yosmas 2016 puzzles: dammit ahmeni you've had 9 months

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > YOSPOS > yosmas 2016 puzzles: dammit ahmeni you've had 9 months

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Wiggly Wayne DDS: Sep 11, 2010

an unsolved puzzle from yosmas past: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3795578&pagenumber=24&perpage=40#post467501521

so as part of the yosmas present to ahmeni i sent him a lockbox to open, and inside it, amongst actual presents, was this:

alongside a usb drive with a combination lock:

much like the locks i didn't try to make this complex or particularly challenging (considering the thread would dive on it as well it would have required ahmeni though)

code:

02412163070960115129
25611089222260122203
08920135041350603004
29216236040710816206
07104061100181006304
15220089262240411925
11715089332193005007
22605163180841506902

if anyone cares to try and solve it and let me get rid of the solution that'd be great

# ? Sep 18, 2017 16:04

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# ? May 7, 2024 05:48

Pile Of Garbage: May 28, 2007

that's a really cool present ahmeni explain yourself

# ? Sep 18, 2017 16:27

BangersInMyKnickers: Nov 3, 2004; I have a thing for courageous dongles

that code spells out "use an angle grinder"

# ? Sep 18, 2017 16:29

Schadenboner: Aug 15, 2011; by Shine

BangersInMyKnickers posted:

that code spells out "use an angle grinder"

I think it spells "Nice call-out thread!"?

# ? Sep 18, 2017 16:29

r u ready to WALK: Sep 29, 2001

After all that torment I hope they have a sacrificial laptop to test it on, the stick is most likely a USB killer/zapper

# ? Sep 18, 2017 17:01

Wiggly Wayne DDS: Sep 11, 2010

the contents of the usb drive are irrelevant, i didn't put a puzzle on there because that's too many layers deep for a present

# ? Sep 18, 2017 17:12

Share Bear: Apr 27, 2004

these always come down to knowledge of techniques rather than super cool insight

it seems like its broken into 2-digit pieces based on the pattern in writing

code:

2	41	21	63	7	9	60	11	51	29
25	61	10	89	22	22	60	12	22	3
8	92	1	35	4	13	50	60	30	4
29	21	62	36	4	7	10	81	62	6
7	10	40	61	10	1	81	0	63	4
15	22	0	89	26	22	40	41	19	25
11	71	50	89	33	21	93	0	50	7
22	60	51	63	18	8	41	50	69	2

maybe a frequency analysis based on character frequency?
LOADING HACKER TOOLS (EXCEL 2010)

code:

Row Labels	Total
0	3
1	2
2	2
3	1
4	4
6	1
7	4
8	2
9	1
10	4
11	2
12	1
13	1
15	1
18	1
19	1
21	3
22	6
25	2
26	1
29	2
30	1
33	1
35	1
36	1
40	2
41	3
50	4
51	2
60	4
61	2
62	2
63	3
69	1
71	1
81	2
89	3
92	1
93	1
Grand Total	80

so 22 is probably E? maybe?

# ? Sep 18, 2017 17:28

Wiggly Wayne DDS: Sep 11, 2010

analysis would be a good idea, but you're going in the wrong direction

# ? Sep 18, 2017 17:37

Wiggly Wayne DDS: Sep 11, 2010

let me make that post more helpful, rather than jump to frequency analysis and try force a substitution cipher solution out: just use it on its own to get an idea of composition of the ciphertext and reason out how much information could be hidden given the size of data. it's a fair assumption that information is being passed from one person to another, but are there any unusual patterns or things that don't look quite right for ciphers you are familiar with?

