM

Go home, language, you're drunk.

21-7-b

2013-09-11 02:26:07 PM

MY CAPS LOCK KEY IS BROKEN. CONTACT THE IT DEPARTMENT

UberDave

2013-09-11 02:32:21 PM

That's a recipe for Cumberland Sausage.

ecmoRandomNumbers

2013-09-11 02:39:32 PM

That's not a code. It's Welsh.

Banned on the Run

2013-09-11 02:48:48 PM

ecmoRandomNumbers: That's not a code. It's Welsh.

ha!

Relatively Obscure

2013-09-11 02:55:45 PM

It's a URL.

archnem

2013-09-11 02:58:59 PM

BE SURE TO DRINK YOUR OVALT....oh son of a biatch...

Blues_X

2013-09-11 03:00:20 PM

We need Bobby Shaftoe to kick someone's ass and bring us their one-time pad.

Paris1127

2013-09-11 03:01:07 PM

Is that the code that causes Her Majesty's to self-destruct?

Paris1127

2013-09-11 03:01:43 PM

Paris1127: Is that the code that causes Her Majesty's to self-destruct?

Or even Her Majesty...

SmackLT

2013-09-11 03:02:33 PM

It's a very simple monoalphabetic replacement cipher. All you have to do is swap in a different letter for each of the individual letters, and it gives you the answer, as decoded below:

ZYXWV UVUXR UTRUT EWGCX VVUYD WCUUE ETELL YYTZT WRDLU URGZY RRJDT URWZT URDCH PUUVU DUURU TTRUD GLVUH GHHRD UREER FDUEZ UJTRE RUEUE JWRJE RVREC WVCZV UZRUL URZWR ELEVL RKG

Easy.

cgraves67

2013-09-11 03:03:08 PM

Blues_X: We need Bobby Shaftoe to kick someone's ass and bring us their one-time pad.

Excellent reference.

If I were looking for a job in espionage, I wouldn't want to be an encryption expert. That sounds so boring. Especially for 60k a year.

Kittypie070

2013-09-11 03:03:25 PM

paging dittybopper to thread #7928839, will dittybopper please come to the white courtesy phone...

/bop those ditties

ampoliros

2013-09-11 03:04:16 PM

Relatively Obscure: It's a URL.

I have no need to be Rick Roll'd by a foreign government.

s2s2s2

2013-09-11 03:04:25 PM

A: Never gonna give you up. Never gonna let you down.....

s2s2s2

2013-09-11 03:05:00 PM

ampoliros: Relatively Obscure: It's a URL.

I have no need to be Rick Roll'd by a foreign government.

DAMN YOU!

some_beer_drinker

2013-09-11 03:05:16 PM

This is a late parrot: Be sure to drink your ovaltine.

this...it's always this. forever.

Loucifer

2013-09-11 03:05:45 PM

See You Next Year.

/obscure even for Fark

Shryke

2013-09-11 03:06:32 PM

cgraves67: Blues_X: We need Bobby Shaftoe to kick someone's ass and bring us their one-time pad.

Excellent reference.

If I were looking for a job in espionage, I wouldn't want to be an encryption expert. That sounds so boring. Especially for 60k a year.

60k POUNDS a year, you silly goose. Which, after taxes in jolly old England, converts to about 18 US dollars.

Tricky Chicken

2013-09-11 03:07:57 PM

IT'S A COOK BOOK!!!

Johnny_Canuck

2013-09-11 03:08:03 PM

21-7-b: MY CAPS LOCK KEY IS BROKEN. CONTACT THE IT DEPARTMENT

Have you tried turning it off and on?

- signed IT

aquigley

2013-09-11 03:08:10 PM

ecmoRandomNumbers: That's not a code. It's Welsh.

thread over

Saiga410

2013-09-11 03:11:01 PM

Wow that is kinky, well I guess I am up for anything once.

DirtyDeadGhostofEbenezerCooke

2013-09-11 03:14:24 PM

Double-nought spy...

...to infiltrate the Bolshoi in Kremlin.

MadMattressMack

2013-09-11 03:15:04 PM

FTFA: "Winners could be following in the prestigious footsteps of computer pioneer Alan Turing"

I don't like where those ended.

Creoena

2013-09-11 03:15:16 PM

It's clearly a Windows activation code. Now where are my Bond girls?

Big Beef Burrito

2013-09-11 03:15:36 PM

When we find that crazy typewriter, we'll find the kidnappers.

ToastTheRabbit

2013-09-11 03:18:38 PM

that is almost my password.

SansNeural

2013-09-11 03:19:07 PM

FTA: "Winners could be following in the prestigious footsteps of computer pioneer Alan Turing"

and wind up being prosecuted for being gay then killing myself? No thanks.

Parallax

2013-09-11 03:19:30 PM

When you list all the 5-letter groups vertically with the 3-letter group left over, it seems to look like it might read vertically from top-down. A lot of double-letter combinations happen with no triple-letter combos, indicating real words.

I gave up shortly after that, of course... ain't nobody got time for that.

ampoliros

2013-09-11 03:19:35 PM

MadMattressMack: FTFA: "Winners could be following in the prestigious footsteps of computer pioneer Alan Turing"

[sfcitizen.com image 450x268]

I don't like where those ended.

Seriously, you'd have a hard time finding a more tragic figure to cite.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Btqro3544p8

SansNeural

2013-09-11 03:20:17 PM

MadMattressMack: FTFA: "Winners could be following in the prestigious footsteps of computer pioneer Alan Turing"

[sfcitizen.com image 450x268]

I don't like where those ended.

Oh, you biatch. Four bloody minutes.

ToastTheRabbit

2013-09-11 03:20:49 PM

It appears as though each grouping is significant to a letter possibly a simple grid location.
/Holds up my degree
// Ignore the fact that its from "Pulling Shiat Out Of MY Ass University"

GoldDude

2013-09-11 03:24:14 PM

"We're looking for geniuses with lack of financial knowledge who don't realize they could make a lot more money by working for organizations against the UK government".

Kome

2013-09-11 03:26:16 PM

ecmoRandomNumbers: That's not a code. It's Welsh.

Not enough L's

Blues_X

2013-09-11 03:28:52 PM

Kome: ecmoRandomNumbers: That's not a code. It's Welsh.

Not enough L's

And there would be no reason to encrypt Welsh.

Tricky Chicken

2013-09-11 03:36:35 PM

GoldDude: "We're looking for geniuses with lack of financial knowledge who don't realize they could make a lot more money by working for organizations against the UK government".

Spectre turned me down because of my credit score.

CarbonCarby

2013-09-11 03:37:59 PM

Run it through MAYIKCKCOIWQQIK, maybe?

DontMakeMeComeBackThere

2013-09-11 03:38:26 PM

I'll go as far as guessing that the three-letter group at the end is part of the key to decrypting it since it'sthe only group that isn't 5 letters.

Beyond that...I hate math.

Gordon Bennett

2013-09-11 03:42:08 PM

This is a late parrot: Be sure to drink your ovaltine.

Ovaltine? A crummy commercial? Son of a biatch!

Gosling

2013-09-11 03:42:10 PM

It translates to 'WHOTH EHELL SWITC HEDMY KEYBO ARDTO DVORA KFORM ATTIN GWASI TYOUB OBISW EARTO GODBO BIMGO INGTO KILLY OUASS OONAS IGETM YHAND SONYO URSOR RYASS ANDWH YISMY SPACE BARBR OKE'.

markie_farkie

2013-09-11 03:44:28 PM

I don't think it's encrypted or otherwise coded with anything special other than some eye-fooling tricks.

