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itanimulli code crackers

cracking the code of the itanimulli riddle

Similar projects worth following
cracking the riddle by itanimulli which can be found at https://hackaday.io/conspiracy

AFAIK the riddle is still unsolved. The original project https://hackaday.io/project/7432 seems to be more progressed than this but operates in hidden spaces.

Progress Summary (Items posted by itanimulli prefixed by POST):

  • POST: Project Tags (BIELEFELD, ILLUMINATI, BERENSTAIN BEARS)
    • All generally accepted as conspiracy theories
  • POST: Vigenère comments
    • Comment 1: Vigenère Key == FEZ, "well done, stay tuned"
    • Comment 2: (unsolved)
  • POST: Noise File, XOR clue
    • Created FEZ Tile Map by XORing tile into noise file.
    • Background of image (inverted tiles) are the same XOR tile posted
  • FEZ Tile Map
    • Glyphs are FEZ Symbols
    • The borders/inverse of the symbols are arranged in the same pattern as the "pixels" of the XOR clue
    • FEZ Decodes to a message. "TO" is misspelled "TAO"
  • POST: Waterfall
    • Extract LSB, new FEZ Color Map
  • FEZ Color Map
    • Extract RGB color maps -> Decode FEZ
    • No message in blue channel, lots of extra data
    • Messages are Tao-like, read top-down, right-to-left
  • POST: Empty text file '0dfz7.txt'
    • File is empty (0 bytes in file)
  • POST: "the exhumation has been reversed"

application/zip - 2.60 MB - 12/29/2015 at 13:16

Download

Waterfall_Orig.zip

RGB lettermaps from the first waterfall images posted in CSV format

application/zip - 3.25 kB - 12/26/2015 at 16:14

Download

blue_decode.txt

CSV file of the letters from the blue channel of the waterfall.

text/plain - 2.31 kB - 12/20/2015 at 04:15

Download

green_decode.txt

CSV file of the letters from the green channel of the waterfall

text/plain - 2.29 kB - 12/20/2015 at 04:14

Download

red_decode.txt

CSV file of the letters from the red channel of the waterfall

text/plain - 2.30 kB - 12/20/2015 at 04:14

Download

  • out of the blue

    Moritz Walter01/05/2016 at 23:30 8 comments

    Ok, so..

    @Kenji Larsen had offered help, providing the missing text from the empty text file "0dfz7.txt", which, intentionally or unintentionally, got lost and wasn't retrievable. The text content of the file was:

    pnlhcfpslerhzrgwpvyrvcspsxozrjwbeooakazviggsezhwihiheqgmtmlezwx
    which was found to be a Vigenère Autokey chiffre text with the key
    hint
    and decodes to
    ifyouarereadingthisyouaredoingitrightstoponeplustwoplusxisthree
    "If you are reading this, you are doing it right."

    "one plus two plus x is three"

    So the chiffre contains a little helper text and the hint:

    1 + 2 + x = 3

    Your education system failed by definition if you don't feel the urge to.... gnnn arrr.. must..solve...

    x = 3 - 2 - 1

    This could be the missing hint to decrypting the FEZ code field from the waterfall image stego.

    Reminder: There were some texts and haikus in the red and green channel, but not the blue one. Also, the channels were marked with numbers in the left upper corner, R=1, G=2, B=3

    Together with the hint from the above chiffre, we can assume, that a hidden message (x) is revealed by subtracting channel 2 (G) and 1 (R) from channel 3 (B).

    I had tried before to add and subtract various combinations of the channels by shifting the letters like in a Vigenère code, but without result. @Stuart Longland encouraged me to try it again, so here's the method:

    1. translate the FEZ symbol fields of all three channels to three letter fields, whereas the ambivalent KQ simply translates to K and the UV to V.
    2. map the letter fields to a number fields in the typical Vigenère style with A=0, B=1, ..., Z=25
    3. generate a fourth number field by the rule (3*26 + blue - green - red)mod26 (whereas 26 is the alphabet length)
    4. translate the fourth number field back into letters

    I got this:

