That’s Code C, it was solved long ago. You can read about it in the wiki.
If ISPs are as bad as they are in Spain, it may take a while to solve things.I hope is not a big impediment for your work on black mesa or other work for that matter.
Probably caused by living in 1984 and having to use a 300 baud modem.
i got idea’s for password, but i got no idea how to test them.
if you are going to make a list “tested” password be sure to include the way of testing becase some poeple might test password in the wromg way
Meanwhile, if you have ideas for passwords, but you don’t know how to test them, you can post them here. I’ll test them, and I’m pretty sure other people will test them too.
If you want to test them yourself, the only thing you need is OpenSSL and a binary file with HALOS code. But it’s too impractical since that would only allow you to test one password with one algorithm, one mode and one digest at a time, so, it would be painfully slow, we are talking about one thousand combinations for each password give or take.
A better option would be to use the script Faed wrote, but you would need to have either Mac or Linux, on windows it would be more difficult, but there’s possibly a way to run it.
A third option is compiling the C++11 code written by pointless, you’ll need cryptopp and any C++11 compiler.
Of course, this is the way to decrypt the message, assuming the message is encrypted using a block cipher, which is what it seems to be, but we also need to take into account the fact that this is a puzzle, therefore, the things that seem obvious might not be the real solution. Even though everything points to 3DES or other block cipher, it seems too complex for an ARG given the fact that we do not know the algorithm, nor the mode, nor the password.
Password idea:
Make a password of all of the times displayed on clocks in the game in level order.
Example: (not the actual times)
12:01 1:15 3:45 4:43…
1201 115 345 443…
1201 1315 1545 1643…
1201131515451643…
Of course, there are a lot of possible permutations.
etc…
Well, somebody has already written down most of the times, if that persons PMs me the hours I would try. The chances are low, because assuming this was solvable from day one there would be no way that somebody decided to check every clock and use the time as a key, but well, everything else has been tried.
The halos.txt says, “SET FOR FINAL TEST PATTERN”. Also, code/0418 said through PM to Gunsrequiem that it is impossible to look for for patterns on a block cipher’s ciphertext, which is the truth, the output resembles random data so much that it is practicaly indistinguishable from random data.
So, I looked into the tv’s test pattern on the game files. There’s nothing there.
It’s the same old song over and over, since there’s no connection between the clues (maybe there is just one or none at all) the only way to advance is grind possible passwords. It would be great to know how much time stormseeker thought this would take. If he was aiming for two months or for two years.
I even watched the last two chapters of the second season of bugs, the only thing I discovered is that production values, acting and writing improved a lot since the mid nineties, and that the rotating silvery black mesa screensaver is inspired in cyberax. Cyberax appears on screen as a silver human head, and later as a silver monster head. If Dr. Horn is doing the same that J.D.Marcel did with cyberax, then he is trying to trap HALOS by storing all his code in a single place.
and the best way to grind password is by brtue forcing it 
anyway the clock’s id is soemthing i did post earlyer, and there indeed a lot of functinatinos that can be made
like you cna write it all to standart digital notation:
12:01 1:15 3:45 4:43
1201011503450443
OH GOD! peaked around a bit and the pizza clocks been brought up quite of a few times.
Didja guys try jiggle the cord?
[COLOR=‘Green’]Topic?
Is that a hint?
As for the “topic”, which is really just open speculation at this point, has anyone compiled a storyline for this that isn’t the one I posted on the wiki? I’d be interested in reading it. Furthermore, it might be beneficial to post a list on the wiki of every outside reference we’ve collected so far, such as the Dante’s Inferno, Bugs and Star Trek references. Perhaps some conglomeration of these might reveal something?
If no one beats me to it, I’ll try to have this posted to the blog/wiki within the next few days, now that I’m out of school.
I think he meant that all the blow the cartridge, checking if the ARG was plugged in etc was off topic and therefore deleted.
I wrote a storyline some time ago, but, meh, I did not like it, I do not know who sent some of the messages, or whether Halos is an AI in the same way that HAL and CYBERAX are, or some kind of cloning device storing human minds in quantum hardware, because, how is that Dr. Horn and Dr. Bottomley are still alive after being killed?. I might post it after revising and modifying it. Nevertheless, probably not till June, no free time right now.
It would be awesome if someone could do this. Reading 99 pages of stops and starts on the arg is just not something I would be up to.
I have been thinking about adding the pages Wiki clue 1 and Wiki clue 2 to the wiki for a while, with breakdowns/analyses of the wiki clues, and link to them from the main page, but I haven’t got around to it. As it stands, most newcomers reading the wiki will probably miss those clues altogether. Although I’m not sure what to write about the second wiki clue. Maybe creating a separate page for each wiki clue isn’t necessary, maybe it would be better to put all the information about the wiki clues on a single page called Wiki clues.
However, a page (or pages) about the wiki clues should only detail information relevant to what’s been found in those clues. Other references like the Bugs references aren’t relevant to mention there. But I agree, it might be useful to list all outside references on a single page, even if some of the same information will be mentioned on other wiki pages.
I’ve also been wondering if it might be useful to collect all stormseeker/0418 quotes on a wiki page for easy reference.
As for compiling a storyline, I tried for a long time to make sense of the story, but my brain eventually melted and I just couldn’t come up with something credible that seemed to work. I think my problem was that I tried too hard to make everything fit into a grander story and nearly lost myself while delving into philosophical and metaphysical questions.
About testing passwords. It’s important to note that pointless’ program and faed’s OpenSSL script are not compatible methods because of the way OpenSSL generates the key and IV from the password (although I believe there will be some overlap if you use pointless’ program with the hashing code in place). Therefore, I think we need to write a new program that combines all the methods we’ve been trying into a single tool, and have the program read the passwords from a file. That way, we can just keep adding passwords/phrases to the password file, and then run the tool whenever new password suggestions have been added. That would be the most efficient way to test passwords.
We could use a wiki page to maintain the password list, but I think by having everyone add their password suggestions to a wiki page, it can get messy very quickly. Perhaps a Google sheet that anyone can edit would be best suited for this, because a Google sheet can be easily sorted alphabetically, thus making it easy to spot if a password/phrase has already been added. The list can also be downloaded to a text file.
I’ve been thinking about setting this up myself, but right now I don’t have as much time as I would have liked to work on this.
This all being said, we still don’t know if the key is even a password or passphrase. Maybe the key is completely gibberish like the Nimrod quote from the Divine Comedy. Maybe the key is a binary sequence. Or maybe there’s no key to be found at all.
What about a web app that decrypts, keeps track of used passwords, AND flags interesting results?
Maybe I’ll even finish it one of these days.
The password is “Swordfish”
It’s not Swordfish, nor Ozymandias, I checked.
Are you really doing that? 0.o
Yah, I have a POC I started working on about a week ago. It’s not ready for prime time yet.
Really it’s just a excuse for me to gain some experience using AngularJS, NodeJS, SocketIO, and MongoDB.
and its dead again!