# ? Sep 18, 2017 18:04

Share Bear: Apr 27, 2004

Wiggly Wayne DDS posted:

let me make that post more helpful, rather than jump to frequency analysis and try force a substitution cipher solution out: just use it on its own to get an idea of composition of the ciphertext and reason out how much information could be hidden given the size of data. it's a fair assumption that information is being passed from one person to another, but are there any unusual patterns or things that don't look quite right for ciphers you are familiar with?

ive actually never gotten any of these right nor know anything beyond what i just did
only figured it could be transposed base 36+punctuation based on letter count (there's 38 unique 2-digit codes) and thats all i got

# ? Sep 18, 2017 18:05

burning swine: May 26, 2004

Wiggly Wayne DDS posted:

are there any unusual patterns or things that don't look quite right

yeah i don't see any 69s or 420s what gives

# ? Sep 18, 2017 18:11

anthonypants: May 6, 2007; by Nyc_Tattoo; Dinosaur Gum

COACHS SPORT BAR posted:

yeah i don't see any 69s or 420s what gives

but there is a 219

89 appears four times, and three of those are in the same column. based on the hand-written part i'd say there's something up with lines 6 and 7, like they wrote that part that ends in 89 first, or that the part that ends in 89 is one piece of the puzzle. i don't know anything about cryptography though :shrug:

anthonypants fucked around with this message at 18:46 on Sep 18, 2017

# ? Sep 18, 2017 18:43

Wiggly Wayne DDS: Sep 11, 2010

COACHS SPORT BAR posted:

yeah i don't see any 69s or 420s what gives

the last four digits are 6902

# ? Sep 18, 2017 19:38

burning swine: May 26, 2004

Wiggly Wayne DDS posted:

the last four digits are 6902

well poo poo

# ? Sep 18, 2017 19:59

Daman: Oct 28, 2011

zero is really frequent, and the pairing post above does look like a pattern

code:

[33] pry(main)> x.chars.each do |c| h[c] = h[c]+1 end; h
=> {"0"=>38, "1"=>28, "2"=>26, "3"=>11, "4"=>9, "5"=>10, "6"=>15, "7"=>5, "8"=>8, "9"=>10}

pairing it:

code:

[40] pry(main)> hexed = Hash.new(0); x.scan(/../).each do |v| hexed[v] = hexed[v]+1; end; hexed
=> {"02"=>2,
 "41"=>3,
 "21"=>3,
 "63"=>3,
 "07"=>4,
 "09"=>1,
 "60"=>4,
 "11"=>2,
 "51"=>2,
 "29"=>2,
 "25"=>2,
 "61"=>2,
 "10"=>4,
 "89"=>3,
 "22"=>6,
 "12"=>1,
 "03"=>1,
 "08"=>2,
 "92"=>1,
 "01"=>2,
 "35"=>1,
 "04"=>4,
 "13"=>1,
 "50"=>4,
 "30"=>1,
 "62"=>2,
 "36"=>1,
 "81"=>2,
 "06"=>1,
 "40"=>2,
 "00"=>3,
 "15"=>1,
 "26"=>1,
 "19"=>1,
 "71"=>1,
 "33"=>1,
 "93"=>1,
 "18"=>1,
 "69"=>1}

1 occurs a lot in it, which makes me think if you render the blob as binary maybe it shows a picture or something. alas im at work

also the values are often in the ascii range so maybe it's a shift/xor (actually doubtful nvm it probably represents the alphabet or a table somehow, then we map "yospos" onto it and get 5 numbers out of it)

Daman fucked around with this message at 21:30 on Sep 18, 2017

# ? Sep 18, 2017 21:22

spankmeister: Jun 15, 2008

They look like hex bytes to me but not all bytes are in the right range.

Also I tried a shift (full ascii) but that doesn't seem to work

# ? Sep 18, 2017 21:36

infernal machines: Oct 11, 2012; we monitor many frequencies. we listen always. came a voice, out of the babel of tongues, speaking to us. it played us a mighty dub.

hmm, it says "be sure to drink your ovaltine"

# ? Sep 18, 2017 21:57

Wiggly Wayne DDS: Sep 11, 2010

so there's unigram and bigram frequency analysis, any other traits to look for?