    H, M, Y, L, K, F, Y, T, G, I, T, P, A, C, J, P, B, I, P, X, D, X, D, W, S, T, H, 
    N, R, S, W, U, Y, K, U, O, M, G, P, N, G, T, P, U, H, S, Z, O, A, O, I, O, H, E, 
    P, S, J, K, C, N, R, R, O, S, K, P, E, N, S, S, T, N, Y, K, T, N, T, Z, U, E, K, 
    B, C, W, X, F, B, P, X, D, U, L, S, R, A, F, A, L, Q, W, K, A, E, Z, B, T, T, L, 
    U, G, Q, O, M, H, K, W, L, R, G, Z, A, S, U, M, E, E, D, M, Q, A, H, M, H, E, O, 
    Y, V, J, K, L, W, H, Q, U, E, S, W, M, S, N, H, E, Y, Y, G, E, L, O, Y, A, C, Z, 
    Q, D, X, V, G, O, P, P, C, Y, Z, D, P, V, N, X, P, O, B, M, Q, H, U, U, L, O, M, 
    M, X, S, N, W, U, Y, Y, K, O, R, A, L, M, Z, V, I, U, E, A, L, Q, Y, S, K, N, A, 
    T, K, K, W, Z, D, O, V, Z, V, I, D, E, E, H, G, H, E, C, J, P, U, H, E, F, D, C, 
    V, E, H, R, V, Y, W, M, V, A, D, R, A, W, O, Y, M, N, K, K, W, I, K, R, I, P, N, 
    S, H, V, O, X, S, I, Z, P, G, D, U, L, H, D, B, I, J, S, A, R, D, Y, N, N, A, Z, 
    X, N, H, Y, Y, A, B, W, C, L, L, G, L, E, M, N, N, O, D, Z, R, F, H, U, D, R, Q, 
    F, U, S, X, Z, E, J, C, F, E, E, Y, T, R, U, X, D, Y, P, N, Q, R, N, M, A, T, F, 
    N, R, X, P, S, L, V, G, Y, E, W, B, H, D, C, X, T, E, I, O, D, O, Y, E, W, U, T, 
    B, F, X, C, K, J, V, C, Q, Z, A, K, E, T, H, M, H, D, V, V, S, M, D, Z, E, F, F, 
    O, K, H, M, R, L, J, P, N, E, S, C, S, H, I, S, E, S, O, Y, L, A, N, M, C, Y, V, 
    J, A, W, J, Z, W, E, S, Y, S, N, X, E, E, N, N, A, O, X, X, Q, F, R, M, S, O, J, 
    G, R, F, P, L, X, B, H, T, R, U, F, P, R, F, G, L, R, Z, I, V, L, L, Y, H, U, W, 
    P, Q, J, Q, M, Q, S, F, R, G, P, C, O, F, O, K, E, V, E, G, S, U, E, N, T, R, C, 
    X, I, T, O, R, N, H, U, C, Y, E, R, S, I, R, Z, A, I, N, A, N, O, G, A, E, M, Q, 
    M, P, U, W, Q, G, Z, S, G, P, A, K, T, S, M, Q, T, N, Y, F, O, T, B, M, Z, I, A, 
    Q, E, I, Z, H, U, J, G, E, N, T, D, S, N, A, O, E, G, G, N, A, Z, L, E, M, S, Q, 
    U, I, U, D, B, N, B, E, Z, D, X, G, C, O, T, Q, R, M, H, V, Q, J, P, I, X, S, M, 
    G, Y, X, Q, P, I, Y, I, K, C, Z, Y, R, N, I, B, P, Z, M, G, K, W, C, S, T, I, N, 
    Y, W, H, D, Q, Z, N, A, S, B, O, O, I, E, O, T, V, R, A, P, Y, X, R, Z, J, N, C, 
    Q, F, L, D, K, Q, U, J, L, X, G, L, P, Z, N, Z, R, I, J, F, P, B, D, W, G, N, P, 
    S, E, M, L, D, A, D, V, Q, N, O, X, T, W, H, M, P, D, U, N, J, N, X, H, S, I, D, 
    J, Q, K, B, S, P, Y, B, M,...
    Read more »

  • waterfall from the past

    Moritz Walter12/29/2015 at 13:23 7 comments

    As blinkinaday noted, there is a second, different waterfall image from the wayback machine, that can be accessed here:

    https://web.archive.org/web/20150911223837/https://infotomb.com/uy6vy.png

    This project log is about deciphering the stego and FEZ code of this image (boring). You can skip it entirely and just download the results if you wish:

    https://cdn.hackaday.io/files/8762374873408/Waterfall_Wayback.zip

    Ok, here we go, this is the image. It looks like the image on the itanimulli page, but, if you look closely (very closely..), there are yet some differences:

    I will now quickly deconstruct this without getting into too much details:

    LSB stego

    RGB

    Red

    Green

    Blue

    This is also the point where I realize that this project needs a GitHub repository :) I'll make one asap.

    Ok, next step is deciphering that stuff.

