The Arcane Ensconced by Mr Everyday
October 2nd, 2008 4:18 AMOh, and I suppose that it's technically zero-leveling another (retired) task, but I won't be claiming that.
The staff at McDonalds were pretty unsure about it when I rocked up to pay my dollar to hang it for a week (you need an official stamp, unofficial messages are taken down REALLY quickly). They showed it to 4 or 5 people out the back and argued, but finally decided it wasn't any weirder than ads for flatmates or cars for sale. SWEET. Being suited probably helped - no mere drone argues with the suit (I've only really started wearing it again the last month or so, for warmth, and it's been facinating from a sociological point of view).
I'm just disappointed I didn't get first complete this time ;-/
The Code
This is the code in question. A vote will be given to the first person to solve it.
Noticeboard
Here it is on the noticeboard, offically valid for 1 week.
15 vote(s)
The Cloud Man
1
saille is planting praxis
5
emma ungoldman
3
Jennifer Juniper
2
Luai Lashire
1
Mad Beth
3
Anna Louise
1
Charlie Fish
3
praximity
5
Kid A
1
Augustus deCorbeau
5
Joshua Judkins
4
Dav Flamerock
5
Adam Bordelon
5
Palindromedary
Favorite of:
Terms
(none yet)46 comment(s)
Perhaps (I don't have the flimsies with me), but what does it MEAN? That's a fail for solve.
I got the same thing Bryce. I suppose it's not Morse, all evidence to the contrary.
I think it's pretty clearly Morse code. It's just using that to display the ciphertext; "the key is PATIENCE" is a hint about how to crack the plaintext behind that. (My thought was that it could be a vigenere cipher, but that doesn't seem to work.)
None of the 'obvious' ciphers have worked for me, although I did fool around with plain substitution for a while assuming "MO0" is "SF0" ... and got nowhere.
[edit to clarify]: unless i'm decrypting wrong -- not vigenere, not beaufort OR variant beaufort, not a playfair.
Also there's a flaw in Monotony's ciphertext, isn't there? It's CYYQ, not CYYYQ.
This is going to haunt me all day!
For the record, there is an extra "Y" in Monotony's Morse Code translation. Should be:
OPOBMCXQTCYYQOBNDHMO0ICWTHH
Maybe hearing it would help us solve it?
Does this code sound vaguely musical to you? Perhaps patience is a key to some sort of song...
It definately sounds like the sort of thing you could build a techno song around... actually, I'm surprised more of them haven't used morse... Maybe for a kind of steam-punk techno. And Lincoln, thanks a lot, that sir is GOLDEN.
Steam-punk techno with Morse code samples? Yes please!
Thirty minutes in GarageBand says hell yes! consider this my creative vote until i crack this fucker.
That is such a unique little ditty in tone and origins. I am reminded why I love SF0 by the entire oddness that this exists.
wtf emma? did you make that?....make me more !!! I DEMAND A FULL HOUR LENGTH CD FOR MY CAR OF THIS MORE CODE TECHNO!
that was actually really fun to do, not just in concept. it's easy to play around with pure tones. next time maybe i'll cheat less and make a full morse eight-track!
Hey Emma, for some reason I can't get that file format to play on my machine... silly machine. Good effort though.
As for an eight track... I'm pretty sure you mean "pressed wax Edison gramophone tube" ;->
How's this? Converted it to mp3.
you cad! edison's shameful treatment of the great tesla ensures my inability to use his new-fangled mess. i will perform the eight morse melodies myself, with some assistance from my ac electric chair.
Brilliant job Emma. That will definitely be added to my daily drive music. Thanks for converting it too, you're a gem.
As for Edison, well, yes, the man was a fink, but I confess to LOVING his original design gramophone. We used to have one in a shop I worked at, and we'd crank it up on quiet nights. I came THIS >.
It's not an additive cipher either. Hmm.
this is REALLY annoying me. im at work and i keep clicking back to this praxis...>.> fill my brains with answers
Whatever it says, I love that you posted it where you did.
Maybe the McDonald guys are similarly haunted...
Thanks Suzy - even apart from it being the most looked at noticeboard in town it seemed an appropriate spot. Besides, the money goes to charity.
I'm kinda hoping they solve it - though it's away from the counter area, more where people sit.
Despite my (deeply ironic) comment about them being "drones" most of the McDonalds staff here either have, or are on their way to getting, a degree so there's probably a few who would have a go.
