That’s already been deciphered, but good eyes. I don’t think it’s on Page 1 of this thread, so you probably couldn’t have known. That section could use a bit of an update. Anyway, it says something that references “Jenn0”, but it has pretty much been determined that it’s just an inside joke.
I’m getting the nagging feeling that this is indeed a complex cipher, but perhaps not as complex as the VIC cipher. That would require some pretty direct information.
As for a nihilist cipher or something closely related to it, I think that’s where we need to focus our efforts. The things to look for in that regard would be a checkerboard “heading” with the letters “ATONESIR”, perhaps a code word or a short phrase that we could derive those letters from, for instance:
The pIzzA iS a liE–dR hOrN
Then we could create a straddling checkerboard. OR, there is a potential that it’s a similar version like the monome dinome, in which case we need two numbers, a key word, and then the rest of the numbers up to 9.
Good find Rocket, I checked the wiki, he edited his own page. He changed the location part about him being dead in QE. I think it implies he is still alive or something.
The binary decodes to “drjwelsh”–I’m guessing this is just there to confirm that John Welsh IS the Dr. Welsh mentioned in the “Horn files” (as I’ve recently been calling all the clues we’ve got)
EDIT: There is also some associated text with the image file itself:
So many lists, always with the lists. Dr Welsh do this, have it on my desk by 3, Dr Foreman
here is todays list of tasks, please have it on my desk by noon. Well, I got a call from
Dr Stone over in Sector C, and he thinks Dr Horn has been misappropriating funds from the
lab budget to buy pizzas with, and fund some secret project we dont have the access levels
to get at. Only Dr Horn and Dr Bottomley seem to have access to those rooms, hmm perhaps
Dr Junek too…
All I know is, we had a complaint from the main administrator Dr Montero that Lab D funding
had a grossly disproportionate impact on the lab funding, especially considering work
currently under way on the biodome in the sub levels of the facility.
We have a plan though to get back at Dr Horn, we’re going to steal all his misgotten goods,
and hide them throughout the whole facility, he’ll spend months looking for them.[/code]
Pretty much seems to only hint at the fact that this ARG exists.
Hmm, so it’s pretty much just a verification. Interesting. I guess we can add another to our list of those associated with the ARG.
Although, I’m curious. Seems we’ve been being pushed towards Dr. Welsh with the past couple IRC clues. And this message now verifies that Junek (Raminator) might be involved too. Also, I didn’t notice that pizza box the first time I visited Welsh’s portfolio site–could it have been added later to steer us toward something? I notice it also clearly outlines areas we’ve already determined to be associated with the ARG–would it have been so clearly laid out before we knew what we know now about the ARG? Seems like too much of a “dead giveaway” considering the vague references to “codes A,B,C,D” we got before.
Google cache page (Sept 29) is different from what we have today. The image tag changed src (from “pizza” to “drjwelsh”) and class (from “WJD” to “DJW”), and title (“Dr J Welsh”) was added. The base64 message is the same though. It’s hard to say whether the pizza image was visible at that time.
As I go through and look at the clues we have and compare the number ciphers out there to our cipher–and as I knock some ciphers out that don’t work with the cipher we have due to obvious errors–I’m becoming more and more convinced that this is a straddling checkerboard cipher or a variation thereof.
Seems like they really want us to know that Welsh is a part of it, too.
I think we can pretty much knock a simple straddling checkerboard out of the equation, too.
Parts of the cipher like “88771111” make it hard to justify the simple checkerboard, even if the 1’s are one of the free slots. The double 8’s and 7’s would also indicate an end-of-alphabet letter, and they very likely wouldn’t fit together. And, if it’s a basic straddling checkerboard with the alphabet in order, the double 1’s have to equal C’s. It just doesn’t add up.
That said, I think we’re looking at something a little more complex than a basic substitution cipher.
EDIT: I should note that this doesn’t exclude the monome-dinome(-trinome) possibility, as those can be constructed multiple ways. It just seems that a simple straddling checkerboard setup is out.
The transposition steps of the nihilist ciphers using a straddled checkerboard make your assumption null and void. You can’t look at the encrypted message and assume that repeating numbers means repeating letters.