If you take out the spacing and dump the Q letters (Decoys) then words start appearing all in dyslexic and misspelled forms..

I wish i had more time to work on this.. I spent about 20 minutes inbetween real tasks and this is what I came up with so far:

A

WIL

TO

SOELV

DCUEEOENNW

WOAOLTD

NUTGAWTSMDOTLAOSDCHPID

TO

OBTAIN

HBHHTDUTEETFDUEAUMORESEEMLT

MATRICULATE

I

NICE

RANK

IN

LETERING

Anyone got more time to go back and look at it similarly??

NewWorldDan

2013-09-11 03:45:13 PM

BHHTD UTEET FDUEA UMORE SQEQE

I don't know what it means, but it is a valid Windows activation code.

Dwight_Yeast

2013-09-11 03:47:50 PM

Blues_X: Kome: ecmoRandomNumbers: That's not a code. It's Welsh.

Not enough L's

And there would be no reason to encrypt Welsh.

Welsh isn't actually a language; it's just gibberish invented to piss off the English

Frankentots

2013-09-11 03:50:57 PM

I just asked Billy down the street and he tells me it reads: DEFUND OBAMACARE

Gosling

2013-09-11 03:51:08 PM

I see some deliberate misspellings in there if that's the way they're going with that code. SOELV is clearly an anagram for 'solve'.

starlost

2013-09-11 03:52:04 PM

my name is erica snowden and i would like to apply
what travel points do you offer?

vudukungfu

2013-09-11 04:00:23 PM

Done in one.

Twitch Boy

2013-09-11 04:01:23 PM

JUSTIN BAILEY
______ ______

mr_a

2013-09-11 04:04:33 PM

Even Google can't translate it. It must be unbreakable.

netweavr

2013-09-11 04:07:06 PM

Bruce Willis was alright in this movie, but it's not his traditional character.

NuclearPenguins

2013-09-11 04:09:00 PM

TOO MANY SECRETS

etherknot

2013-09-11 04:09:20 PM

ecmoRandomNumbers: That's not a code. It's Welsh.

Even with the highly frequent occurrence of the letter L in Welsh substitute chipers nobody understands a lick what they are talking about.

kieran57

2013-09-11 04:10:26 PM

ALL THESE WORLDS ARE YOURS EXPECT EUROPA ATTEMPT NO LANDINGS THERE

skozlaw

2013-09-11 04:10:45 PM

Pricipal . Caught sayof school that has stoped Handstandsing " See, told ya so" Is He dead or not. CNN Says yes. St. Pete Times Looking for chads -OR- "hello, I am write single to salute and wait for answer again

China White Tea

2013-09-11 04:12:19 PM

Counts for the lazy:

A : 8
C : 5
B : 2
E : 14
D : 8
G : 3
F : 1
I : 10
H : 4
K : 1
J : 0
M : 4
L : 8
O : 10
N : 7
Q : 20
P : 1
S : 4
R : 4
U : 7
T : 14
W : 5
V : 3
Y : 0
X : 0
Z : 0

This actually does seem to support Markie_Farkie's theory. Except for Q, the frequencies are about what would be expected in English.

WinoRhino

2013-09-11 04:12:27 PM

markie_farkie: Anyone got more time to go back and look at it similarly??

Last 11 letters spell "eternal king" when re-arranged.

meat0918

2013-09-11 04:12:29 PM

markie_farkie: I don't think it's encrypted or otherwise coded with anything special other than some eye-fooling tricks.

If you take out the spacing and dump the Q letters (Decoys) then words start appearing all in dyslexic and misspelled forms..

I wish i had more time to work on this.. I spent about 20 minutes inbetween real tasks and this is what I came up with so far:

A

WIL

TO

SOELV

DCUEEOENNW

WOAOLTD

NUTGAWTSMDOTLAOSDCHPID

TO

OBTAIN

HBHHTDUTEETFDUEAUMORESEEMLT

MATRICULATE

I

NICE

RANK

IN

LETERING

Anyone got more time to go back and look at it similarly??

I think a the double letters are decoys and some of the Q's are legit. Let me spend some time.

Cthulhu_is_my_homeboy

2013-09-11 04:12:46 PM

ecmoRandomNumbers: That's not a code. It's Welsh.

You get a smart AND a funny.

micah1701

2013-09-11 04:13:27 PM

Boy, are you guys dumb! You guys are so dumb. I got this thing all figured out.

_{/hot, like global thermal nuclear war}

China White Tea

2013-09-11 04:14:18 PM

Oh, sorry about the order. Used a dict, my bad.

xenomorpheus

2013-09-11 04:14:42 PM

I like all kinds of Astronomy, including Setec

markie_farkie

2013-09-11 04:19:06 PM

meat0918: I think a the double letters are decoys and some of the Q's are legit. Let me spend some time.

My thoughts too.. I was scanning it quickly to see if there was any possible rule-based reason for the Q being there (Strike previous or next letter) or be legit, but ran out of time to dig..

China White Tea

2013-09-11 04:19:18 PM

Also, if you just own the site and steal the answers, do you get extra credit?

hp6sa

2013-09-11 04:19:59 PM

xenomorpheus: I like all kinds of Astronomy, including Setec

Still the greatest movie about codes, ever.

markie_farkie

2013-09-11 04:21:18 PM

Oh and I think the code is being put out there to be used along these lines:

Theaetetus

2013-09-11 04:22:42 PM

You may be on to something. If you pull out the Q's, the frequency distribution is exactly what you'd expect for English.

As an additional clue, minus those Qs, it's 123 characters, which is 41*3.

meat0918

2013-09-11 04:26:10 PM

Oh, don't forget this is British English, so their might be some "OUs" where Americans use "O"

ginandbacon

2013-09-11 04:39:47 PM

PQQIQ DQQTQ is the name of my Ramones cover band.

Fano

2013-09-11 04:42:23 PM

Ilikekillingpeopleitismorefunthankillingwildgameintheforrestbecauseman isthemostdangerousanimalanpeterdinklageisgoingtoreplacenicknackasscara mangasassistant

UseUrHeadFred

2013-09-11 04:46:12 PM

Modified Cornstarch

2013-09-11 04:54:49 PM

If you remove the single Q's the last part seems to look like a jumble of Alan Turing. I don't know why but I see that.

sephjnr

2013-09-11 04:57:41 PM

AWVLI QIQVT QOSQO ELGCV IIQWD LCUQE EOENN WWOAO LTDNU QTGAW TSMDO QTLAO QSDCH PQQIQ DQQTQ OOTUD BNIQH BHHTD UTEET FDUEA UMORE SQEQE MLTME TIREC LICAI QATUN QRALT ENEIN RKG

I think there's a God Mode cheat, keys & full ammo, full map, not sure if there's a clipping code someone help me.

Smoking GNU

2013-09-11 05:02:01 PM

....eat...

...at...

...joes...

Loucifer

2013-09-11 05:04:41 PM

Bs are under represented. Qs over represented. The easiest way to solve it would be to tattoo those letters on your face and hold the cypher up to a mirror. Pressing your nose to the mirror, sing the message backwards and then smoke a bit of crack. Viola.

suburbanguy

2013-09-11 05:06:57 PM

markie_farkie: Oh and I think the code is being put out there to be used along these lines:

[www.blastr.com image 550x319]

I thought it was in a puzzle book...

dittybopper

2013-09-11 05:22:51 PM

I'm looking at it.