# ? Sep 18, 2017 22:06

echinopsis: Apr 13, 2004; by Fluffdaddy

if someone has any links to a pre crypto 101
course so i can learn how to unravel the mysteries of rot13
i would appreciate w

# ? Sep 18, 2017 22:24

Mr. Nice!: Oct 13, 2005; c-spam cannot afford

i'm just spitballing, but i'm betting the words merry yosmas, yospos bitch, and the 5 numbers for the lock are all there.

# ? Sep 18, 2017 22:47

Lain Iwakura: Aug 5, 2004; The body exists only to verify one's own existence.; Taco Defender

https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3834677

here's another one to take a crack at too

# ? Sep 18, 2017 22:57

Rufus Ping: Dec 27, 2006; I'm a Friend of Rodney Nano

split into 5-digit chunks (5 wheels on the lock)

first digit of each is always in {0,1,2}

# ? Sep 19, 2017 01:07

BONGHITZ: Jan 1, 1970

12345

# ? Sep 19, 2017 01:14

post hole digger: Mar 21, 2011

i dont know op

# ? Sep 19, 2017 01:17

Rufus Ping: Dec 27, 2006; I'm a Friend of Rodney Nano

Rufus Ping posted:

split into 5-digit chunks (5 wheels on the lock)

first digit of each is always in {0,1,2}

split into 5-digit chunks and transposed for clarity

pre:

01012022011022010000102110202100 - only {0,1,2}
26955822833393767616582118152686 - no 0s or 4s
43616962955026121183294979906349 - all digits present
10021200200010000110220213300110 - only {0,1,2,3}
27191213046464864004064553075852 - all digits present

Rufus Ping fucked around with this message at 01:52 on Sep 19, 2017

# ? Sep 19, 2017 01:39

Rufus Ping: Dec 27, 2006; I'm a Friend of Rodney Nano

Wiggly Wayne DDS posted:

just use it on its own to get an idea of composition of the ciphertext and reason out how much information could be hidden given the size of data

160 decimal digits = ~66 bytes

but theres obviously some inefficient coding going on, so less

# ? Sep 19, 2017 01:43

r u ready to WALK: Sep 29, 2001

use brute force, it's the american way

just put tension on the lock by pulling on the strap and rotate each wheel until you feel something dragging against a gate, i bet it doesn't have that great tolerances so it should be easy to do

and then we can work backwards from the solution

# ? Sep 19, 2017 06:09

Moo Cowabunga: Jun 15, 2009; [Office Worker.

op got owned by sick australian filth

# ? Sep 19, 2017 06:40

Wiggly Wayne DDS: Sep 11, 2010

Rufus Ping posted:

split into 5-digit chunks and transposed for clarity

pre:

01012022011022010000102110202100 - only {0,1,2}
26955822833393767616582118152686 - no 0s or 4s
43616962955026121183294979906349 - all digits present
10021200200010000110220213300110 - only {0,1,2,3}
27191213046464864004064553075852 - all digits present

now this is a pattern

code:

02412163070960115129
25611089222260122203
08920135041350603004
29216236040710816206
07104061100181006304
15220089262240411925
11715089332193005007
22605163180841506902

turns to

code:

theorise away

Wiggly Wayne DDS fucked around with this message at 08:47 on Sep 19, 2017

# ? Sep 19, 2017 07:52

fins: May 31, 2011; Floss Finder

code:

interesting looking section !

# ? Sep 19, 2017 19:11

Daman: Oct 28, 2011

there's a bunch of values that are very close to eachother, which makes me think position isn't part of the encoding (since they occur far apart). here's the list sorted to make them obvious

code:

 "01810",
 "02412",
 "03004",
 "05007",
 "06110",
 "06304",
 "06902",
 "07104",
 "07108",
 "08415",
 "08920",
 "08922",
 "08926",
 "08933",
 "09601",
 "11715",
 "11925",
 "13504",
 "13506",
 "15129",
 "15220",
 "16206",
 "16307",
 "16318",
 "21930",
 "22203",
 "22404",
 "22601",
 "22605",
 "23604",
 "25611",
 "29216"

and the natural reaction is to sum up the original digit blocks to see what values you get

code:

