search

Faeranne / PrototypeHARP-Research

Research notes and code for ProjectHARP
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLnUCqTKzy6QKHgiUry3Z_IdYSDRqopJL3
MIT License
2 stars 0 forks source link

Unknown Numbers #5

Open Faeranne opened 7 years ago

Faeranne commented 7 years ago

What do the numbers 588872943124282030399478301168915802302423130847520232836494683907672278768724884179218375754768 mean?

Faeranne commented 7 years ago

Available Decoder suggests fjtpexbtdmpzdkpmfbdxwmhuzbfelppmgovzxixjoauewwup, but that doesn't seem to work anywhere just yet.

yotann commented 7 years ago

Have you ever used a decoder ring in real life? I think I got one in a cereal box once.

Faeranne commented 7 years ago

Ya, but what I was given was more of a decoder wheel, and just matches a-z to 1-100 with the values repeating after 26. I will look at uploading the file I have that returned the output above.

yotann commented 7 years ago

I mean, there's more to it than that. A real decoder ring/wheel has moving parts, and in this case you have to move them in order to solve the puzzle.

Faeranne commented 7 years ago

Fair point. Since it is an image on a pdf, I've gone through and added a javascript tool to try and simulate the decoders results in various ways. No results yet.

mctom987 commented 7 years ago

The board's RC1 and RC2 match up a little too closely to the decoder wheel's 1st and 2nd wheels. Haven't been able to decode anything with this, however.

yotann commented 7 years ago

You're almost there; you just have to find the right key for the decoder wheel. After you decode the message you'll probably want to get your camera ready.

Faeranne commented 7 years ago

@yotann Thanks for the hint. Unfortunately I've hit a brick wall on this key. I'm guessing I've missed something obvious.

yotann commented 7 years ago

The key is a four-letter word from the same message as the wheel. You have to rotate the boxed numbers (01, 27, 53, 79) to line up with the corresponding letters of the key, then use the wheel to decode the message. Watch out for off-by-one errors!

Faeranne commented 7 years ago

Found the bug with my tools, but still end up with garbage data. I'm going to try poking these values on the board, but not expecting much. HOPE = qfelqqnmpylkpdaiqupqpfaglurawlayzzokieqfawnahhga HARP = oucaeqbmdmaiddyxoudqpfauzufpuaymzxoigtquolnpffuy

yotann commented 7 years ago

The key is HOPE and the decoded message is unitseparatorrequiredtoinitiateandcommencebillie. (That's one of the lines in your options.txt, so you were definitely on the right track when you made that file.)

putnam commented 3 years ago

I'm revisiting my puzzle after solving it years ago, and somehow cannot figure out what to do next after decoding this message. Surprisingly very little out there about this puzzle besides this repo. Sorry for the necro, but do any of you remember enough to give me a hint to move on? :)

FWIW, the state of my LED is green, and the RF and Recorder modules are offline. I've tried attaching/detaching the bridge wire which makes no difference.

By the way, in case someone sees this some day: the cipher used is the Mexican Army Cipher. I just googled "decoder wheel" and clicked around in Google Image Search until I saw one that matched. Plenty of online sites that will decode this for you given the initial wheel positions (which can be a 4-letter word, which is rather obvious on the confirmation email pdf)

Faeranne commented 3 years ago

mmm... it's been too long since I attempted this, and my module disappeared during our makerspace closure, so I unfortunately can't help here right now. Might look into rebuilding the module using the original source. I'm sure I've got it stored somewhere....

xrm commented 3 years ago

@Faeranne Sorry for grave-digging this further, but ...

@putnam Just searched through my notes and found this: 1) I powered up the board, put in the resistor, corrected the address for booting the board. 2) Hit CTRL+D, got the numbers, decoded them with HOPE and the mail. 3) Almost broke the board in two halves but realized that Unit Seperation means something different ... 4) Did the separation, Billie came up. (I'm not sure about the order of the next few things, it was late when I did that) 5) Cut the antenna to take the board offline. 6) Measured the voltages, helped Billie to debug itself. 7) Ordered a BioS (3 $ for the chip, 22 $ for shipping ... ouch), put it in, Billie booted completely, gave the password for the Oktoberfest 8) Decrypted Oktoberfest, read through the documents, viewed the videos, understood that the filenames are base64-encoded; decoded them. 9) Went back to Billie who got mad at me because I was gone for so long, said he'll hack everything around.

Does that help?

putnam commented 3 years ago

Very helpful -- I remember most of this as well, but just can't remember how to do step 4 (the separation). I'm sure I'm missing something embarrassing. Do you remember anything about that step that you can provide as a hint?

I also had notes like yours, as in, a full write-up from beginning to end, but I deleted it after thinking I'd never see the puzzle again...

putnam commented 3 years ago

I also seem to remember the BIOS was not strictly necessary. It was something you could bypass by downloading a file somewhere instead. (I did buy one though)

xrm commented 3 years ago

@putnam Sure! It's probably better to look for a "unit separator" than for an actual separation.

Let me know if that helps (or not), I can also be more specific.

Cheers! ^_

putnam commented 3 years ago

Could you be a little more specific? It may sound dumb right now, but I’ve tried inputting various kinds of separators like commas, symbols, etc. to no avail.

This time I’ll have to do a full write up with spoilered clues for future puzzlers.

On Wed, Aug 11, 2021 at 3:24 AM xrm @.***> wrote:

@putnam https://github.com/putnam Sure! It's probably better to look for a "unit separator" than for an actual separation.

Let me know if that helps (or not), I can also be more specific.

Cheers! ^_

— You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/Faeranne/PrototypeHARP-Research/issues/5#issuecomment-896615084, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AAASBT74XU43CATCDWVUE2TT4IXS3ANCNFSM4DZN5HIQ . Triage notifications on the go with GitHub Mobile for iOS https://apps.apple.com/app/apple-store/id1477376905?ct=notification-email&mt=8&pt=524675 or Android https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.github.android&utm_campaign=notification-email .

xrm commented 3 years ago

Of course!

It's not a, but the unit separator.

(See "unit separator ascii" in a search engine of your choice). :-)

Better? ^_

putnam commented 3 years ago

Told you it’d be embarrassing! Thanks!

On Wed, Aug 11, 2021 at 6:30 AM xrm @.***> wrote:

Of course!

It's not a, but the unit separator.

(See "unit separator ascii" in a search engine of your choice). :-)

Better? ^_

— You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/Faeranne/PrototypeHARP-Research/issues/5#issuecomment-896748813, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AAASBT27C4MOYMY5YE37L7LT4JNMNANCNFSM4DZN5HIQ . Triage notifications on the go with GitHub Mobile for iOS https://apps.apple.com/app/apple-store/id1477376905?ct=notification-email&mt=8&pt=524675 or Android https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.github.android&utm_campaign=notification-email .

putnam commented 3 years ago

Edit: I take it all back! I forgot how good this puzzle is. It's actually much better without the BIOS chip in my opinion.

xrm commented 3 years ago

I was about to point at that part of the puzzle just before I saw your edit ... :-)

When I solved it the first time, I actually tried both ways (with and w/o the BioS) just to verify that I didn't screw up at some point / missed something. But I totally agree that it's more challenging (read: interesting) without the chip.