SansNeural

2013-09-11 05:24:37 PM

Loucifer: Bs are under represented. Qs over represented. The easiest way to solve it would be to tattoo those letters on your face and hold the cypher up to a mirror. Pressing your nose to the mirror, sing the message backwards and then smoke a bit of crack. ~~Viola~~. Cello.

FTFY

Shazam999

2013-09-11 05:56:29 PM

IF YOU DON'T EAT YOUR MEAT, YOU CAN'T HAVE ANY PUDDING.

ohdoublereally

2013-09-11 06:00:03 PM

Relatively Obscure: It's a URL.

Maybe link shorteners that go to web pages with the clues.

Somaticasual

2013-09-11 06:00:48 PM

So, a polybius square broken down into 5 letter columns to confuse initial efforts?

eriphila

2013-09-11 06:02:54 PM

IF YOU CAN READ THIS YOU CAN BECOME A SECRETARY AND GET A GOOD JOB

Cheops

2013-09-11 06:03:29 PM

I typed in the code and suddenly I have a chainsaw, every weapon known to man, plenty of ammo, the ability to walk through walls, and am impervious to all harm.

doglover

2013-09-11 06:07:53 PM

Almost all the letters are decoys. It spells, over intervals:

A S S A N D D I C K

WordyGrrl

2013-09-11 06:16:47 PM

rosebud?

dittybopper

2013-09-11 06:35:53 PM

Theaetetus: markie_farkie: I don't think it's encrypted or otherwise coded with anything special other than some eye-fooling tricks.

If you take out the spacing and dump the Q letters (Decoys) then words start appearing all in dyslexic and misspelled forms..

You may be on to something. If you pull out the Q's, the frequency distribution is exactly what you'd expect for English.

As an additional clue, minus those Qs, it's 123 characters, which is 41*3.

If you include the Q's, it's 143 characters, which is 11*13. That's two primes, and to me that suggests some sort of transposition with the Qs as nulls or word separators.

/Had to stop for dinner.

Benevolent Misanthrope

2013-09-11 06:40:10 PM

MadMattressMack: FTFA: "Winners could be following in the prestigious footsteps of computer pioneer Alan Turing"

[sfcitizen.com image 450x268]

I don't like where those ended.

Came in to say this. "Winners could be following in the prestigious footsteps of computer pioneer Alan Turing", including being thrown in prison and prosecuted for being gay, forced into hormone treatments to straighten them out, and ending up very, very dead.

Umm... No, thanks.

wee

2013-09-11 06:47:35 PM

SansNeural: FTA: "Winners could be following in the prestigious footsteps of computer pioneer Alan Turing"

and wind up being prosecuted for being gay then killing myself? No thanks.

Don't forget the chemical castration!

lostcat

2013-09-11 06:47:39 PM

A salary of 60,000 Sterling is under $100,000.

"Spies" get paid crap in the U.K. apparently.

Jekylman

2013-09-11 07:06:56 PM

dittybopper: Theaetetus: markie_farkie: I don't think it's encrypted or otherwise coded with anything special other than some eye-fooling tricks.

If you take out the spacing and dump the Q letters (Decoys) then words start appearing all in dyslexic and misspelled forms..

You may be on to something. If you pull out the Q's, the frequency distribution is exactly what you'd expect for English.

As an additional clue, minus those Qs, it's 123 characters, which is 41*3.

If you include the Q's, it's 143 characters, which is 11*13. That's two primes, and to me that suggests some sort of transposition with the Qs as nulls or word separators.

/Had to stop for dinner.

Remove Q's, and then anagramize among the word islands

AWVLII TO SOLVE GCVII CLUE ONE, ONE WOULD WANT

...and that's as far as I got

dittybopper

2013-09-11 07:15:36 PM

AWVLIQIQVTQOS
QOELGCVIIQWDL
CUQEEOENNWWOA
OLTDNUQTGAWTS
MDOQTLAOQSDCH
PQQIQDQQTQOOT
UDBNIQHBHHTDU
TEETFDUEAUMOR
ESQEQEMLTMETI
RECLICAIQATUN
QRALTENEINRKG

Read the columns downward, starting at the first one and going to the right. The Q's are spaces between the words.

/What do I win?
//I've already done SIGINT, what else you got?

dittybopper

2013-09-11 07:17:25 PM

Hopefully, I've redeemed my intellectual credentials on Fark, after my little NPR thread this morning.

netweavr

2013-09-11 07:34:23 PM

A computer would deserve to be called intelligent if it could deceive a human into believing that it was human www.metro.co.uk/turing?

dittybopper

2013-09-11 07:35:31 PM

Jekylman: Remove Q's, and then anagramize among the word islands

AWVLII TO SOLVE GCVII CLUE ONE, ONE WOULD WANT

...and that's as far as I got

You were headed in the wrong direction. It's a simple 13 column, 11 row transposition cipher with the Q's acting as nulls:

AWVLIQIQVTQOS
QOELGCVIIQWDL
CUQEEOENNWWOA
OLTDNUQTGAWTS
MDOQTLAOQSDCH
PQQIQDQQTQOOT
UDBNIQHBHHTDU
TEETFDUEAUMOR
ESQEQEMLTMETI
RECLICAIQATUN
QRALTENEINRKG

Becomes this:

AWVLI I VT OS
 OELGCVII WDL
CU EEOENNWWOA
OLTDNU TGAWTS
MDO TLAO SDCH
P  I D  T OOT
UDBNI HBHHTDU
TEETFDUEAUMOR
ES E EMLTMETI
RECLICAI ATUN
 RALTENEINRKG

Reading the columns down, from left to right, you get:

A COMPUTER WOULD DESERVE TO BE CALLED INTELLIGENT IF IT COULD DECEIVE A HUMAN INTO BELIEVING THAT IT WAS HUMAN WWW DOT METRO DOT CO DOT UK SLASH TURING

dittybopper

2013-09-11 07:40:38 PM

netweavr: A computer would deserve to be called intelligent if it could deceive a human into believing that it was human www.metro.co.uk/turing?

That's it.

It actually stymied me a bit because I'm not used to working with transposition ciphers, but two things clued me in, both from Theaetetus:

You may be on to something. If you pull out the Q's, the frequency distribution is exactly what you'd expect for English.

As an additional clue, minus those Qs, it's 123 characters, which is 41*3.

Pulling the Q's gives the right frequency distribution for English, but Theaetetus made the mistake of pulling them when checking the factors. When I saw the factor thing, combined with the distribution, it made me think "TRANSPOSITION!".

Head_Shot

2013-09-11 07:41:55 PM

Sometimes my fellow farkers impress the hell out of me.

This is one of those times.

meat0918

2013-09-11 07:43:19 PM

netweavr: A computer would deserve to be called intelligent if it could deceive a human into believing that it was human www.metro.co.uk/turing?

It takes you to challenge two.

king of vegas

2013-09-11 07:43:42 PM

Nicely done

mr_a

2013-09-11 07:50:28 PM

Any guesses of the long-term effects of Britain's entire code and cipher infrastructure being taken over by Farkers?

netweavr

2013-09-11 07:56:04 PM

meat0918: netweavr: A computer would deserve to be called intelligent if it could deceive a human into believing that it was human www.metro.co.uk/turing?

It takes you to challenge two.

Which appears to be an intelligence challenge.

Q: "Will you download this random file to your computer?"
A: "No."

Relatively Obscure

2013-09-11 07:56:21 PM

mr_a: Any guesses of the long-term effects of Britain's entire code and cipher infrastructure being taken over by Farkers?

