[ARG] The Pizza Code Mystery

[Rga_Noris]

Possibly not related, but Jiu Zhao did write this book:
https://www.amazon.com/Guang-jiu-Zhao/e/B00J8B9A12

This book looks like it has the science. Black Mesa has the science.

[JazzOwl]

@thewizard99

A lot of symbols dont seem to translate into anything. The problem is those that we can translate usually dont have a english counterpart, or are very out of context. Like the first 2 symbols of TM2 is “Cakes” and “a variety of bamboo shoots that sprout in winter” the second which has no english word.

EDIT : did the first 8

“Cakes”
“a variety of bamboo shoots that sprout in winter”
“music instruments made of clay”
“containers for water or wine used in ancient times”
“well-stacked (figure etc.), full, plump,food,cakes”
“yellow, used in person’s name”
“slits on the lower part of a gown for freedom of movement”
“name of a variety of grass, a kind of vegetable”

This is the issue with which I have grappled all day. I went back over the raw text dumps, and noticed that a few of the characters from the first TEXT MANIFEST were somewhat bolder than the others.

丰乍⁅⁃乃丰⁅⁍⁅MK⁌⁌⁆H

The characters say, “Feng Feng is at first glance” followed by those brackets, what seem to be dots reminiscent of bullets, and the letters MKH.

[TornadoAP]

@Astij

I like this idea, considering that the congratulationsyouwonthepizza was triangular clue. Also, why does https://gman.blackmesasource.com/ exist? Have we figured out what this is for? It’s exactly the same as the regular site.

Edit: I was looking at the /img files on blackmesasource.com, and found two unusual files. Firstly, there was paper.png https://blackmesasource.com/img/ui/paper.png and intro02.png https://blackmesasource.com/img/ui/intro02.png. The first one probably contains something, but i find the second one most interesting

Hmm that odd. The first one, paper.png, looks like something was blotted out with paint or another computer image editing program. Strange. Is there any way someone can reverse the effects of that, I doubt it but still.

[Rga_Noris]

Feng Feng is the name of a movie actor as well as the name of a Researcher of Microbiology, with a PhD in the field.

[TornadoAP]

@CommanderVideo

Anyone check the terminal as of late? It changed to this:
It has come to my attention that strange messages have been appearing throughout Black Mesa, and have been causing somewhat of a conunDrum concerning what has become known as “The Pizza Code Mystery”.

I have long suspected that there was something stRange going on during the development of this facility. The unexplained disappearances, misappropriation of funds regarding cheesy oven-baked bread products and an ominous feeling that something is constantly watching this all from the shadows, Have added up to create something that needs solving, and sOlving fast.

As a result, I am offering a small reward to the first peRson that can solve this mystery and provide me with the answers I need. Together, I’m sure you caN crack this.

If you take the random capitals thrown within this, it says DRHORN. What can we make of this?
EDIT: One of my friends is digging around the bmrf.us website and found a couple pics, notably this one: https://bmrf.us/img/zero-point.png
Anyone notice the color of the gravity gun? It’s blue. And that only happens when it’s supercharged, which only happened in HL2.
Eli said it was barely stable when Black Mesa fell. Why is the image there? Not sure, we’re trying to make something out of it.

Um, this has been known for quite a while that the letters spell out DRHORN, nothing new here, sorry.

[TornadoAP]

What if instead of 21 into 1 being a hint, 21 into 1 is a date. 21 can easily be the day of a month and 1 is January, so what if Time Reveals All on the 21st of January? I thought of this because “This unlocks at the start of the end.” comes before it when this hint was first shown to us.

[thewizard99]

could be a clue to the Hex code being released on the 21st Jan, maybe it might give us a better idea as the hex code has been unsolved for a while.

[thewizard99]

@Rga_Noris

Feng Feng is the name of a movie actor as well as the name of a Researcher of Microbiology, with a PhD in the field.

Feng Feng is also a name of a Footballer, its just a name, but the PHD one might be a hint.

[TornadoAP]

@thewizard99

could be a clue to the Hex code being released on the 21st Jan, maybe it might give us a better idea as the hex code has been unsolved for a while.

Perhaps the bmrf.us site would change again on the 21st? I mean that’s literally 3 weeks right after the site changed.

[TornadoAP]

@thewizard99

A lot of symbols dont seem to translate into anything. The problem is those that we can translate usually dont have a english counterpart, or are very out of context. Like the first 2 symbols of TM2 is “Cakes” and “a variety of bamboo shoots that sprout in winter” the second which has no english word.