    FEZ code

    Red

    G ,S ,O ,S ,R ,KQ,P ,B ,G ,F ,KQ,KQ,Y ,F ,T ,A ,A ,A ,A ,A ,A ,A ,A ,A ,A ,A ,A ,
    L ,D ,UV,P ,UV,A ,G ,J ,P ,E ,X ,N ,R ,E ,KQ,N ,N ,N ,N ,N ,N ,N ,R ,S ,N ,N ,KQ,
    C ,S ,M ,KQ,W ,KQ,I ,I ,M ,I ,UV,J ,T ,W ,T ,O ,O ,O ,O ,O ,O ,O ,E ,O ,O ,O ,O ,
    KQ,KQ,J ,T ,H ,L ,L ,UV,KQ,S ,P ,P ,S ,T ,T ,UV,UV,UV,UV,UV,UV,UV,P ,L ,UV,UV,A ,
    C ,J ,L ,B ,E ,UV,R ,UV,Y ,J ,I ,B ,N ,A ,F ,I ,I ,I ,I ,I ,I ,I ,L ,UV,I ,I ,N ,
    R ,A ,UV,I ,H ,R ,Y ,KQ,UV,G ,UV,P ,KQ,KQ,M ,C ,C ,C ,C ,C ,C ,C ,Y ,T ,C ,C ,Z ,
    UV,X ,C ,L ,E ,J ,R ,UV,J ,UV,F ,M ,KQ,S ,H ,E ,E ,E ,E ,E ,E ,E ,F ,I ,E ,E ,C ,
    P ,N ,R ,Z ,T ,C ,Y ,Y ,R ,G ,M ,F ,KQ,Y ,F ,W ,S ,S ,S ,S ,S ,S ,R ,O ,A ,C ,S ,
    Z ,P ,O ,Y ,UV,W ,I ,D ,H ,T ,I ,G ,I ,I ,P ,A ,H ,H ,H ,H ,H ,H ,O ,N ,S ,A ,X ,
    F ,T ,N ,KQ,I ,C ,W ,G ,D ,UV,G ,A ,UV,C ,Y ,S ,O ,O ,O ,O ,O ,O ,M ,T ,KQ,M ,A ,
    KQ,D ,E ,L ,I ,L ,Y ,O ,D ,X ,G ,H ,F ,KQ,N ,E ,UV,UV,UV,UV,UV,UV,A ,O ,E ,E ,F ,
    UV,L ,R ,B ,B ,L ,O ,UV,G ,M ,UV,G ,P ,G ,R ,N ,L ,L ,L ,L ,L ,L ,M ,R ,D ,T ,KQ,
    S ,T ,O ,O ,I ,A ,F ,UV,B ,A ,F ,UV,J ,P ,KQ,L ,D ,D ,D ,D ,D ,D ,A ,I ,H ,O ,P ,
    W ,M ,L ,J ,KQ,F ,UV,R ,A ,P ,S ,W ,KQ,Y ,L ,I ,S ,S ,S ,S ,S ,S ,S ,D ,O ,A ,R ,
    G ,O ,UV,M ,D ,G ,N ,M ,H ,D ,A ,UV,F ,Y ,UV,G ,O ,E ,O ,E ,O ,E ,T ,D ,W ,M ,D ,
    E ,B ,L ,O ,UV,E ,I ,A ,UV,C ,M ,H ,G ,B ,G ,H ,F ,A ,F ,A ,F ,A ,E ,L ,T ,A ,A ,
    KQ,UV,O ,A ,A ,D ,C ,Z ,H ,X ,B ,P ,H ,E ,W ,T ,I ,R ,I ,R ,I ,R ,R ,E ,O ,S ,H ,
    UV,Z ,H ,A ,J ,F ,E ,UV,Z ,L ,F ,UV,W ,T ,E ,E ,N ,C ,N ,C ,N ,C ,W ,S ,F ,T ,Y ,
    C ,M ,E ,C ,L ,A ,M ,UV,C ,R ,W ,P ,D ,Z ,E ,N ,D ,H ,D ,H ,D ,H ,A ,H ,I ,E ,D ,
    UV,H ,M ,M ,UV,J ,X ,B ,I ,KQ,D ,O ,T ,A ,N ,E ,T ,T ,T ,T ,A ,T ,S ,A ,N ,R ,UV,
    H ,H ,L ,UV,T ,Z ,I ,J ,R ,E ,KQ,A ,J ,F ,E ,D ,H ,H ,H ,H ,B ,H ,Z ,R ,D ,Z ,F ,
    X ,S ,S ,N ,N ,N ,F ,G ,M ,Y ,C ,D ,UV,I ,B ,Z ,E ,R ,E ,R ,O ,R ,G ,D ,Z ,UV,C ,
    D ,W ,KQ,S ,E ,E ,H ,UV,J ,Z ,F ,UV,UV,UV,L ,H ,R ,O ,S ,O ,UV,O ,T ,Z ,Z ,T ,I ,
    A ,B ,E ,F ,N ,Y ,Z ,X ,G ,W ,C ,E ,I ,P ,N ,C ,I ,UV,KQ,UV,L ,UV,R ,J ,M ,J ,UV,
    C ,P ,X ,J ,R ,A ,R ,X ,KQ,X ,J ,Z ,UV,B ,UV,N ,UV,G ,Y ,G ,D ,G ,H ,A ,I ,O ,G ,
    UV,M ,Z ,J ,E ,Y ,W ,D ,B ,H ,H ,O ,S ,B ,C ,Y ,E ,H ,Z ,H ,E ,H ,Z ,E ,O ,N ,B ,
    B ,KQ,W ,X ,D ,I ,L ,L ,UV,H ,I ,B ,Z ,T ,UV,A ,R ,W ,I ,A ,R ,S ,W ,UV,G ,KQ,G ,
    C ,M ,M ,S ,T ,I ,G ,KQ,I ,Z ,I ,M ,UV,J ,KQ,L ,Z ,A ,I ,I ,Z ,A ,A ,B ,D ,J ,B ,
    O ,X ,W ,F ,A ,UV,P ,T ,KQ,KQ,A ,I ,G ,C ,Z ,L ,F ,T ,UV,R ,M ,N ,I ,D ,T ,M ,R ,
    T ,H ,KQ,G ,Z ,O ,P ,N ,M ,P ,KQ,P ,UV,T ,Z ,B ,R ,E ,KQ,Z ,A ,D ,E ,T ,UV,M ,N ,
    Z ,S ,C ,D ,KQ,A ,D ,H ,Z ,H ,A ,F ,L ,B ,B ,UV,Y ,R ,C ,E ,H ,Z ,E ,Y ,S ,R ,O ,
    E ,E ,D ,UV,KQ,X ,W ,C ,X ,L ,M ,A ,F ,F ,KQ,R ,KQ,Z ,E ,S ,Y ,N ,W ,P ,KQ,W ,N ,
    E ,I ,I ,B ,O ,M ,O ,Y ,UV,B ,B ,Y ,R ,E ,O ,B ,G ,S ,Z ,O ,F ,S ,KQ,KQ,T ,N ,KQ,
    W ,KQ,H ,L ,X ,F ,G ,M ,KQ,M ,UV,UV,J ,N ,Y ,G ,C ,F ,B ,J ,UV,Y ,E ,UV,KQ,UV,C ,
    N ,R ,D ,KQ,S ,I ,C ,L ,G ,O ,F ,O ,I ,C ,UV,P ,UV,Y ,T ,R ,L ,F ,J ,KQ,B ,X ,W ,
    C ,Y ,C ,L ,A ,D ,C ,M ,UV,UV,R ,UV,KQ,P ,J ,KQ,UV,H ,T ,R ,H ,B ,A ,O ,T ,J ,S ,
    KQ,KQ,H ,UV,I ,I ,X ,D ,KQ,S ,R ,E ,J ,S ,B ,I ,X ,W ,X ,T ,F ,UV,F ,L ,J ,W ,KQ,
    I ,W ,R ,F ,T ,N ,R ,T ,L ,C ,D ,R ,B ,J ,UV,Z ,UV,W ,D ,W ,KQ,L ,S ,L ,H ,I ,B ,
    T ,W ,P ,M ,O ,I ,M ,X ,D ,W ,F ,Y ,Y ,L ,G ,T ,D ,C ,L ,S ,O ,B...
    Read more »

