[ARG] The Pizza Code Mystery

Black Mesa Archive The Cafeteria
#4906

Why they put a reload? It’s probably a mix of not having to design the side of the cliff that the player would see while falling. Try deactivating the reload, maybe there’s something, storm hinted that something hasn’t been found/has been overlooked.

The full name is Josh Daniel Cohen Benaloh, So J. D.+French name, similar to J.D. Marcel

But it’s true that it usually appears as Josh Cohen Benaloh or Josh Benaloh. Just tried what you said but nothing. We need to get a strong indication. Trying passwords without a strong indication will drive us insane, there’s simply too much stuff lying around between in game information, IRC clues and wiki clues, that when we start looking for connections we can find tons. Even for the algorithm, a case can be made that it’s AES, since Code pointed that way and the picture on TOR page kinda says AES instead of Lies, that it’s 3DES, because it’s based on lucifer cipher and there’s a Dante’s Inferno on TOR page and the size of the size of the code is a multiple of 64bits, etc. It’s like trying to hit a toothpick with a blunderbuss at one hundred meters, sure, shooting enough times it might hit, but gets too tedious.

#4907

airfield update. there are several airfields with the correct runway directions, 8/26 3/21, but the elevations don’t line up with what we have in the images. there is Kirtland afb, runways are correct, but the elevation is wrong. but its the home of special operations v22 ospreys. there are 2 hydroelectric plants in nm. one near truth or consequences air field, and one near abiquiu nm. but none of the elevations line up there either.

the closest was ft sumner, which the city has an elevation of 4032, the airports elevation is not 4032. but the airport is not near a hydro plant. it does however have the proper runways, with the closest elevation. so some things line up, some don’t, the hydro plant locations, the airfield locations and elevations never quite line up like they should. not sure if its an error in continuity by the devs, likely meaning airfield elevation may have nothing to do with anything., or I’m missing something.

#4908

Hey guys, I’m new here. Only recently heard about this ARG. Read up on the wiki and found out about the two unsolved things. Ran the unsolved code through a decoder and came up with ³+. Don’t know if it means anything to you guys. Reading the code manually didn’t reveal anything, either. I used this website: https://www.wordsmuggler.com/Smuggler

#4909

been looking around the questionable ethics maps, noticed that if you innable cheats on them, several errors pop up which seem to denote items suddenly changing place.

No clue if that is revlevent or just a bug.

Also found this

1280×720

What episode of star trek is that anyway.

#4910

Love that you’re noticing fine little details like that. We need people like you who do that!!

The STTNG episode was titled BROTHERS and this particular monitor was brought to our attention and just a little over a year ago. The code mentioned was one that Data used to lock the on board computer.

Here’s the script from the scene with the code:

DATA: (imitating Picard) Computer, establish a security code for access to all functions previously transferred to Bridge.
COMPUTER: Enter code.
DATA: One seven three four six seven three two one four seven six Charlie three two seven eight nine seven seven seven six four three Tango seven three two Victor seven three one one seven eight eight eight seven three two four seven six seven eight nine seven six four three seven six. Lock.
COMPUTER: Security code intact for all specified inquiries and orders.
DATA: Computer, initiate cascade sequence, accepting instructions from Commander Data en route. (enters turbolift) Now.

#4911

Now that Star Trek came up, isn’t there five different Star Treks? The theme on this one matches, but I’ve never watched ST, so I have no idea if it could match on the others s4e3. If this is it, there’s an emotion chip for the AI, maybe that’s also related.

Cascade seems another recurring word. Cascade sequence cipher on google gives this.

https://cr.yp.to/streamciphers/pomaranch/desc.pdf

CJCSG was discarded on the eSTREAM competition, so maybe it’s hard to find an implementation. Reading about the competition, there’s also the Rabbit stream cipher, hasn’t storm said at different times “How far the rabbit hole goes?”. Maybe I’m making it up in my mind. Also, another point towards being a stream cipher is the concept of T-function, also called triangular if some conditions are met. I’m not good at this, I can find justification for everything.