This was designed to be fairly easy.

dittybopper

2013-09-11 08:28:09 PM

Head_Shot: Sometimes my fellow farkers impress the hell out of me.

This is one of those times.

This one was fairly easy. Don't be too impressed.

The columns weren't shuffled via a key, which would have made it more difficult, and the total length was the factor of two primes. A real message wouldn't be exactly that length, so you'd have to jigger the column lengths until it came out right.

dittybopper

2013-09-11 08:29:46 PM

king of vegas: Nicely done

Thanks.

AlwaysRightBoy

2013-09-11 08:33:30 PM

dittybopper: AWVLIQIQVTQOS
QOELGCVIIQWDL
CUQEEOENNWWOA
OLTDNUQTGAWTS
MDOQTLAOQSDCH
PQQIQDQQTQOOT
UDBNIQHBHHTDU
TEETFDUEAUMOR
ESQEQEMLTMETI
RECLICAIQATUN
QRALTENEINRKG

Read the columns downward, starting at the first one and going to the right. The Q's are spaces between the words.

/What do I win?
//I've already done SIGINT, what else you got?

Bravo, Sir!

Bacontastesgood

2013-09-11 08:33:48 PM

micah1701: Boy, are you guys dumb! You guys are so dumb. I got this thing all figured out.

Mister potatohead! MISTER POTATOHEAD!!!

p4p3rm4t3

2013-09-11 08:35:31 PM

Wow dittybopper! That was awesome!

The Voice of Doom

2013-09-11 08:36:32 PM

The content of the file at metro.co.uk/turing:

-----BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY-----
MIIC2gIBAAKBgDfABK8+joDLdbFTDJ+y3PTTzkqCi1L2qEjgxdg1iyZshJTeKUck
SYVyKBeOBtB3FwwqXVa6iNEHJeLFewFE6ulEOIcatVp11Zg0ibMfnqTivbd6t8/z
3KzqrFksg9xQiicMactmTqFkm8ro5ODc2NTQzMjEwLy4tLCslBOCOVHxAgMBAAEC
gYATW12FB2BtQbecmSxh6rWjYENZRZhgdvoZS8oF9xlYfwdNtRF5/RR1/BwFia++
BAuBktgTu/KzORsjcNPzrd0uTCbTG6hW8YPK2ROVOOeAMHek8Nl3+SW5wdePKuWw
MdjDDjqxXDns+ZC1d2Cpz5V+x+2znOYL0bsEKei0sWl7LQKBgDfABK8+joDLdbFT
DJ+y3PTTzkqCi1L2qEjgxdg1iyZshJTeKUckSYVyKBeOBtB3FwwqXVa6iNEHJeLF
ewFE6uhVSior5HGPArFhsOQ0v9ob1NCV7P8M99qN4XplmX/xs05HgQCVh9aMWtio
pKCcmJSQjIiEgHx4dHBsU9JB+TvkAkB3dy53aHRzaXNpbGd1b2VjdHNyZWhzcmku
ZW9jdS4va2xidGVoY2VsIHkgICAgICAgICAgICAgICAgICAgIAuPAkATpSSd/C5S
IEAbUPk+ZYAdt7OYVzay7ViAiaukhkt+/sJG+m8GmHnAKyLf9ohx3/aIcd/2iHHf
9ohx3/ayirJPAkAIefJYEpdAoRjJQCHPGUpOVjLiyQMyPcnsutG+ctAGGU8lZTDU
yUim9V7iwqTE4sKkxOLCpMTiwqTE4sKkxOFNAoGAFInzTsAOkauW3crd1XfxMhxi
tUkapdQqlwvFhZuouNIybfEOfW6WkjtghBDyqf50cEFWXMJ7Vk8mr6cwTosPvYKU
VXKUCblretLTeU95TlbkprizPky++5b7pQuSi3mpLMi+6VgvcjTthfXPYNg2JjJp
gmteC4felYL/2FTAmT8=
-----END RSA PRIVATE KEY-----

AlwaysRightBoy

2013-09-11 08:40:36 PM

dittybopper: Hopefully, I've redeemed my intellectual credentials on Fark, after my little NPR thread this morning.

You never lost them with me, you pointed out your mistake right away.

/you have no idea how many times I've screwed up a headline
//Subby, who would never know how to crack that code

Whale Biologist

2013-09-11 08:42:30 PM

They look like RNAV GPS waypoint names.

The Voice of Doom

2013-09-11 08:47:42 PM

Btw: the correct thing to type into the "Answer 1" text field on that website is "turing".

FloydA

2013-09-11 08:55:10 PM

mr_a: Any guesses of the long-term effects of Britain's entire code and cipher infrastructure being taken over by Farkers?

The Royal Armoured Corps is confused when they receive misspelled, poorly-punctuated orders to invade someplace called "Boobiestan."

Parkanzky

2013-09-11 09:00:36 PM

Blues_X: We need Bobby Shaftoe to kick someone's ass and bring us their one-time pad.

Extremely great reference! I could hardly put that book down, and it really stuck with me.

rpm

2013-09-11 09:09:22 PM

The Voice of Doom: The content of the file at metro.co.uk/turing:

-----BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY-----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-----END RSA PRIVATE KEY-----

That is a key (1022 bits???), and one of the "primes" contains some ASCII text.

ww.whtsisilguoectsrehsri.eocu./klbtehcel y

rpm

2013-09-11 09:17:26 PM

rpm: The Voice of Doom: The content of the file at metro.co.uk/turing:

-----BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY-----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-----END RSA PRIVATE KEY-----

That is a key (1022 bits???), and one of the "primes" contains some ASCII text.

ww.whtsisilguoectsrehsri.eocu./klbtehcel y

Which, after decoding for endianess, brings you to challenge 3. http://www.thisisgloucestershire.co.uk/bletchley.html

The Voice of Doom

2013-09-11 09:31:35 PM

rpm
Good find!
I was looking into whether they had a service running where you could use that key to authenticate yourself. :)

But what do you mean by "decoding for endianess"?
Just shuffling letters around as I was about to do when I looked at the letters and figured "www..something..gloucestershire" and "maybe something with 'tech' in the end"?
Well, turned out to be "bletchley", not "tech". Figures, what with "turing" being the first answer. :-P

Cpl.D

2013-09-11 09:56:40 PM

Probably the next one will reference the colossus.

lohphat

2013-09-11 10:24:35 PM

Johnny_Canuck: 21-7-b: MY CAPS LOCK KEY IS BROKEN. CONTACT THE IT DEPARTMENT

Have you tried turning it off and on?

- signed IT

Amish IT

jonny_q

2013-09-11 10:58:07 PM

Suck it, Trebek

2chris2

2013-09-11 10:59:37 PM

Challenge three is hexadecimal, but that's as far as I'm likely to get with it.

rpm

2013-09-11 11:10:38 PM

The Voice of Doom: But what do you mean by "decoding for endianess"?
Just shuffling letters

Swap each pair. It's just a variation of how numbers are coded in Intel. I'm betting that the message was encoded into shorts and the key generated on an Intel machine.

rpm

2013-09-11 11:13:49 PM

2chris2: Challenge three is hexadecimal, but that's as far as I'm likely to get with it.

My current WAG that I haven't had a chance to verify is something encrypted with the public key matching the private key in the last step.

2chris2

2013-09-11 11:14:08 PM

2chris2: Challenge three is hexadecimal, but that's as far as I'm likely to get with it.

Challenge 3 consists of 256 characters (not counting the slashes at the end of the lines), which is 16*16.