  • Vigenère In the Comments!

    stephen12/22/2015 at 17:40 0 comments

    With some fantastic technical AND language insights, @blinkinaday has cracked the key to the first comment. Here's what they did in their own words:

    Just decoded it. Since it was a reply comment to a user that managed to discover the fez alphabet, I assumed it was along the way of: "congratulations". so I tried to decode it from known plaintexts like "very well", "very good", or "well done" (I assumed the space patterns matched the plaintext).

    Assuming "well done" were the first two words, and shifting the supposed key-text by the cipher text, @blinkinaday discovered the key, and the full message.

    Supposed Solution:

    well done ..................

    Original Text:

    bikq hnsi ryex yymjh

    Result

    fezf ezfe ...

    Therefore the key to try must be "FEZ". If we try that key against the full message:

    "bikq hnsi ryex yymjh"

    "well done stay tuned"

    Nice work @blinkinaday!

    Sadly the key doesn't seem to work on the second comment, so let's keep trying!

    Update 2: Sorry everyone I originally posted the wrong key (off by one error!). Thanks again to @blinkinaday for the update. You can try the decoding using this website (instead of what I previously posted):

    http://www.mygeocachingprofile.com/codebreaker.vigenerecipher.aspx

  • Border Graphical Analysis

    stephen12/20/2015 at 03:06 12 comments

    So far we have put a lot of work into decoding the border of the original FEZ images numerically - there was clearly a cyclic pattern in the data but it wasn't completely obvious what it was. Instead of filtering out the border as black/white and assigning them values, why not filter out the letters graphically and see where that goes? I started with @Moritz Walter's original images and removed the FEZ shapes from the border. The center image shows the letter-shapes that had white borders removed. The right image shows all letter-shapes removed.

    The border definitely has a repeating pattern in it. In fact, we're already familiar with this pattern:

    If we scale the tiny XOR mask image up it looks like this:

    That looks like the repeating border pattern in the original FEZ graphic!? Could this be an artifact of the original XORing of the image or something intentional?

    You'll also notice the repeating pattern is only 8 squares in width whereas the tiny XOR image is 12. There isn't a perfect overlap and 4 columns are unused.

