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Dante
Joined: 20 Apr 2007
Posts: 578
Location: Chicago, IL
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 Posted: Sun Feb 17, 2008 4:22 pm Post subject: MLM Jobs 2 & 3 |
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Given that we seem to be in kind of a holding pattern, and the Sculptor or whomever has decided to stop giving us help (or perhaps we've flunked the test), I thought it would be useful to pull out the relevant info from the MLM thread to help organize the thoughts on where we're stuck...
TO RECAP:
During our attempts to figure out the Tarot Code for Job #1, Feriwiccan received this reply in Tarot:
| Quote: |
4nhjytgf17zkljuw13hcfgju3rf86ws87lrfgtyh8qz1snuw13ythuj16wujfg3c
The lovers worship the rose as their king of the stars. The sun gives them strength, the moon guides them to conquest.
Your Clubs: Two Ten Two Queen King
The lovers of Babel draw their fortitude from the Imperatrice. |
Given that this is in Tarot code in response to Job #1, we are assuming this is from the Sculptor. The message decodes to:
| Quote: |
| GOES WITH 22,0 GRID |
and the new key code gives us Job #2:
| Quote: |
Limited auction time
-4 gu xu da you chun xu lu xu wu wang meng xu lu chun da chu bo yu bo wu wang bo qian yu lin xu yu meng qian bo xu lu yu bo lu yu meng tai lu shi ke qian fu tai lu qian qian fu shi ke chun lu tai qian yu xu wu wang pi da you tai pi meng qian yu qian qian qian lu xu lu qian xio chu fu bo gu bo xu bi fu qian qian yu tai kun kun qian da you |
Sapagoo very cleverly figured out that this was an I-ching code for:
| Quote: |
VIRGIN I-CHING DATA CAST WITH SAINT ANTHONY'S
BONES BY GNOSTIC PROPHETESS NINE MB AVAIL BEST OFFER |
So, Job #2 appears to involve an auction for some electronic I-Ching data...
In the meantime, we were pointed in the direction of Craigslist, where we discovered yet another job, presumably from the Sculptor as well:
| Quote: |
We had such an interesting conversation at the party, I hope we can sink our teeth further into the topic. It is a fascinating book.
5bhcfgju32oi8mju66hytgfr855cvfre32oi8mju2o28iujh855cvfre5wscdfre
The child and the magician are no thieves, but the moon desires conquest.
Flyfot, both King and Empereur, stands with his Imperatrice. The child is no longer safe in Maison Diev. Proper thieves of Soleil would oppose Flyfot too.
The popess knows what the thieves plan and she has the ear of the Imperatrice and Empereur in Etoile. Those hanged were not thieves, protests Lune. Those hanged lacked the strength of Flyfot the Empereur.
The tower is eyed by Empereur, and not with angel's eyes of justice and judgement. Lune demand conquest, and the Empereur fills with the babel of the ram.
So much for one novel. |
Given that this is in Tarot code also, and given what the CL says about Sharp Teeth and all that, this can be presumed to be from the Sculptor as well.
The Tarot code can be decoded to:
| Quote: |
| U BOTH NEED UR OWN CODES NOT MINE REPLY THERE |
Using the new job number, we get into Job #3, with a new message in Tarot:
| Quote: |
these hands
The stars cry with force, cry for the lovers hanged by Empereur and Imperatrice.
The Bateleur is no fool. From his tower he sees the lovers' bodies, yet still he is no fool. He draws his strength from the bodies of those hanged by Empereur, from his tower he hears the cries of the stars.
He plans his theft of the bodies hanged, and weighs upon the scales the method of his judgement. |
This time the Tarot decodes to:
| Quote: |
| SIGNED BARGAINERS ONLY |
So at this point in the process we have:1) Job #1, which seemed to involve the mule drop arrangements for the satellite photos. We have both the job code and key code for this job.
2) Job #2, which seems to be an auction for I-Ching data. We have the job code for this, but not the originator's key code.
3) Job #3, which is for 'signed bargainers only.' Again, we have the job code, but not the originator's key code.