With hexadecimal, I want to see if it's just some ascii code, but the sections of text like "BABF" wouldn't work for that.

Theaetetus

2013-09-11 11:24:24 PM

dittybopper: netweavr: A computer would deserve to be called intelligent if it could deceive a human into believing that it was human www.metro.co.uk/turing?

That's it.

It actually stymied me a bit because I'm not used to working with transposition ciphers, but two things clued me in, both from Theaetetus:

You may be on to something. If you pull out the Q's, the frequency distribution is exactly what you'd expect for English.

As an additional clue, minus those Qs, it's 123 characters, which is 41*3.

Pulling the Q's gives the right frequency distribution for English, but Theaetetus made the mistake of pulling them when checking the factors. When I saw the factor thing, combined with the distribution, it made me think "TRANSPOSITION!".

Aw, thanks, and yes, I did. I was playing around with arrangements of 3x41, trying square arrangements, etc. Stupid Qs.What got me thinking in that direction was a SF novel by James P. Hogan that had a copy of the Jesus on a Hypercube painting by Dali on the cover. Aliens transmit a serial message that happens to have a length equal to the multiple of two primes. Arrange the stream in a square, print it on circuit boards, and... I won't spoil the rest. But once I saw it wasn't a prime number of characters, I started thinking square.Full credit to you, though. Also, this is just the first clue. What's at the URL?

Twilight Farkle

2013-09-11 11:35:49 PM

rpm: rpm: The Voice of Doom: The content of the file at metro.co.uk/turing:

-----BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY-----
MIIC2gIBAAKBgDfABK8+joDLdbFTDJ+y3PTTzkqCi1L2qEjgxdg1iyZshJTeKUck
...
gmteC4felYL/2FTAmT8=
-----END RSA PRIVATE KEY-----

That is a key (1022 bits???), and one of the "primes" contains some ASCII text.

ww.whtsisilguoectsrehsri.eocu./klbtehcel y

Which, after decoding for endianess, brings you to challenge 3. http://www.thisisgloucestershire.co.uk/bletchley.html

I'm late to this party, but thank you, because my eyes might have glazed over the that-sure-as-hell-doesnt-look-like-a-prime-number-to-me prime2. But having started at challenge 3, that bunch of hex digits represents a 128-byte file. 1024 bits. That can't be a coincidence.

Taking a second look at the key from challenge 2, we know the modulus (37:c0:04...), the public exponent (0x10001), the private exponent (13:5b:5d...), and we have 1024 mysterious bits. If we assume the 1024 bits is cyphertext, and we decrypt (via this nifty web interface for those playing along at home) we get the following hex/ASCII.

00000000 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 77 77 2E 77 68 74 72 65 ww.whtre
^B 67 65 73 69 65 74 2E 72 6F 63 75 2E 2F 6B 6E 65 gesiet.rocu./kne
00000020 67 69 61 6D 30 32 33 31 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 giam0231

Which, after correcting again for endianness, yields http://www.theregister.co.uk/enigma2013. Ooh, pretty!

Jekylman

2013-09-11 11:53:33 PM

dittybopper: Jekylman: Remove Q's, and then anagramize among the word islands

AWVLII TO SOLVE GCVII CLUE ONE, ONE WOULD WANT

...and that's as far as I got

You were headed in the wrong direction. It's a simple 13 column, 11 row transposition cipher with the Q's acting as nulls:

AWVLIQIQVTQOS
QOELGCVIIQWDL
CUQEEOENNWWOA
OLTDNUQTGAWTS
MDOQTLAOQSDCH
PQQIQDQQTQOOT
UDBNIQHBHHTDU
TEETFDUEAUMOR
ESQEQEMLTMETI
RECLICAIQATUN
QRALTENEINRKG

Becomes this:

AWVLI I VT OS
OELGCVII WDL
CU EEOENNWWOA
OLTDNU TGAWTS
MDO TLAO SDCH
P I D T OOT
UDBNI HBHHTDU
TEETFDUEAUMOR
ES E EMLTMETI
RECLICAI ATUN
RALTENEINRKG

Reading the columns down, from left to right, you get:

A COMPUTER WOULD DESERVE TO BE CALLED INTELLIGENT IF IT COULD DECEIVE A HUMAN INTO BELIEVING THAT IT WAS HUMAN WWW DOT METRO DOT CO DOT UK SLASH TURING

SOOOPAH GENIUSSSS

Twilight Farkle

2013-09-12 12:05:23 AM

OK, I know a .JPG is supposed to end in 0xff 0xd9, which it does, but that padding seems... weird. Suspecting stego of some sort, and the repeating 63 18 C6 31 (when translated to binary) is also odd. Two ones, three zeroes, two ones, three zeroes... File is 62468 bytes long. I wonder if...

$ outguess -k "NOPE" -r challenge4.jpg challenge4.txt
Reading challenge4.jpg....
Extracting usable bits: 48722 bits
Steg retrieve: seed: 56225, len: 40661
Extracted datalen is too long: 40661 > 6091

$ outguess -k "Spoileralert" -r comp3.jpg challenge4.out
Reading challenge4.jpg....
Extracting usable bits: 48722 bits
Steg retrieve: seed: 1627, len: 2250

It's 2250 bytes long, begins with 0xb3 0xF1... and ends with 0x69 0x98, whatever it is and now I'm stumped. 18000 bits. That's a not-very-computery number. I wonder if it's a bitmap. BRB.

holden1978

2013-09-12 12:11:05 AM

Didn't decode anything but the correct answer to number 4 is Colossus. It works on the entry page. I just know the name of the computer in the jpeg. Doesn't get us the url for challenge 5 but 4 should end in www.blahblahblha/Colossus if pattern holds

DuudeStanky

2013-09-12 12:24:08 AM

holden1978: Didn't decode anything but the correct answer to number 4 is Colossus. It works on the entry page. I just know the name of the computer in the jpeg. Doesn't get us the url for challenge 5 but 4 should end in www.blahblahblha/Colossus if pattern holds

nice work :) it's www.standard.co.uk/colossus

Which will give the last answer

Theaetetus

2013-09-12 12:25:36 AM

;)

/and actually, knowing that you're looking for ".co.uk/" or "dotcodotukslash" might help find the plaintext.

DuudeStanky

2013-09-12 12:34:43 AM

Here's a hint:
Jpeg images begin with the bytepairs FF D8 FF E(0|1)

A common image obscuring technique is to take two images and overlay them with one having its white/black pixels acting as a transparency. Overlay one over the other...

There are 2 images in one....

Theaetetus

2013-09-12 12:37:05 AM

DuudeStanky: holden1978: Didn't decode anything but the correct answer to number 4 is Colossus. It works on the entry page. I just know the name of the computer in the jpeg. Doesn't get us the url for challenge 5 but 4 should end in www.blahblahblha/Colossus if pattern holds

nice work :) it's www.standard.co.uk/colossus

Which will give the last answer

Hmm... Source there looks mighty interesting.

Plissken

2013-09-12 12:39:26 AM

I AM LORD VOLDEMORT

paleryder69

2013-09-12 12:53:27 AM

Ok I get the whitespace thing... but how do you copy it from the source to tell what is a space, tab or cr? and 5k lines on a JS page is a bit excessive.

DuudeStanky

2013-09-12 12:56:54 AM

paleryder69: Ok I get the whitespace thing... but how do you copy it from the source to tell what is a space, tab or cr? and 5k lines on a JS page is a bit excessive.