For those of you struggling with the Cipher, those who guessed the pun "The key is patience" are right, that's the cipher. There IS a small kink in it, in that I ignored the zero when counting letters.
The actual cipher is one of the easy ones. Don't know the name, but it was the job of 2 minutes with a piece of paper and simple maths to code it in. Not Batman got the plaintext of the morse correct.
I've just rechecked the cipher and my calculations were correct - That's the correct plaintext. As a clue, the message is both a truth about, and a suggestion to the solver.
Nice one Loki... Slightly garbled, and I lost the thread at the start of the 4th set of 5, but very nice with the morse..
OK, Loki messaged me the correct message - Somehow I COMPLETELY missed the meaning of his response. Can't believe the message my subconscious created from what I heard... Never mind.
I have very few points to give. But now I believe someone has solved it and I still don't see the answer, and that just makes the whole thing more f'ing brilliant.
Thanks Dopey. I'm glad everyone is having so much fun with this... would you believe that I originally put it into morse in part because I thought it would be too easy to crack if I didn't (the other reasons were aesthetic, and as a reference to a book - which Loki finished 10 hours before I posted this praxis, which might be why he cracked it ;->).
ASKOLXNQVRNDG. You know, the sad thing is, I guessed it, and then I was like, "No, that's too nerdy." I GUESS I WAS WRONG HUH. The last of my vote points to you!
Thanks a BUNCH emma, just 1 point til level 2!!!
I'm guessing you got the book right (right number of letters), but I can't for the life of me figure out what key you used if it's the one I'm thinking of... Just a random 1 time key?
Hahah, no, a) I encrypted it wrong and b) it's not quite the message you think it is. The number of letters is a funny coincidence though. I'll fix it when I'm less tired.
I'm coming out of my not-voting-ness to vote for this because I think it deserves more votes for sparking so many comments and so much entertainment for other players. It's all gone right straight over my head, just to be perfectly clear on that score. Hooray for Mr Everyday -- an accomplished cryptonerd who also takes artful photographs. A force to be reckoned with, I dare to say.
Although I don't really know if you're accomplished or not, since this has all gone right straight past me. :-S
Brilliant!
I have no clue what it says, but just to have that hanging amongst the "for sale" messages is genius.
Below is the Answer to the cipher, for those who wish to know what it is.... Spoliers spoilers etc....
First I might just tell you how to solve it yourself, just in case you want to give it a go. In order to put things INTO this code...
1/ Write the alphabet out - Twice.
2/ Give the letters numerical values from 1 - 52.
3/ Choose a "Key". This may be of any lenght, but short keys are easier to crack by computer etc... In this case I chose the key "Patience"
4/ Add the value of your "message letters" to the value of your "key letters".
For example "Patience" is 16,1,20,9,5,14,3,5". If my message is "Code" (3,15,4,5) Then the sum for the first 4 pairs will be 16+3=19, 1+15=16, 20+4=24, 9+5=14. Thus "Code" would change to "SPXN" once encoded.
If your message is longer than your key, start at the beginning of the key again. Note that in my message I treated 0 as if it was not there and left it unencoded.
In order to "Solve" the code, simply revese the process.
This really is one of the nice simple codes out ther. No need for fancy devices. You can even just count it out on your fingers (thought writing out the alphabet makes it MUCH quicker).
anyway, if you are just wanting to read the answer...
spoiler
spoiler
spoiler
My message read "You Should be playing SF0(dot)org", and if someone cracked that from seeing it in public, that's entirely true...
>.> i almost got it once i got the book name but was too lazy to do it last night. great job
I love that book... Even beats Snow Crash.
Yes, it does. I still haven't read his Baroque Sequence yet, but I started "Cobweb" today, and it seems good so far.
Still, It DOESN'T have a hero called "Hiro Protagonist", which loses it a FEW points.
I've tried to read Cryptonomicon several times now and I keep getting bogged down by the whole not-being-smart-enough-to-follow thing. I have gotten to the part about the music of the pipe organ and the math in the woods and I just get lost, and I put it down and then don't remember where I was when I pick it back up again, so I start over from the beginning. And I love the car chase scene, but then it turns into incomprehensible math and music again, and I put it down. This exact thing has happened to me I'm guessing ten times now. Seriously. But I know it's good, so I keep trying.
But better than Snow Crash? I dunno. How can you beat "Poor Impulse Control"?
OPOBMCXQTCYYYQOBNDHMO0ICWTHH