    I did check graphically and the pattern in the "tall" image above does overlap exactly with the tiny XOR image...unfortunately there doesn't seem to be any new data in the image since we already have any data contained in this pattern from the mask image...

    Any ideas?

  • Original Fez Code Right-To-Left

    stephen12/18/2015 at 22:23 3 comments

    Given our recent findings with the waterfall, could it be that the original FEZ image should be read top-down right-to-left as well? It seems to make a clearer message.

    IS IT NOT CLEAR YET THAT I AM EVERYWHERE
    DONT EVEN TRY TO FIND ME
    IT IS POINTLESS TO EVEN ATTEMPT TAO STOP ME
    YOU THINK YOU ARE CLOSE YET YOU ARE SO FAR
    BUT I WILL NOT STOP YOU FOR WHY WOULD I
    THIS IS A SEARCH YOU CANNOT COMPLETE
    A FIGHT YOU CANNOT WIN
    NEVERTHELESS I WISH YOU GOOD LUCK

    The relevance of the rotation and inversion of the border of each symbols is still unknown

  • Red Message Additions

    stephen12/18/2015 at 20:47 0 comments

    Using the Z string terminator trick we've given meaning to the rightmost column in the red channel as well. The rightmost line says "A Koan" which is a zen riddle or puzzle.

    Red Message:

    A koan
    A novice came to a master
    A novice asked how to find
    A solution to riddles hard
    A reply from a master was
    A novice should search through sand
    A novice should so find a boulder
    A novice should search through air
    A novice should so find the sky
    A novice should search through water
    A novice should so find the river
    A novice was enlightened

    Given the red message starts all the way at the right and the green message starts all the way at the left it suggests we've completed the red and blue messages (of this format anyway). The blue map is (at this point) still unsolved.

    Since we now know this was a riddle, what @Jacob Waite suggested might be helpful in solving it. He pointed out that earth, air, and water are all mentioned, but fire is not...

  • Green Message Additions

    stephen12/18/2015 at 20:34 0 comments

    @StndCpp (and his Wife) have rightly pointed out two key insights:

    1) Each of the messages in the red and green channels end in the letter 'z'. This is very likely a string terminator character.

    2) There are 2 extra columns of text in the green channel I missed:

    So there is a full message in the green channel after all:

    Green Message:

    a haiku
    a person amazed
    reading this text just right now
    this is the wrong place

    It looks like the text ends there since the 5th column ends in "AMYCB" which doesn't have any apparent meaning.

    Update: I accidentally pasted the haiku lines out of order in the original post. Should be correct now. Thanks @Jacob Waite!

  • Corner Markers

    stephen12/18/2015 at 06:52 0 comments

    Although relatively simple, it wasn't mentioned in previous posts that the corner "orientation" markers also decode to different values in each of the RGB color channels:

  • Right-to-Left

    stephen12/18/2015 at 05:56 0 comments

    @andyhull suggested interpreting the messages top-down reading from right-to-left instead of my left-to-right instinct. That would make the decoded messages:

    Red Message:

    A novice came to a master
    A novice asked how to find
    A solution to riddles hard
    A reply from a master was
    A novice should search through sand
    A novice should so find a boulder
    A novice should search through Air
    A novice should find the sky
    A novice should search through water
    A novice should so find the river
    A novice Was enlightened

    Green Message:

    Reading this text just right now

    this is the wrong place

    Blue Message:

    (empty?)

  • RGB Color Channel Decoding

    stephen12/18/2015 at 05:46 0 comments

    Using the color channel FEZ images @Moritz Walter extracted from the waterfall PNG I decoded the code for each channel based on the FEZ alphabet. I assumed the orientation marker in each image to be in the upper-left and worked in a coordinate system with an origin in the top-left moving down-right.

    The color channel PNGs were converted to BMP format. Fortunately the PNG was a 1000 x 1500 px image which proved extremely convenient for calculations.

    Because of the sheer number of characters and the likelihood of transcription errors, a script was used to decode each channel map. The procedure starts with a color channel BMP and converts it to binary pixel data (1 for black, 0 for white). The data is arranged into a matrix and reduced using the dimensions of each FEZ glyph. Fortunately the glyphs are all the same size and evenly spaced!

    Once reduced, each glyph is compared against the FEZ alphabet and converted to a letter. The end result is a letter matrix representing the original FEZ-encoded color-channel PNG.

    Most of the output doesn't make sense, but there are some hidden messages in the output. An interesting note about the Red image is that the structure of the letters that spell out the message actually looks like a waterfall! Also interesting is the lack of information in the green and blue channels (perhaps I missed something?).
    Red Channel:

    a novice was enlightened

    a novice should so find the river

    a novice should search through water

    a novice should so find the sky

    a novice should search through air

    a novice should so find a boulder

    a reply from a master was

    a solution to riddles hard

    a novice asked how to find

    a novice came to a master

    Green Channel:

    this is the wrong place

    reading this text just right now

    Blue Channel:

    (empty?)