Job #1 and Job #3 seem pretty clearly to be from the Sculptor, given that the posts were in Tarot code. Job #2 is a little bit of a mystery, given that we were given the job code in a reply from Job #1 -- which only the Sculptor should have been able to do -- but the job itself was in a completely different Chinese code. I see two possibilities:a) The Sculptor is using a new code for a new job.
b) The Sculptor is actually the person *responding* to the job, and therefore only knows the job number, but not the job key. The originator of Job #2 would therefore be someone else.
There are, however, a couple of things arguing against possibility b), not the least of which comes from the fact that in responding to Job #3 (which we think is from the Sculptor, remember), Rowan received the following messages in "MLM"/ROT +/-1 code:
Reply #1:
| Quote: |
we use simple codes like mlm when we hide who we are and scream what we say
we use our codes like tarot when we scream who we are and hide what we say
only replies are private
sharp ones never pick the same key twice
we use our other channels to spread our jobs
those who barter here are not to be crossed
there will be times I ask you to use my code
use it only then
both of you need your own codes
more mules dont belong here |
Reply #2
| Quote: |
the clipping is a key to my auction for the icheng
rearrange the text into a grid of twenty two chars
emet suggests which columns you want
Hebrew suggests the orfer to read each row
the result looks like nonsense but encludes spaces
encludes runs like cynuB and sious
must arrange peck up of goods in my tarot code |
Given that these came as replies to Job #3, then they must have come from the originator of Job #3, or the Sculptor, who seems to be 'training' us to use the MLM safeget system appropriately. Notice that in reply #2, above, it mentions "my auction for the icheng," suggesting that Job #2 is actually the Sculptor's as well.
Okay, so now we get ready to enter the Hell that is the key code for Job #2. {gird loins}
Recall that way back when Feriwiccan originally received the job code for Job #2, that the Tarot message said: GOES WITH 22,0 GRID. This clearly seems to match up with the information given in Reply #2 above, in the bit about "rearrange the text into a grid of twenty two chars" where 'the text' refers to "the clipping as the key" to the auction.
In the original message from DC starting all of this mess, he mentioned that there were "two keys" given to Johnny at the NYC drop by the Sculptor. We had used the first key, Sharp Teeth, to access the job key for Job #1. Now we were apparently ready to use the second key, which turns out to be the newspaper clipping about the Barierascu family with the word EMET written on it in Hebrew.
Following the hints in Reply #2, Transtar figured out how to rearrange the text of the article into 22 character columns such that the strings "cynuB" and "sious" would pop out once we took the appropriate columns as indicated by the EMET clue.
You think that would lead to glorious victory, wouldn't you?
As outlined here, here, here, and here, there are multiple possibilities for possible strings of random characters generated by rearranging the article text that would include one or both of those special strings and still be 128 characters long, as required by safeget. Given that the string will be rejected if even one character is wrong, there are too many possibilities for error to even begin to know where things are going awry. For whatever reason, we still haven't been able to get into the safeget auction for Job #2, and we aren't receiving any more help, and the eclipse is fast approaching.
I have a bad feeling about this. If we are supposed to help the completion of the I-Ching auction (that is, to "arrange peck up of goods"), we don't have the information we need to even begin to do that. Additionally, there is Job #3 still sitting out there, waiting for us to figure out what it means to become a "signed bargainer." If we can only become a signed bargainer by helping to complete Job #2, then we are truly and deeply stuck.
But luckily, if Chorazos needs us to accomplish these tasks, then at least they are stuck too...
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don't tempt the mayhem |
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Transtar
Joined: 25 Sep 2007
Posts: 260
Location: Marietta, Ga
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| Posted: Mon Feb 18, 2008 2:38 pm Post subject: |
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a quick question..has anyone posted a reply in the key that we think is the best? maybe we're not supposed to see any replys and just set up the pickup?
Ok another thought, use the codes to see if it opens up an admin mode on job 1 to make us "signed"?
//Casts magic missle
// attacks the darkness
///aka taking shots in the dark while drinking a mountain dew
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Unknownwarrior33
Joined: 01 Dec 2007
Posts: 119
Location: Grinnell, IA (College); North Suburbs of Chicago (Home)
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| Posted: Mon Feb 18, 2008 5:31 pm Post subject: |
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NOTE BEFORE I BEGIN: I just started participating regularly at the Outpost yesterday, so some or all of what I'm about to say is probably old news. But alas, here it is anyway.