[18] pry(main)> orig.scan(/.{5}/).map{ |v| v.scan(/./).map{|e| e.to_i}.reduce(:+) }
=> [9, 17, 16, 18, 15, 21, 11, 9, 19, 13, 15, 7, 20, 15, 16, 15, 12, 8, 10, 13, 10, 25, 12, 18, 15, 23, 15, 12, 15, 19, 18, 17]

that range looks pretty alphabetic, though treating it as an offset from A or Z doesn't really get anything...

code:

[27] pry(main)> x.scan(/.{5}/).map{ |v| v.scan(/./).map{|e| e.to_i}.reduce(:+)}.map{|e| (65+e).chr}
=> ["J", "R", "Q", "S", "P", "V", "L", "J", "T", "N", "P", "H", "U", "P", "Q", "P", "M", "I", "K", "N", "K", "Z", "M", "S", "P", "X", "P", "M", "P", "T", "S", "R"]

code:

[29] pry(main)> x.scan(/.{5}/).map{ |v| v.scan(/./).map{|e| e.to_i}.reduce(:+)}.map{|e| (90-e).chr}
=> ["Q", "I", "J", "H", "K", "E", "O", "Q", "G", "M", "K", "S", "F", "K", "J", "K", "N", "R", "P", "M", "P", "A", "N", "H", "K", "C", "K", "N", "K", "G", "H", "I"]

e: ehhh idk about alphabetic, all the values trend heavily toward the middle of the 1-26 range

Daman fucked around with this message at 19:46 on Sep 19, 2017

# ? Sep 19, 2017 19:32

Wiggly Wayne DDS: Sep 11, 2010

i did say this would require ahmeni

# ? Sep 19, 2017 19:36

ahmeni: May 1, 2005; It's one continuous form where hardware and software function in perfect unison, creating a new generation of iPhone that's better by any measure.; Grimey Drawer

Wiggly Wayne DDS posted:

i did say this would require ahmeni

the irn bru still remains in my cupboard and not even my scottish friend will take it

# ? Sep 19, 2017 23:24

ahmeni: May 1, 2005; It's one continuous form where hardware and software function in perfect unison, creating a new generation of iPhone that's better by any measure.; Grimey Drawer

also whats up YOSPOS I haven't posted in 9 months

# ? Sep 19, 2017 23:26

Chris Knight: Jun 5, 2002; me @ ur posts; Fun Shoe

Wiggly Wayne DDS posted:

i did say this would require ahmeni

you forgot the #include

# ? Sep 19, 2017 23:58

Wiggly Wayne DDS: Sep 11, 2010

ahmeni posted:

also whats up YOSPOS I haven't posted in 9 months

welcome back i hope you still have your presents

# ? Sep 20, 2017 00:02

Rufus Ping: Dec 27, 2006; I'm a Friend of Rodney Nano

did you get any books. could be a one time pad where digit(s) correspond to book number / chapter number / page number / paragraph etc

# ? Sep 20, 2017 02:11

Max Peck: Oct 12, 2013; You know you're having a bad day when a Cylon ambush would improve it.

Rufus Ping posted:

did you get any books. could be a one time pad where digit(s) correspond to book number / chapter number / page number / paragraph etc

I could go for the first three digits of each group being a page number, The Joy of Linux is 368 pages, so 292 being the highest would allow for stuff like prefaces

# ? Sep 20, 2017 02:33

Rufus Ping: Dec 27, 2006; I'm a Friend of Rodney Nano

The last two being the word number is also plausible

# ? Sep 20, 2017 02:39

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# ? May 7, 2024 05:48

ahmeni: May 1, 2005; It's one continuous form where hardware and software function in perfect unison, creating a new generation of iPhone that's better by any measure.; Grimey Drawer

Wiggly Wayne DDS posted:

welcome back i hope you still have your presents

I do! my youngest was quite fond of the puzzle though so it might take a bit to unearth

# ? Sep 20, 2017 03:28

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > YOSPOS > yosmas 2016 puzzles: dammit ahmeni you've had 9 months

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