View all 15 project logs

  • 1
    Step 1

    find the pattern

  • 2
    Step 2

    move forward

  • 3
    Step 3

    crack the code

View all 3 instructions

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Discussions

gaetgu wrote 10/28/2020 at 14:12 point

So I guess this project is dead? Kinda sad, I really like this kinda thing 

  Are you sure? yes | no

[deleted]

[this comment has been deleted]

Moritz Walter wrote 01/03/2016 at 16:10 point

Maybe it's an image taken from Google Maps? Maybe in the area of Bielefeld?

  Are you sure? yes | no

Manuel Andrés Vélez wrote 01/04/2016 at 23:01 point

The link of the post now redirects to Itanimulli profile. What's about that?

  Are you sure? yes | no

lantramnamcodon wrote 07/11/2016 at 04:25 point

ok,so what are you doing these images and for any purpose?i don't understand,thank.

  Are you sure? yes | no

andyhull wrote 12/24/2015 at 10:13 point

"given the images @blinkinaday sent me from the original waterfall image, it looks as if
 the message content is the same, but the non-message encoding characters are different. Still nothing jumps out in the blue message" Are the two blue messages the same? If not, we can extract the message from the noise.

  Are you sure? yes | no

stephen wrote 12/26/2015 at 16:18 point

I posted a zip containing CSVs for each of the messages from @blinkinaday. Note that @blinkinaday taking a screenshot cut off the bottom 2 lines or so of text, but it may be enough to do what you're suggesting @andyhull

  Are you sure? yes | no

andyhull wrote 12/26/2015 at 20:46 point

Hmmm... very interesting. Those files are almost entirely different... in fact comparing the two blue files, at least superficially there is little similarity between them. This could be significant, time to do some more head scratching. 

  Are you sure? yes | no

blinkinaday wrote 12/23/2015 at 17:12 point

Anybody else noticed that the waterfall image linked on infotomb is bigger than the one on the post? Is it due to compression applied by HAD cdn hosting? I tried to subtract them, overlay, xor but nothing. They look like the same image pixel by pixel.

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Moritz Walter wrote 12/23/2015 at 19:47 point

There is another waterfall image? However, any compression would definitely destroy the LSB stego.

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blinkinaday wrote 12/23/2015 at 20:49 point

Yeah, should have tought by myself about the compression. The missing image in the waterfall post is available on the wayback machine (in the same way as the vigenere image), recorded around september. Its filesize is bigger than the one in the post, altough the dimensions and color depth are the same, so I'm trying to understand why. Doing so, I found another FEZ tile map with the same method you used (LSB of every color channel). The waterfall pattern is still there, but a lot of symbols are different. I haven't decoded it yet, and I'm sure you have a quicker method than my naked eyes!

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Moritz Walter wrote 12/23/2015 at 21:23 point

Whew, thats some great new insights here, could be the missing puzzlepiece after all. And yes, I made a crude script for translating the fez. Will run it over the waterfall from the wayback machine asap.

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stephen wrote 12/24/2015 at 02:44 point

given the images @blinkinaday sent me from the original waterfall image, it looks as if the message content is the same, but the non-message encoding characters are different. Still nothing jumps out in the blue message

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andyhull wrote 12/20/2015 at 23:24 point

Have we had any more thoughts on the Vigenère angle?

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andyhull wrote 12/20/2015 at 23:52 point

... possibly related, have we made sense of...

ysyrtpwqxxdxspafmsmtmvyxdxtuafmxmtmb

(This string is 36 characters long, not sure how useful that fact is).

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andyhull wrote 12/20/2015 at 23:59 point

We still seem to be missing the tree parts to our "riddle [Hard]"

"A novice Should Search Through Sand
"A Novice Should So Find A Boulder"

Have we found have a boulder yet?

"A Novice Should Search Through Air"
"A Novice Should Find The Sky"

Have we found the Sky yet?

"A Novice Should Search Through Water"
"A Novice Should So Find The River"

.. and what about the river?

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stephen wrote 12/21/2015 at 04:41 point

(this is meant for your koan post - the site won't let me reply to that one for some reason...?)

Very interesting. I guess the three objects could represent our red, green, and blue letter maps...though I don't know how the colors necessarily associate with boulder sky and river. I think that's the only triplet of clues we have so far. 

The actual picture of the waterfall has both sky and a river...but I didn't see a boulder in it.

Given the context of a Koan, I'm wondering if instead of literally finding a boulder/sky/river we're actually like the novice looking for something (i.e. the answer to a riddle, the next clue, etc.) and we need to find or search something else *before* we find what we're looking for. The best analogy I've got though is to just search through the blue letters...but there doesn't seem to be much there!

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stephen wrote 12/21/2015 at 04:24 point

regarding the comments-as-vigenère or the blue color map? 