Save the image to your desktop. get a hex editor like HxD and open the image with that. Search for hex FF D8 FF E0. Search twice.
The second image starts at the second set of those bytes. Select to the end of the file, copy, paste into a new file and save as comp4jpg
Then take a look at it.

DuudeStanky

2013-09-12 12:58:58 AM

DuudeStanky: paleryder69: Ok I get the whitespace thing... but how do you copy it from the source to tell what is a space, tab or cr? and 5k lines on a JS page is a bit excessive.

Save the image to your desktop. get a hex editor like HxD and open the image with that. Search for hex FF D8 FF E0. Search twice.
The second image starts at the second set of those bytes. Select to the end of the file, copy, paste into a new file and save as comp4jpg
Then take a look at it.

Oh oops, thought you were looking at the image one. Ignore me :)

The Voice of Doom

2013-09-12 01:00:45 AM

Twilight Farkle
Taking a second look at the key from challenge 2, we know the modulus (37:c0:04...), the public exponent (0x10001), the private exponent (13:5b:5d...), and we have 1024 mysterious bits. If we assume the 1024 bits is cyphertext, and we decrypt (via this nifty web interface for those playing along at home) we get the following hex/ASCII.

Do you or someone else know how to decrypt that one on the command line?
Because I got an error(*) when I tried doing it earlier with:

openssl rsautl -in /tmp/input.bin -inkey /tmp/comp1.key -decrypt

where /tmp/input.bin is the cyphertext as a binary:


> xxd input.bin
0000000: 2910 404c 21cf 8bf4 cc93 b7d4 a518 babf  ).@L!...........
0000010: 34b4 2a8a b004 7627 998d 633e 653a f63a  4.*...v'..c>e:.:
0000020: 873c 8fab be8d 095e d125 d453 9706 9324  .<.....^.%.S...$
0000030: 25e7 8c26 1e2a b927 3d17 7578 f20e 38af  %..&.*.'=.ux..8.
0000040: ef12 4e06 8d23 0ba6 4aeb 8ff8 0256 ea01  ..N..#..J....V..
0000050: 5aa3 bff1 02fe 652a 4cbd 33b4 036f 519e  Z.....e*L.3..oQ.
0000060: 5899 316a 6250 840d 141b 8535 ab56 0bdc  X.1jbP.....5.V..
0000070: bde8 a67a 09b7 c97c b2fa 308d ffba d9f9  ...z...|..0.....

---
(*)
RSA operation error
139803526198952:error:0306E06C:bignum routines:BN_mod_inverse:no inverse:bn_gcd.c:492:

Theaetetus

2013-09-12 01:01:43 AM

paleryder69: Ok I get the whitespace thing... but how do you copy it from the source to tell what is a space, tab or cr? and 5k lines on a JS page is a bit excessive.

Copy, paste-as-plain-text in Word, then turn on invisibles? Worked for me.

Now, it's not specifically in whitespace, but I think it's relevant. There are a lot of repeated values of space-space or tab-tab-space-space or the like, so my guess is you'd then want to convert each line value into something else for decoding, rather than attempting to directly equate them to letters. And remember, we're probably looking for "*.co.uk/*" in the middle.

Theaetetus

2013-09-12 01:07:45 AM

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but it looks like every line in the code that begins with spaces begins with a multiple of 2 spaces.

paleryder69

2013-09-12 01:09:05 AM

DuudeStanky: Then take a look at it.

I was talking about the source code for the 5th one. it is obvious they embedded some kind of whitespace code in the javascript section of the html 5k lines worth... but the decryptions of such is a headscratcher at the moment as whitespace code requires you differentiate between spaces, line breaks, tabs etc. while it is all contained in the hex I am not so sure it can be copied out.

Theaetetus

2013-09-12 01:11:44 AM

It could actually be a red herring - some terrible code editor application could indent every child line by 2 spaces. That would be consistent with some of the HTML nesting.

Theaetetus

2013-09-12 01:16:45 AM

paleryder69: but the decryptions of such is a headscratcher at the moment as whitespace code requires you differentiate between spaces, line breaks, tabs etc. while it is all contained in the hex I am not so sure it can be copied out.

paste-as-plain-text in Word, then do a find-replace for ^t for [tab] or whatever you like. Similar with the spaces and carriage returns.

The Voice of Doom

2013-09-12 01:19:45 AM

paleryder69
I was talking about the source code for the 5th one. it is obvious they embedded some kind of whitespace code in the javascript section of the html 5k lines worth... but the decryptions of such is a headscratcher at the moment as whitespace code requires you differentiate between spaces, line breaks, tabs etc. while it is all contained in the hex I am not so sure it can be copied out.

Could also be the number of whitespaces per line that's encoding numbers.

Or some drawing/thumb cinema/ASCII art sort of thing - excerpt:

;-)

markie_farkie

2013-09-12 01:22:26 AM

I bow to your superior knowledge!!!

DuudeStanky

2013-09-12 01:25:58 AM

paleryder69: DuudeStanky: Then take a look at it.

I was talking about the source code for the 5th one. it is obvious they embedded some kind of whitespace code in the javascript section of the html 5k lines worth... but the decryptions of such is a headscratcher at the moment as whitespace code requires you differentiate between spaces, line breaks, tabs etc. while it is all contained in the hex I am not so sure it can be copied out.

Maybe I just got lucky or something, but the 5th and final answer was displayed right in front of me on the webpage, with a clickable link and everything..
Entering in what I saw on the main page validated successfully and I was entered into the draw.

It doesn't appear in a big blue box for you guys?

paleryder69

2013-09-12 01:30:38 AM

DuudeStanky: It doesn't appear in a big blue box for you guys?

I take it you filled in an answer in each of the 5 boxes? Also I am in the States... the rules state you gotta be a UK resident.. maybe they allow Canucks to participate but I bet the site discriminates against Yanks

Bubblegum Tate

2013-09-12 01:34:38 AM

can't enter, not a UK citizen. Was still fun

narocroc

2013-09-12 01:36:07 AM

Yes, the link yields a pop-up, but the validation does not work for me....

It also seems to me that following a link is not much of a challenge.

meh

Twilight Farkle

2013-09-12 01:37:59 AM

The Voice of Doom:
Do you or someone else know how to decrypt that one on the command line?

I punted on it when I saw the web form, but the Python source is out there.

FWIW, I also haven't figured out how to derive the answer from the 18000-bit file I got from de-stegifying the JPG image. The keyspace of UK media providers and notable crypto people/machines is arguably less work than deriving #5 from first principles! (And after all, I guessed the key that outguess wanted, and it was furthermore only another guess that outguess was the tool with which the jpg had originally been tampered with.)

DuudeStanky

2013-09-12 01:39:44 AM

paleryder69: I DuudeStanky: It doesn't appear in a big blue box for you guys?

I take it you filled in an answer in each of the 5 boxes? Also I am in the States... the rules state you gotta be a UK resident.. maybe they allow Canucks to participate but I bet the site discriminates against Yanks

It could. There is a redirect that happens on that site. They may have some sort of server side code that doesnt display the final 'clue' for US residents.
the URL I got redirected to was http://www.standard.co.uk/advertorials/gchq/ ... is this what you guys have?

paleryder69

2013-09-12 01:43:03 AM

The most interesting thing is that all those pages were hosted on UK periodical sites. GCHQ must have its hooks in deeper than the NSA does here in all the pies...

paleryder69

2013-09-12 01:47:58 AM

DuudeStanky: is this what you guys have?

no, mine just has the one that leads you back to the first one. canyoufindit,co.uk/secured

DuudeStanky

2013-09-12 01:51:32 AM

paleryder69: DuudeStanky: is this what you guys have?

no, mine just has the one that leads you back to the first one. canyoufindit,co.uk/secured

secured was the final answer for me

Twilight Farkle

2013-09-12 02:24:54 AM

BTW, I think I can safely scrap my earlier speculation that the stuff I found embedded into comp3.jpg (the Colossus image) is a bitmap.