#4912

funny you mention the rabbit hole. I have been reading up on lewis carrol the last couple of days. His real name
Is charles Lutwidge Dodgson, he was also a mathmitition and created a few ciphers! I’ve been reading up on poetry and pilish coding, poetry seems to be a small theme with some stuff here. So the ciphers he came up with, we’re variations of others, vignerre, matrix and some others he spoke on. The one I had not seen before, nor can I find anything about it except on a couple of pages. Called the key - vowel cipher. I’ll post a pdf on it in a couple of minutes when I get to my pc. But it takes a word, for instance. “Benalohpaillier” and you line up tour text bases off the vowel position in the alphabet, along with the vowel position in the keyword, the rows that don’t have vowels lined up are null letters/numbers. Here is info on lewis carrols ciphers and variations. I don’t know if any of these have been tried or not. But I had never seen anything on him writing ciphers. so, if for nothing else, a fun read.
lewiscarol.pdf (360 KB)
key-vowel.jpg

#4913

reading more on lewis carrol, he also liked logic puzzles, I thought this was interesting when I saw it labeled as a conundrum. It’s about 2 clocks, one that works, (sort of) one that doesn’t work. So the choice is, would you prefer a clock that loses 1 minute per day or a clock that doesn’t work which is right twice per day, I was unsure where exactly to post this. Maybe something in could be worked into a word problem that would explain why there is a clock stuck at 9:01 and 10:12
9:01 and 21:01 would be right twice a day
poems-puzzles-and-stories-of-lewis-carroll-004-the-two-clocks.pdf (153 KB)

#4914

The cipher is simplified vigenere, so it could be bruteforced. Also, it wouldn’t produce a ciphertext with the entropy of the Halos Code. The thing about the clocks though… In which levels are they? It does tie with 21 goes into 1. But the fact that it’s reversed… I don’t know.

PS: Cryptools2 keeps crashing my computer. X(

#4915

here is 1 clock, it is stuck at 10:12. Somewhere in office complex. The other clock has been reported in an earlier post to be near a lounge or cafeteria.

youtu.be/MFNM2hiyL2M

#4916
#4917

I have the dumb, could someone please explain this in a way I might understand? and could it possibly apply?

interrupt request

(IRQ) The name of an input found on many processors which causes the processor to suspend normal instruction execution temporarily and to start executing an interrupt handler routine. Such an input may be either “level sensitive” - the interrupt condition will persist as long as the input is active or “edge triggered” - an interrupt is signalled by a low-to-high or high-to-low transition on the input. Some processors have several interrupt request inputs allowing different priority interrupts.

ipop= interrupt processor, order pizza
opp= order pizza for programmer
sop= stop and order pizza
Related to interrupt request: BIOS, Interrupt request register

level 7 instances, bring pizzas?

#4918

Where did you find that? 0.o

The first paragraph is the description of IRQ, from this webpage The Ipop, opp and sop, from here, or any other site with a similar list. They are joke opcodes, and opcodes are the codes for the given operation in machine language.

Related to… From here https://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/interrupt+request, which also has the definition provided by foldoc.org.

“level 7 instances, bring pizzas?” Well, that’s probably original content, IRC clue 5 “This is a message left for Dr. Horn. Just to remind you in case of emergencies that the password to the HALOS files is BENALOHPAILLIER. I have programmed HALOS to send in level seven cases. You should bring pizzas.”

Which should be modified to “This is a message left for Dr. Horn just to remind you in case of emergencies that the password to the HALOS files is BENALOHPAILLIER. I have programmed HALOS to send. In level seven cases you should bring pizzas.”

Edit: Decided to give it a try to the punch card code hypothesis, but the holes are just random when done properly. Now, when I decoded it improperly almost fell off my chair, it’s just a fluke because it ignores hex bytes if they’re not in the value range of ASCII letters and numbers, for decoding properly it needs to be done from Baudot-Murray in five digit binary groups to Baudot-Murray punch holes, and the result that way is just random holes as expected, but I’ll post the bad decoding anyway because it was a cool fluke. It started by DR.