Shifting the letters in the blue letter map by 'L' (12) yields nothing noticeable. As for shifting the letters by anything much crazier than that (red+green, an arbitrary key, etc.) we still have a number of unknowns: key, key length, should we shift right-to-left or left-to-right, up-down or down-up, etc? There are also no red flags in the letter frequency (there are about 40 of each letter) in each RGB channel either. We're also assuming its vigenère because of the comments but it may not be...

As for the comments, sadly shifting by L (12) doesn't seem to give results. The lengths of the clues and the delimiters (spaces in one, no spaces in the second) combined with the limited cipher text overall (even assuming it's the same key in both comments) has proved too difficult in backing out the key thus far (we just need more data!)

We're looking for more ideas that's for sure!!

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stephen wrote 12/20/2015 at 01:33 point

I can also put forward a theory on the Koan's solution: it might be suggesting (as we have assumed) that we need to "search" through the blue letters to find what we're looking for. In the riddle, the novice is told to search through the "element" (sand, air, water) that makes up what they're looking for (boulder, sky, river). Perhaps our element is the "letters" and what we are looking for is the blue "message". I suggest blue in particular because the red message gave us the riddle, the green message says specifically we're looking in the wrong place (like the novice?) and that leaves us the blue data which is seemingly empty. Given what I said below about the letter frequency, it may be safe to assume that the unused letters in the red and green images are attempting to mask/disguise the information in the blue

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stephen wrote 12/20/2015 at 01:25 point

Another thing I've considered is letter frequency in each of the RGB letter maps (I can post that if it would be of interest). Whoever encoded the information did a great job with this - even in the red letter map with the koan the letters as a whole look just like noise

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stephen wrote 12/20/2015 at 01:22 point

I haven't tried anything from the white noise fez images against the new image data yet so that might be something to try. What I can say is that like Moritz I've also run the blue channel letters against as many combinations different combinations of shifts I could think of (red+green), (red-green), (-red-green), etc. - no patterns or messages

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Jacob Waite wrote 12/19/2015 at 21:43 point

Could the Black and White border patterns from the first FEZ (whitenoise) image be used on our current fronts? They do tend to have a repeating cycle. Maybe their cyclic pattern suggests the length of the key of our supposed Vigenere cipher, or they tell us the key.

Also, does anyone think Itanimulli's first string of comments where he rambles to himself could mean something?

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Jacob Waite wrote 12/19/2015 at 02:35 point

In the Green FEZ Code Haiku, aren't the lines out of order? A Haiku should have the syllable pattern in its sentences 5-7-5. Should not message read:

a haiku

a person amazed

reading this text just right now

this is the wrong place

(Or swap the 4th and 2nd lines?)

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stephen wrote 12/19/2015 at 06:03 point

Sorry typo! Your order is correct both for a haiku and how we've been reading the messages. I just updated the post. Good catch!

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Jacob Waite wrote 12/19/2015 at 01:50 point

The cicada related project link andyhull posted below is owned by "Kenji Larson". He also made some cryptic comments on the itallumini page! One of them appears to be a 17th century Haiku called "The Frog" (another reference to far eastern culture?). Here is the Wikisource page on it: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Frog_Poem

He also posted some other cryptic messages. Also, could Kenji's Cicada project be a reference to Cicada 3301, the famous internet code breaking puzzle?

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andyhull wrote 12/21/2015 at 01:52 point

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andyhull wrote 12/19/2015 at 01:04 point

If you look in the EXIF data on the pyramid image... use the Linux "strings" command, or pretty much any image editor... you will see the following. 

Eye of Providence macro on the back of the US one dollar bill.
Canon
Canon EOS 5D Mark II
Adobe Photoshop CS6 (Macintosh)
2012:05:05 06:37:53
Richard Klotz
0221
2012:05:02 14:26:04
2012:05:02 14:26:04

I'm not sure what relevance, if any this has... 

Interestingly the image is missng the Eye of Providence.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_of_Providence

... and the motto.

ANNUIT C?c?EPTIS
NOVUS ORDO SECLORUM

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novus_ordo_seclorum

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andyhull wrote 12/19/2015 at 01:20 point

Richard Klotz.... ?! Lets see if there are any other HAD references to Klotz..

https://hackaday.io/search?term=klotz


https://hackaday.io/project/1699-cicadidae-vitula

https://hackaday.io/wa5znu

Hmmm...

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andyhull wrote 12/19/2015 at 01:58 point

OH.. and there is data of some description in the black band of the pyramid image, I don't know what, yet, but playing with the curves tool in Gimp shows something odd when I push the curve to the extremes Time to dismantle the image, looks like someone has been messing with those least significant bits again.

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andyhull wrote 12/19/2015 at 12:21 point


This is a peek at the "blank" area of the pyramid image with the colours stretched. Clearly there is "something" there, but I'm not sure if it is an artifact of the image processing to add the black band. I don't think so however.