EDIT : did the first 8

“Cakes”
“a variety of bamboo shoots that sprout in winter”
“music instruments made of clay”
“containers for water or wine used in ancient times”
“well-stacked (figure etc.), full, plump,food,cakes”
“yellow, used in person’s name”
“slits on the lower part of a gown for freedom of movement”
“name of a variety of grass, a kind of vegetable”

I just realized. What if on the Korean/chineese/whatever characters we need to use the Paillier system to decrypt that.

[Flavrans]

Just a small idea about something in the EAS message:

Do not use telephones or cell phones except in the case of emergencies.

What if it’s related to this part of the solution to IRC clue 5:

Just to remind you in case of emergencies that the password to the HALOS files is BENALOHPAILLIER.

If we type in BENALOHPAILLIER on a telephone keypad as numbers, then we get the following number sequence: 236256472455437

[JazzOwl]

@thewizard99

A lot of symbols dont seem to translate into anything. The problem is those that we can translate usually dont have a english counterpart, or are very out of context. Like the first 2 symbols of TM2 is “Cakes” and “a variety of bamboo shoots that sprout in winter” the second which has no english word.

EDIT : did the first 8

“Cakes”
“a variety of bamboo shoots that sprout in winter”
“music instruments made of clay”
“containers for water or wine used in ancient times”
“well-stacked (figure etc.), full, plump,food,cakes”
“yellow, used in person’s name”
“slits on the lower part of a gown for freedom of movement”
“name of a variety of grass, a kind of vegetable”

@TornadoAP

I just realized. What if on the Korean/chineese/whatever characters we need to use the Paillier system to decrypt that.

Hmm, now that is an idea, and definitely worth the effort! 1942rob would have to reconfigure his decryptor to handle both sets of the hex blocks.

While we consider this path, we should also discuss a new hunting ground for the public keys, as I had been considering Astij’s conversions to be the yielder of their, and indeed those had been returning with answers from his decryptor. Be that as it may, the more data from those conversions that I plugged into the decryptor, the longer the return string. wizard99 and myself had already begun translating the original 752 into the CJK characters before Astij’s epiphany this morning. I am more than willing to try if we all are agreed to the task.

@flavrans9

If we type in BENALOHPAILLIER on a telephone keypad as numbers, then we get the following number sequence: 236256472455437

Well spotted flavrans! Hopefully, that set will prove just as variable as Asjit’s conversion, and we’ll get both public keys out of it.

[CPU]

21 into 1 = 047619047619047619047619etc etc etc.

Could 047619 be important?

[Rga_Noris]

So my contributions are essentially googling things I see (I wonder if the Food Babe has a job for me…) but googling Zhao Zheng leads to yet another researcher with a PhD.

[JazzOwl]

@flavrans9

Just a small idea about something in the EAS message:

What if it’s related to this part of the solution to IRC clue 5:

If we type in BENALOHPAILLIER on a telephone keypad as numbers, then we get the following number sequence: 236256472455437

@CPU

21 into 1 = 047619047619047619047619etc etc etc.

Could 047619 be important?

I ran the decryptor on HEX SET 2:
Public key (HEX): 047619
Lambda Key (HEX):42454e414c4f485041494c4c494552
HEX Decode: 4788
ASCII Decode:G

HEX SET 1
Public key(HEX):047619
Lambda Key(HEX):42454e414c4f485041494c4c494552
HEX Decode: 3666
ASCII Decode: 6f

[Astij]

@JazzOwl

I ran the decryptor on HEX SET 2:
Public key (HEX): 047619
Lambda Key (HEX):42454e414c4f485041494c4c494552
HEX Decode: 4788
ASCII Decode:G

HEX SET 1
Public key(HEX):047619
Lambda Key(HEX):42454e414c4f485041494c4c494552
HEX Decode: 3666
ASCII Decode: 6f

Where did this Lambda key come from?

[Astij]

Also, on https://terminal.blackmesasource.com/public/index.php , you are greeted with a message that says that your IP is not allowed to access this, however it’s clearly part of the ARG because the user is blackmesaroot. Maybe changing your IP to the one found on terminal.bmrf.us would yield results?

[Hazmat]

The lambda HEX key comes from https://bmrf.us/, the site currently broadcasting an emergency message related to the Black Mesa incident.

[AngelSG]

Lambda is the lcm of (p-1) and (q-1), while the public key is p*q. It’s impossible for lambda to be greater than the public key, it has to be lesser.

Astij, the lambda hex key is BENALOHPAILLIER in hex, what I don’t understand it what are the HEX sets.

[thewizard99]

Ive spent a while trying to translate a few things and its really coming up with nothing worth of note on the translations ive been doing and when read in chinese its basically a mix match of symbols which translate to a jumbled mess.