Baudot-Murray.png
Baudot-Murray.png1009×777 36.3 KB

#4919

not much has been happening. I decided to look at the hints we already have that nothing has been done with. time reveals all, voice of the people is the voice of god. benalohpaillier. and all this took me on a long trip that lead to some stuff that I think is worth mentioning.

so ive been reading a lot of about authors, poets, scientist, for s and g. noticed a movie from 1947, called “the beginning of the end” which starred a guy playing dr. oppenhiemmer, lots of stuff of the manhattan project, the development of the bombs that ended the war. and 2 planes. I did not see where bockscar eneded up, but I know ENOLA gay was at roswell for a bit. , so looking at benalohpaillier, I have been trying to make words phonetically from what is there, bounce a few things aroun and I ended up coming up with “being a really awful liar.”
I got that by turning the words back and forth. benaloh- being a , paillier/ really awful liar. just trying to make words out of 1 or two letters at a time. back and forth, haven’t tried any thing yet with that, but it did lead me to a book about being a terrible liar, which lead me to oppenhiemer which was involved with the nuclear stuff in new mexico. this also lead me to some other things. time reveals all, so I went with time possibly being “watch” or watcher". then I looked at the pizza is a lie, and I got this is eli or eli eht, the pizza, and lastly, I’m still reading up on things, and started to try something else. based on clocks and semaphores. I have not got too far into it as of yet, but I’m trying now to figure the numbers and letters printed on the clocks tie in with the 752 code. here are some pics, I’m still reading info about these types of puzzles . so maybe something useful soon.

oh, and lookin at some of the whiteboards, has anyone brought up a cyclotron? I’m not saying any of this applys, but maybe there is some stuff here that may give some ideas.

clock letters.jpg
clock letters.jpg1805×930 370 KB

semaphores1.jpg
semaphores1.jpg2109×1642 212 KB

cyclo.gif

#4920

Star Trek The Original had only 3 Series.
The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise all had at least 4 series.

TNG S4E3 - Brothers
DS9 - Hippocratic Oath ( massive grain of salt as it has the Doctor thing going for it.
Voyager - Day of Honor
Enterprise - Home

Call me crazy but if you where to that punch card thing got me thinking that. looking at it the lines are evenly split down the middle of each row, could the top/bottom line be shifted, moving it along a number of dots to make words?

Could the proper decoding be done the same way? If there are less holes might make it easier to make letters or number out from them.

Also the 21 into 1 could mean that 21 columns in to 1 row, then when placed over each other make words similar to the paintings?

#4921

This particular coding uses 5 bits in each column, with 5 rows, and it’s “quite full” with the 752 code, so it seems improbable anything can come out. Then there’s one made by IBM with 12 rows per column. You can check it out here by pressing the binary button.But there’s no pattern neither. I was going to try decoding using Rabbit, but cryptools2 crashes my computer :S

#4922

“Who knows how deep this rabbit hole goes?”

What if we try using the Rabbit Cipher with the 16 character key requirement of “joshcohenbenaloh” (6a6f7368636f68656e62656e616c6f68)

and the 8 character IV requirement of “paillier” (7061696c6c696572)?

#4923

was thinking more on time, and what starts at the end. This brought me to some things I really think we should expand on a little bit. and maybe think about how maybe we could apply this. time and start of the end, MIDNIGHT.
midnight starts at the end and vice versa. also, reading through this, brought me to a term, “TERMINATOR” which I remember being mentioned before. So take a look at this. Any ideas with it?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midnight
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminator_(solar) Including info on amateur radio, which we know Dr. Horn likes.
grey line info as well.
also, looking at light and shadow and hi low orbits…

OH HAI — OH HEY HEY LOW? HALO? HIGH LOW?
leaning towards perhaps radio communications/satellite communications that may have more or less signal noise at different times
maybe figuring out how to reduce the signal noise via date and time in the hex will reveal the real message.
voice of god, satellite communication?

#4924

I was going to try something similar, BenallohPaillier as written in the OP and no IV and ABORTIVE as IV, but it keeps crashing my computer even after reinstalling. X( X( X(

Solar activity has big impact on ham radio transmissions , but there’s no way to apply this information to the code. Terminator was mentioned due to CSM, storm did say that Cyberdyne systems model stood out the most among what was proposed the acronym could mean, probably because Terminator is an artificial intelligence, but it seems it was not ARG related since it’s the name of the jump pads.

#4925

The problem with that idea is that you’ve misspelled Benaloh.
There’s only one “h” in Benaloh.
It wouldn’t be the the required 16 characters.

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