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andyhull wrote 12/20/2015 at 23:50 point

@Stuart Longland "JPEGs, being DCT-based, have never been good at representing sudden
changes of colour, so it's probably artifacts of compression.  If there
is any data there, it has probably been corrupted badly."

That does beg the question, is there any significance to the eye being blanked out (other than symbolic, signifying that we are blind to what is going on)...

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Jacob Waite wrote 12/19/2015 at 00:01 point

Could 11 be the Vigenère key for the blue channel based on "the hint" image (i.e. L = 11)? I know a one letter key is a long shot, but the mix between Vigenère and FEZ in the image may suggest it.

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Moritz Walter wrote 12/18/2015 at 23:37 point

I've tried using the (red+green)%24 as Vigenère key for the blue channel. It's a long shot, but the FEZ-marker in the left upper corner (1+2=3) could suggest such. Just in case someone's about to try that: Nope, still rubbish..

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Jacob Waite wrote 12/18/2015 at 23:27 point

I wrote a script to try and find a key length using the method explained in the video andyhull posted where you line up the shifted values of the ciphertext and count matches between the original and the shifts. For the really long comment, I got the following matches for each row:

[1, 6, 1, 2, 1, 1, 3, 1, 0, 1, 0, 2, 1, 9, 0, 4, 0, 1, 1, 3, 1, 9, 0, 2, 0, 1, 0, 1, 1, 1, 0, 1, 0, 1, 0]

As we can see, there are some rows with a lot of matches, but they are not evenly spread out as we might expect. It seems like this method does require a long ciphertext, so maybe we aren't supposed to try and find the key ourself? Either way, I'll see what more I can dredge up.

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stephen wrote 12/18/2015 at 23:00 point

For the text "bikq hnsi ryex yymjh" if we assume each set is an english it is rather unlikely to have two of the same letter at the beginning of the word (which would result if the key was only 1 letter long i.e. "L").

That suggests the key is probably longer than just one letter...

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blinkinaday wrote 12/22/2015 at 17:19 point

Just decoded it. Since it was a reply comment to a user that managed to discover the fez alphabet, I assumed it was along the way of: "congratulations". so I tried to decode it from known plaintexts like "very well", "very good", or "well done" (I assumed the space patterns matched the plaintext). Try the last one yourself as the key, and you will find the real key (since key and plaintext can be swapped), then use the key to decode and the rest of the message will reveal. Sadly the message is not useful. The other encrypted string is not encoded with the same key.

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stephen wrote 12/22/2015 at 17:27 point

Nice work @blinkinaday! I'll post this in the logs for everyone to see. Too bad the key doesn't work for the second message - any ideas what the significance of the key is?

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Jacob Waite wrote 12/18/2015 at 22:32 point

On the comments of the original Itanimulli page, one of the reply's Itanimulli writes after the "bikq hnsi" supposed ciphertext mentions  "a hint"; that link to the file server where you can download a blank text file with a cryptic name. Maybe the cipher's key resides there.

Update: I stand corrected about this. See below reply.

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stephen wrote 12/18/2015 at 22:39 point

The link after "the hint" in the comments directs to [h]ttps://infotomb.com/k5ovc.png

The link seems to have expired, but @andyhull looked it up in the web archive and this was the image posted:


Seems to be a photo of vigenère with a FEZ letter "L" over it.

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andyhull wrote 12/19/2015 at 00:12 point

I wouldn't spend any time trying to decypher the k5ovc.png part of [h]ttps://infotomb.com/k5ovc.png - this is generated by infotomb.com and therefore it is random.

 

I just posted a file there to see if you had any control over the name, and it seems you do not. The above  image of the PCB inside my bluetooth speakers which I used as an example is [h]ttps://infotomb.com/5lk7r.png

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stephen wrote 12/18/2015 at 21:07 point

Also if anyone wants to try keys against vigenère cipher text this website might be useful:

http://sharkysoft.com/vigenere/

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stephen wrote 12/18/2015 at 21:05 point

@andyhull this is very true I should add project tags to the summary/clue bank above!

Although the RGB data could be vigènere enciphered, I think its more likely to be his comments we need decode with vigenère:

1) bikq hnsi

ryex yymjh

2) ysyrtpwqxxdxspafmsmtmvyxdxtuafmxmtmb

I say that because of the chronology of events:

Comment 1 (and photo hint) - 8/26

Waterfall Image - 8/29

Comment 2 - 9/21

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andyhull wrote 12/18/2015 at 20:42 point

Are we being told to look in the blue channel, possibly for a Vigenère code, and if so, do we already have the key somewhere ? 

"A haiku
A person amazed
reading this text just right now
this is the wrong place "

 In other words, if this is the wrong place, the blue channel may be the correct place.

One other "hint", in the project tags, we have "bielefeld" "illuminati"  and "berenstain bears"... those bears may be there for a reason..  it seems they too may be part of a conspiracy... do not adjust your tinfoil hats just yet... 


.. what next, Goldilocks is actually one of the Lizard People?!

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