$ outguess -k "Turing" -r comp3.jpg challenge4.bin
Reading comp3.jpg....
Extracting usable bits:   48722 bits
Steg retrieve: seed: 1627, len: 2250

$ wc -c challenge4.bin
2250 challenge4.bin

$ gzip challenge4.bin
$ wc -c challenge4.bin.gz
2288 challenge4.bin.gz

Whatever it is, it's pretty darn random. Going to have a beer or a sleep or both.

FWIW, this Fark thread is still ahead of that big discussion site with the goofy alien icon, and even ahead of the orange square with white Y logo in terms of a complete solution, and the green and white slash and dot have yet to green it. So, umm, you all rock. (woo-hoo!)

The Voice of Doom

2013-09-12 02:26:03 AM

DuudeStanky
secured was the final answer for me

The funny thing is that I'm not sure if you're supposed to just guess and enter the word or if there's actually some encoded clue included in the standard's page.

paleryder69
it is obvious they embedded some kind of whitespace code in the javascript section of the html 5k lines worth...

Then again, 100s of lines of whitespace are also typical for websites using JSPs because *everything* between JSP tags will end up in the HTML and that includes the whitespace like line-breaks and tabs added to separate the Java from the HTML blocks.
So if you write bad JSPs with lots of Java code and want to keep the source JSP readable, you'll end up with tons of empty lines and strange line breaks in the HTML if you aren't paying special attention to avoiding it (and who really cares how the source of a generated webpage is formatted).
A typical sign for a JSP-backed website (which the standard's site shows) is that there are several empty lines before the first HTML or even the DOCTYPE.
That's where IDEs like Eclipse will insert the import-directives for all the classes used by the embedded Java code.

The Voice of Doom

2013-09-12 02:41:01 AM

Twilight Farkle
BTW, I think I can safely scrap my earlier speculation that the stuff I found embedded into comp3.jpg (the Colossus image) is a bitmap.

$ outguess -k "Turing" -r comp3.jpg challenge4.bin
Reading comp3.jpg....
Extracting usable bits: 48722 bits
Steg retrieve: seed: 1627, len: 2250

$ wc -c challenge4.bin
2250 challenge4.bin

$ gzip challenge4.bin
$ wc -c challenge4.bin.gz
2288 challenge4.bin.gz

Whatever it is, it's pretty darn random. Going to have a beer or a sleep or both.

It's just another JPG.
If you do what DuudeStanky said:

Search for hex FF D8 FF E0. Search twice.
The second image starts at the second set of those bytes. Select to the end of the file, copy, paste into a new file and save as comp4jpg

..you get this image:

tim36145

2013-09-12 02:43:18 AM

Something something 2 kids at a church in Scotland

What do I win?

Twilight Farkle

2013-09-12 03:46:18 AM

The Voice of Doom:
If you do what DuudeStanky said:

Search for hex FF D8 FF E0. Search twice.
The second image starts at the second set of those bytes. Select to the end of the file, copy, paste into a new file and save as comp4jpg

..you get this image:
[i.imgur.com image 451x97]

Ah, I see it! Second JFIF header, and comp3.jpg is really a 52180-byte image of Colossus, followed by a 10288-byte image of the URL. Two .JPG images concatenated.

Disregard my speculation of 63 18 C6 31 as being indicative of stego, because it's in the 10288-byte image, not the 52180-byte image. Outguess can the same 2250 "random" bytes out of the 52180-byte colossus image using the "Turing" key, which makes sense because outguess probably stops looking when it hits the end-of-file marker.

It could be a red herring, but I still have trouble discounting completely the fact that outguess can find something in 52180-byte colossus using the key "Turing," but not using other keys. (It doesn't work for the 10288-byte URL jpg). The whitespace in the final page could also be the weird CMS artefact that you suggest, and I've seen stuff that happen production whenever authors on Macs and PCs are both cutting/pasting things a CMS.

I thought a bit about that, or whether the whitespace was Whitespace (the programming language) or an encoding of space/tab/CR/LF at two bits per character that has something to do with the 18000 bits found in colossus... I started with the 36K gchq.html, and grepped out every line that contains anything other than whitespace. I was left with 11K of ASCII, but compressing the remainder crushed it down to less than a kilobyte. That's far too nonrandom to be something worth XORing with my mysterious 2250 bytes. I don't have a big library of Whitespace code sitting around here to see how well actual Whitespace source code compresses.

Occam's Razor says we're done after the 5 answers have been entered into the form. Maybe the 2250 bytes really were a red herring. Seeing a JPG, thinking "stego", and observing that the obvious key "Turing" did something, where other guesses had failed, ensured that I completely ignored the remaining 10288 bytes of the file that contained the net link, and such misdirection may very well have been the point!

Mexican Jew Lizard

2013-09-12 03:57:00 AM

I'm...just going to go back to doing the New York Times crossword now. I like logic puzzles and codes and all, but this stuff goes over my head.

Killer job though everyone. I wonder how many of you would make short work of the MIT Mystery Hunt when it rolls around. Nothing like this, but some of those can get a bit esoteric.

Archie Goodwin

2013-09-12 06:25:13 AM

dittybopper: Read the columns downward, starting at the first one and going to the right. The Q's are spaces between the words.

/What do I win?
//I've already done SIGINT, what else you got?

Bravo Zulu, Sir.

dittybopper

2013-09-12 07:21:52 AM

Archie Goodwin: dittybopper: Read the columns downward, starting at the first one and going to the right. The Q's are spaces between the words.

/What do I win?
//I've already done SIGINT, what else you got?

Bravo Zulu, Sir.

Thanks, but I just got the first one, with a bit of mental jarring from Theaetetus.

Funny thing is, I didn't break it until I printed out the ciphertext and then got out a notebook and pencil and started manually working on it. I went through all sorts of shenanigans computer-wise first, thinking it was a monoalphabetic cipher with the Q probably standing in for E or T.

The others in this thread did better work than I.

Archie Goodwin

2013-09-12 07:27:11 AM

dittybopper: Funny thing is, I didn't break it until I printed out the ciphertext and then got out a notebook and pencil and started manually working on it.

It seems it's always the way. The human brain can make connections that a computer can't quite seem to grasp.

dittybopper

2013-09-12 07:27:37 AM

Kittypie070: paging dittybopper to thread #7928839, will dittybopper please come to the white courtesy phone...

/bop those ditties

Done and done.

Though, technically, the "dits" from when "dittybopper" derives are the "dots" of Morse code. The "dashes" are referred to as "dahs". If there is an element that comes after a "dit", you drop the "t" making it a "di", so the letter "S", which would conventionally be written "dot dot dot" should actually read "dididit" (short 'i' sound, btw). When you pronounce that way, it sounds much more like the actual character in Morse.

So, the canonical example of Morse, SOS, shouldn't be spoken like this:

dot dot dot dash dash dash dot dot dot

It should be spoken like this:

dididit dadadah dididit.

