I don’t see why not - this is an ARG.
I wrote a small script for testing a large number of encryption algorithms with openssl. The list is all the Blowfish and DES modes supported by openssl.
#!/bin/bash
declare -a ciphers=('BF-CBC' 'BF-CFB' 'BF-ECB' 'BF-OFB' 'DES-CBC' 'DES-CFB' 'DES-CFB1' 'DES-CFB8' 'DES-ECB' 'DES-EDE' 'DES-EDE-CBC' 'DES-EDE-CFB' 'DES-EDE-OFB' 'DES-EDE3' 'DES-EDE3-CBC' 'DES-EDE3-CFB' 'DES-EDE3-CFB1' 'DES-EDE3-CFB8' 'DES-EDE3-OFB' 'DES-OFB' 'DESX-CBC')
for c in "${ciphers[@]}"
do
echo "====================================================="
echo "== Algo: $c Pass:\"$2\""
echo "====================================================="
openssl enc -d -$c -nosalt -nopad -in $1 -pass pass:$2
echo ""
echo ""
doneTo run, you’ll need to be using Linux or OSX. Save the script to a file, ie “decoder.sh”, then give it +x mode. Also grab the raw data attached to this post, to be used as an input source.
chmod u+x decoder.shThen run it like so:
./decoder.sh otr4_binary_data.txt thepasswordtouseotr4_binary_data.txt (376 Bytes)
Hm.
In any case, has anyone made any progress on that latest code or whatever?
Is this solved already? I already saw the pizza triangle picture made by Codes A,B,C and D
No, this isn’t solved. Check the wiki to see where we are currently. The blog has also been updated by Guns. All the links are on the first page of this topic.
I converted the hex to binary, then text.
Here’s the result:
³+:[ÖW|$ü‘ CF
|K¸/à>aWwG’=!ö,
A‚éògTZ¼
í¯Ôê‡Í3ÇÇq10 ÌB€´$=OùÏb m›ÿ9~C˜æ = Þ@'³¥OÝÆ—ú÷˜Iá
bYZŸc YÞ>:¬8Œ_¹Øþ‘Tlƒ˜òȃ2¨ýðbü
Äþ~F®QÅÈkAã:¹,–†.h°ÁÀ™ƒ Úy¶ä
õ™mHÇ•8Îc‘DAV
’äþQÑâB͈QÖ•Q˜‡§ÁZ
½{@D’ A0©ñpö̳Á9F:~š7
¨cûxü s Œyç™0
@eF$ɦ›&Â⤾Xšuþ·Ä«%ÁŒøž‘û'3—6GJ‰(ÝhTiŒåµFöv¦÷ñ%Þ¤Ú@þ`öPtRAi6•ƒÜ²æûþ»…¢ ‘”€6¥+]
I know it looks like a hodgepodge, but there seem to be 3 digit numbers at regular intervals, and there is always an “&#” before each three-digit number. This might mean something…
(Also, if my makeshift spoiler tags did not work, mods, feel free to edit it and fix it.)
MadDoctor I think you made an error copying / pasting the code because it differs from what I got and what’s on the wikia - try using this instead https://www.asciitohex.com/
Also here’s a decimal frequency analysis - only 60 characters aren’t used and I can’t find a 196 character cipher
https://pastebin.com/7VgLvv2i
I think you’ve converted parts of your output to HTML Character Codes, which is why you’re seeing the high frequency of ‘&#’.
It should look something like this:
I think it just parsed the conversion as some kind of Unicode or something.
I just wish stormkeeper would give us something solid to make people care about this again.
It might be a good idea to collate what we know about the storyline behind all this, the characters, the subject matter on the whiteboards and things from the IRC messages that could build up a better picture of whats going on. ARGs don’t necessarily have a storyline written in stone, they are built up by the players archaeologically. What is Project HALOS? What does Niobium have to do with it? how does it relate to this latest code? etc.
3 ‘Abstract Paintings’ were found in the canteen seating area of Questionable Ethics.
breaking news of two months ago
The ASCII-85 decode of HALOS.txt mentions OTR//4.0, before the code. Isnt OTR off the record messaging?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Off-the-Record_Messaging That seems like a relevant path to take.
from the wikipedia article:
I was looking at how similar this ARG and Cyber Security Challenge UK was. Since it has been a while, I am hoping reading this will spark some ideas.
https://www.jibble.org/cyber-security-challenge-uk-winner/
p.s 1337 post 
[i]Has anyone taken a really serious look at the wording of the terminal message? Not the html markup of it or which letters are capitalized, but what it actually says? It specifies three things as evidence of something “strange going on during the development of this facility.” Those three things are, in order:
- unexplained disappearances
- misappropriation of funds regarding cheesy oven-baked bread products
- ominous feeling that something is constantly watching this all from the shadows
Number three there rings alarm bells in MY head as a reference to message in the 7-segment code that turned out to be from The Shadow comics. That solution was stumbled upon by tons of googling into codes, an extremely hard way to go about solving things in an ARG. Then the message says, “Have added up to create something that needs solving.” Addition, a mathematical operation, to create what we need mentioned right there in the message. So maybe I’m grabbing at straws, but this IS a direct message that is irrefutably part of the ARG. No one has looked at the message itself critically. What do parts 1 and 2 refer to if I happen to be right about part 3 hinting at The Shadow for us?
[/i]
Edit: Well disregard everything I said. Since the first post on this thread has not been updated to show the last month’s worth of progress on this ARG, I thought I’d help. But apparently the whole thing’s been cracked and now you’re all just decoding ciphers within ciphers that Stormseeker keeps feeding you. Good job keeping the first post updated like it says it is. > 
I ONLY read the first 41 pages of this thread before assuming that the first post wasn’t lying when it said it was up to date. Thanks for making this go from really fascinating to totally uninteresting for me.
Sorry, but that isn’t our fault. We have been trying to nag UnhingedMouse to update, but s/he hasn’t yet. Check the wiki to see our actual progress.
Just put a note to this effect in the original post. Hope that helps.
Thanks!