Most (OK, all) of this is over my head. Still, would it be possible to figure out a way to get a computer to try every possible code that includes the two necessary strings?
Barring that, there's probably another clue we're missing. There are so many possibilities of what that could mean that I realize it isn't much help, but still, let's think about it. It's possible something like one of the tarot codes might have more than one meaning.
I also like Transtar's idea of setting up the pickup. If I understand Transtar correctly, that means responding to the Craigslist auction. The thing being auctioned might be what we need. |
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Endercoaster
Joined: 12 Dec 2007
Posts: 66
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| Posted: Mon Feb 18, 2008 5:47 pm Post subject: |
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| You only get 9 attempts per IP, so brute force=bad idea. Good plan though. I do have to question though whether any of the typos in the article are part of are key and if we've tried correcting said typos. |
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Unknownwarrior33
Joined: 01 Dec 2007
Posts: 119
Location: Grinnell, IA (College); North Suburbs of Chicago (Home)
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| Posted: Mon Feb 18, 2008 5:50 pm Post subject: |
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Yeah, I figured someone had thought of brute force already.
What about the auction thing? Has that also been picked up and thrown down already?
The typos caught my eye too. Again, there are definitely more clues here than we've found. |
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Dav Flamerock
Joined: 27 Apr 2007
Posts: 450
Location: East Bay, CA
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| Posted: Mon Feb 18, 2008 10:37 pm Post subject: |
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Yeah, typos are still unknowns to us. But I did reply to make us "SIGNED BARGAINERS"
_________________
~Dav Flamerock
"There are probably seven persons, in all, who really like my work; and they are enough. I should write even if I were the only patient reader, for my aim is merely self-expression." ~H.P. Lovecraft
I think this means something, but it's going to take a little more digging. ~ Eddie Pope
(Smith, Tessla, GreenieXIII, Anaru, KyubiKiitsune) |
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Unknownwarrior33
Joined: 01 Dec 2007
Posts: 119
Location: Grinnell, IA (College); North Suburbs of Chicago (Home)
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| Posted: Mon Feb 18, 2008 10:42 pm Post subject: |
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| Sounds good, Dav. |
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Tenchizard
Joined: 15 Feb 2008
Posts: 8
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| Posted: Tue Feb 19, 2008 7:56 am Post subject: |
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I've veen playing around with the clipping, and I've tried formatting the text in different ways: with and without hyphens and with the very exact format you can see in the high res pic. One thing in common in all the tries is that I've been able to finde the cynuB thing, but sious only appears when you don't put any hyphens AND you follow the standard punctuation rules for texts (spacing AFTER stops and commas and such).
That shows one thing for sure: cynuB appears with the letters from the first paragraph before any conflictive character (the hyphens and the places in the text when you can't see a space after a stop in the pic).
Now I'll try to eliminate all spaces from the long string you get (without hyphens and with correct spacing) and count if it is 128 chars long... just squeezing all possibilities : / |
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Feriwiccan
Joined: 12 Jan 2008
Posts: 59
Location: Chelmsford, MA
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| Posted: Tue Feb 19, 2008 9:13 am Post subject: |
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| Thanks for clearing that up, Tenchizard; I was wondering exactly where the two words showed up. Could you (or anyone else who's done this) maybe post all of the attempts and label them? No one's done this yet. |
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Tenchizard
Joined: 15 Feb 2008
Posts: 8
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| Posted: Tue Feb 19, 2008 10:24 am Post subject: |
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This one is from the beginning (includint titles) without spaces
| Code: |
| ILoBis"eecetdlrAo0iIicynuBedFo$on.caenhh$dioi1npneia"ottnersttuBgauaraemtzoIotonlhieasBetauBto,tfsious.iretbno,hsltotpeetiinh6ic |
And this one is from the beginning, with spaces
| Code: |
| ILoB i s"eecetdl rAo0 iIicynuBedFo$o n.ca e nh h$dioi1npn eia"ottnersttuBgaua raem tzoIotonlhi easBe ta uBto , tfsious.ire |
None of these does anything special. Oh, and also tried no spaces nor puntuaction marks from the begining, but didn't save it... doesnt work either
EDIT: oh, one more thing. As transtar got that sious with the two "also" in the wrong text from the wiki, we can guess sious appears BEFORE those two alsos, I'll try to take a closer look later. |
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Transtar
Joined: 25 Sep 2007
Posts: 260
Location: Marietta, Ga
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| Posted: Tue Feb 19, 2008 3:04 pm Post subject: |
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Tench - since there was a paragraph break before the sious the extra also just changed things between the also and the paragraph break.