GoSlash27

2013-09-12 07:36:33 AM

The 5 letter grouping is a giveaway that it's a transposition cypher. The groups must be stacked and read downwards by columns. With 5 columns and no available key, there are 5! (120) possible orders to read them in. Perhaps looking at the original release for a 5 letter word will make it easy.
After that, it's probably a monoalphabetic substitution cypher. I'll have to print it out and play with it today, but I'm not hopeful.

dittybopper

2013-09-12 07:54:18 AM

Theaetetus: Aw, thanks, and yes, I did. I was playing around with arrangements of 3x41, trying square arrangements, etc. Stupid Qs.What got me thinking in that direction was a SF novel by James P. Hogan that had a copy of the Jesus on a Hypercube painting by Dali on the cover. Aliens transmit a serial message that happens to have a length equal to the multiple of two primes. Arrange the stream in a square, print it on circuit boards, and... I won't spoil the rest. But once I saw it wasn't a prime number of characters, I started thinking square.Full credit to you, though.

I actually got a bit frustrated jiggering things around in "notepad" and resorted to pencil and an an actual paper notebook.

Having slept on it, the proper way to have done it would be to write the text in columns instead of rows, and it would have made reading the plaintext easier:

AWVLI QIQVT QOSQO ELGCV IIQWD
LCUQE EOENN WWOAO LTDNU QTGAW
TSMDO QTLAO QSDCH PQQIQ DQQTQ
OOTUD BNIQH BHHTD UTEET FDUEA
UMORE SQEQE MLTME TIREC LICAI
QATUN QRALT ENEIN RKG

Would become this (Q's removed for clarity):

   12345678901
 1 A COMPUTER
 2 WOULD DESER
 3 VE TO BE CA
 4 LLED INTELL
 5 IGENT IF IT
 6  COULD DECE
 7 IVE A HUMAN
 8  INTO BELIE
 9 VING THAT I
10 T WAS HUMAN
11  WWWDOTMETR
12 ODOTCODOTUK
13 SLASHTURING

Just the first line would have told me I was on the right track. As it was, I had to build it up line by line, but by the time I could read "A COMP" in column 1 and "WOULD " in column 2, I knew I had the solution. Fun stuff, and I'm going to have to bone up on my transposition ciphers. I'm actually thinking that some form of double transposition combined with, say, a relatively short strip cipher, would be pretty secure. Not "NSA will never break it" secure, just "For limited amounts of traffic for a given key, there wouldn't be enough ciphertext available to break it cryptanalytically in any kind of actionable time" secure.

dittybopper

2013-09-12 08:00:53 AM

GoSlash27: The 5 letter grouping is a giveaway that it's a transposition cypher. The groups must be stacked and read downwards by columns. With 5 columns and no available key, there are 5! (120) possible orders to read them in. Perhaps looking at the original release for a 5 letter word will make it easy.
After that, it's probably a monoalphabetic substitution cypher. I'll have to print it out and play with it today, but I'm not hopeful.

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Ignore the 5 letter grouping. The grouping has nothing to do with the encryption method, period. Ciphertext is generally placed into groups like that to make it easier for the people responsible for sending and receiving them to work with them. Historically, it allowed radio operators to "pause" a brief second to read the next group before sending it, which you have to do when sending random letters and/or numbers instead of intelligible plaintext. That goes for typing a message into a teletype, sending it via Morse code, or reading it out on voice.

Suede head

2013-09-12 08:49:14 AM

Spy on your friends and family for fun and profit. Join the Ministry of Love. No thanks.

dittybopper

2013-09-12 09:06:50 AM

Suede head: Spy on your friends and family for fun and profit. Join the Ministry of Love. No thanks.

Mostly for the fun. You won't make that much profit.

And yes, it is interesting work, and some of it (ie., monitoring foreign communications) is absolutely vital.

The problem is when it comes to domestic monitoring, of course.

markie_farkie

2013-09-12 10:38:05 AM

dittybopper: And yes, it is interesting work, and some of it (ie., monitoring foreign communications) is absolutely vital.

During the height of the Cold War, my dad (Russian Linguist) worked in the attics of American embassies surrounding the Soviet Union, with other guys who were really good with radios, and computers..

I have no idea what they were doing. Nope, couldn't even take a wild guess. :/

Theaetetus

2013-09-12 10:40:20 AM

markie_farkie: dittybopper: And yes, it is interesting work, and some of it (ie., monitoring foreign communications) is absolutely vital.

During the height of the Cold War, my dad (Russian Linguist) worked in the attics of American embassies surrounding the Soviet Union, with other guys who were really good with radios, and computers..

I have no idea what they were doing. Nope, couldn't even take a wild guess. :/

Probably masturbating.

I mean, in addition to their sigint stuff.

dittybopper

2013-09-12 10:51:25 AM

Theaetetus: markie_farkie: dittybopper: And yes, it is interesting work, and some of it (ie., monitoring foreign communications) is absolutely vital.

During the height of the Cold War, my dad (Russian Linguist) worked in the attics of American embassies surrounding the Soviet Union, with other guys who were really good with radios, and computers..

I have no idea what they were doing. Nope, couldn't even take a wild guess. :/

Probably masturbating.

I mean, in addition to their sigint stuff.

Or painting smiley faces on the backs of their friend's boots with white-out.

Or taping lewd signs to each other's backs.

Or making elaborate paper spurs.

CAT-LIKE TYPING DETECTED

2013-09-12 11:05:14 AM

UseUrHeadFred: [www.bitboost.com image 640x480]

Don't go dragging me into international espionage, here.. This is none of my work..

GoSlash27

2013-09-12 06:29:38 PM

/Not a Brit
// No cookie for me
/// slashies

GoSlash27

2013-09-12 06:34:06 PM

@ Dittybopper,
Thanks for that!

gchq

2013-09-12 07:06:11 PM

GoSlash27: /Not a Brit
// No cookie for me
/// slashies

Well done chaps... you are all hired!!!

gotnull

2013-09-12 07:38:37 PM

I've got all of them except for Answer 3. Help!

GoSlash27

2013-09-12 07:59:16 PM

gotnull: I've got all of them except for Answer 3. Help!

It's exactly what you'd expect it to be, given the context. They just "added" a slight twist to it.
/all the spoilers I'm givin' :/

GoSlash27

2013-09-12 08:38:37 PM

All of the codes in order, for anyone interested...

dittybopper

2013-09-12 09:10:57 PM

gchq: GoSlash27: /Not a Brit
// No cookie for me
/// slashies

Well done chaps... you are all hired!!!

I've been there and done that already, and on an island with a much better climate (Oahu). What else you got?

dittybopper

2013-09-12 09:13:27 PM

GoSlash27: @ Dittybopper,
Thanks for that!

Hey, I've copied enough traffic in Morse that was formatted that way to know why it's done like that.

dittybopper

2013-09-12 09:23:08 PM

hp6sa: xenomorpheus: I like all kinds of Astronomy, including Setec

Still the greatest movie about codes, ever.

False. The best one is "Enigma".

GoSlash27

2013-09-12 09:27:32 PM

dittybopper: hp6sa: xenomorpheus: I like all kinds of Astronomy, including Setec

Still the greatest movie about codes, ever.

False. The best one is "Enigma".

What about "Zodiac"?

GoSlash27

2013-09-12 09:28:24 PM

Or "Knowing"?

psychopathic tendencies

2013-09-13 01:09:36 AM

dittybopper: Pulling the Q's gives the right frequency distribution for English, but Theaetetus made the mistake of pulling them when checking the factors. When I saw the factor thing, combined with the distribution, it made me think "TRANSPOSITION!".

I loved that movie!

CQ
HL
OI
OF
SE
EQ

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