I just meant a simple straddling checkerboard, one that uses “AT ONE SIR” or some other combination thereof and leaves two spaces blank.
As for a nihilist cipher, anything that uses 0-4 or 1-5 couldn’t be compatible because 31 isn’t a valid input with a 5x5 with the numbers 1-5 because 31 minus anything within the table will not equal a number found within the table. And any 5x5 with the numbers 0-4 can’t work because the numbers have to equal up to 9 somewhere.
Also, I wouldn’t brush off this message so quickly. Part of an ARG is the story.
If you read it, it’s saying that Dr. Horn has a secret project in Lab D (Optronics) that appears on the budget as pizza orders. He mentions secret rooms that he doesn’t have access too. This could mean the room under the stairs, but maybe not.
So Dr. Welsh started hiding Dr. Horn’s pizzas around the facility with the message “The pizza is a lie.” The pizza IS a lie used to pay for a secret project.
Here’s the whiteboard from QE that is giving scrutiny to the pizza/Lab D budget. There may be a hint in here that we’ve missed.
Hmm . . . I see what you mean. There might be more to it than just another arrow pointing to the existence of the ARG.
For example, the first two numbers “31” – that’s not compatible with a nihilist cipher that uses the numbers 1-5 because subtracting a number combo from the table does not equal another number combo in the table.
In other words,
31 - 11 = 20
31 - 12 = 19
31 - 13 = 18
31 - 21 = 10
So on and so forth.
As for the 0-4 table, there’s no “5” so it can’t add up to 9 like half of the numbers we have in the cipher. Most of the numbers are 9’s.
Long story short, I’ve knocked out the nihilist cipher and a basic straddling checkerboard utilizing the 8 most common letters–at least for my personal purposes.
After a long, tedious battle with this thing, I’ve pretty much got it narrowed down to what I believe to be the only option. As I noted before, there are many multiples of the same number, even up to four times for the same number (“1”, for example). Furthermore, I believe we have compiled all the data we can regarding Code D, and that there isn’t much left to discover in regards to solving this cipher. In other words, if we have all the data we need, there can’t be that much info needed to solve the cipher. That said, I really doubt it’s a VIC cipher by any means.
I have also delved into some of the other cipher options, eliminated a few, and cross-referenced through a couple of programs. So far, they all pretty much make a 1:1 match with the Tri-Digital Cipher. For those of you that don’t know what that is, here is a brief overview: Tri-Digital Cipher
As you can see from the overview, it’s possible to derive up to three letters from each number; therefore, even with four of the same number in a row, there are different possibilities. The key to this cipher is two codewords that can be used–the first is a ten-digit codeword that can reuse letters. You assign it numbers that correspond to the alphabetical order of the letters, with 0 counting as “10”. So:
D O C T O R H O R N
2 5 1 0 6 8 3 7 9 4
You would then create a checkerboard with the numbers at the top, assign the letters of a second key word (9 characters, excluding repeat letters, with the last column left blank). Then, simply fill in the unused letters. This can then be used to solve the cipher. The good thing about this is that there are generally only 2 / 3 viable options since the bottom row is rarely used letters. Furthermore, you would obviously need the vowel equivalent in certain spots.
I’ve done a count of the characters in the cipher, and I’m fairly certain that either 9 or 8 is the space number above the blank column. One thing I’m not clear on is if a doubling of the number above this last column denotes a sentence break or if that is not factored into the cipher.
Anyway, if this is the cipher we need, there should be a slightly obvious 10-digit keyword and a keyword or phrase that can be narrowed down into 9 digits.
Those secret rooms are likely the two “classified” rooms marked as X01/X02 on the map of the Lab D. They were also mentioned in the 3rd IRC clue: “INCOMING TRANSMISSION - LOC 2 LAYER 2 SUBSTRATA 3 X01/X02 HALOS PROJECT INITIATED”.
You probably have found the whole code from that .png picture from John Welsh’s site, but just in case. Took it from his CSS file not from the name of the pic
“011101000110100001100101001000000111000001101001011110100111101001100001001000000110100101110011001000000110000100100000011011000110100101100101:011001000110101001110111”
What if parts or clues were included in other parts of the game not just QE, the level at the very beginning of the game and surface extension?
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