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Tenchizard
Joined: 15 Feb 2008
Posts: 8
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| Posted: Tue Feb 19, 2008 4:49 pm Post subject: |
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That's right Transtar, didn't take that into account.
Anyway, I've done a bit more research about that cynuB and sious, and...
cynuB definitely appears in the first paragraph, in these two lines:
| Code: |
n t h e t h r e e y e a r s s i n c
e t h e n , t h e B a r i e r a s c u
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Taking the columns 22-13-1 you get
sious appears here:
| Code: |
o f b o t h o f h i s p a r e n t s
. J o r m a , h i m s e l f r e s c u
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and looks like this:
These lines are in the third paragraph, before the double also, so that only changed letters after the sious and before the next break. The only thing I can deduct from this is that paragraph 1 is correct in its spacing, and so is paragraph 3. So, if paragraph 3 is correct, it means that when a paragraph ends, that line is filled with blanks and the next one begins at the first column again (I was wondering if paragraphs should be put all together one after the other without blanks).
I know this is not really that useful, but I can't find out anything else.
I have a question anyway... what was that "goes with 22,0 grid" message about? I don't know if it was a clue for job 1 or if it is for this other code, to know where to start the 128 code for job 2... |
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Feriwiccan
Joined: 12 Jan 2008
Posts: 59
Location: Chelmsford, MA
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| Posted: Thu Feb 21, 2008 12:54 pm Post subject: |
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I'm leaving another poem-code at job 3 to see if I can get a response. (I think we agreed somewhere that this would be our general signature?)
| Quote: |
One red eye in the sky, shouldn't there be two? One in our dreams but three in our nightmares.
Only one to rule them all, but you'll need three to find them, and a band of five to bring them all and under three eyes bind them.
heaven knows her --
she's our only hope
in times
of dire darkness.
we have naught
but a simple
bit of light: her.
an angel, a demon, we do not care
for she
embodies truth
and all that we can stand for. |
For anyone who thinks I stole something from JRR Tolkien, I dont know what you're talking about. 
Dav, you have permission to smack me with a fish if I did that wrong.
EDIT: My key is 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000
00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
00000000000000000000000000012345678 so people can check it, because I might not be able to.
Last edited by Feriwiccan on Thu Feb 21, 2008 1:04 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Unknownwarrior33
Joined: 01 Dec 2007
Posts: 119
Location: Grinnell, IA (College); North Suburbs of Chicago (Home)
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| Posted: Thu Feb 21, 2008 1:00 pm Post subject: |
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| Hopefully it's not too late for this. Again, I guess we'll know soon enough. |
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Sapagoo
Joined: 20 Apr 2007
Posts: 207
Location: Atlanta, GA
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| Posted: Thu Feb 21, 2008 2:34 pm Post subject: |
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| Feriwiccan wrote: |
I'm leaving another poem-code at job 3 to see if I can get a response. (I think we agreed somewhere that this would be our general signature?)
| Quote: |
One red eye in the sky, shouldn't there be two? One in our dreams but three in our nightmares.
Only one to rule them all, but you'll need three to find them, and a band of five to bring them all and under three eyes bind them.
heaven knows her --
she's our only hope
in times
of dire darkness.
we have naught
but a simple
bit of light: her.
an angel, a demon, we do not care
for she
embodies truth
and all that we can stand for. |
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I like what you've done.
Although, as designated QA, I don't like line 4 of the 2nd stanza.
"of dire darkness" doesn't sound right.
maybe "of growing darkness."
of "of dismal darkness."
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