Lonelygirl15

Hello all ARG players!

i've been lurking about and following all of this for some time now, but only just started actually posting. i was just surfing the internet, browsing through free program downloads and i ran across something really interesting: http://lifehacker.com/software/privacy/ ... 230915.php

now, i don't know if this has ever been mentioned/used before, but in the (many) threads i've looked through it never has. Basically it's a program that can embed encrypted information into picture files. There are a couple of programs on the page linked above that can do it in different ways.

"Unlike encryption, which obscures data in such a way that it's obvious someone's keeping something from listeners-in (and therefore heightens interest in that info), stego techniques offer no hint to the outsider that there's any private data contained within the visible file. Like hiding your valuables from burglars in an empty cereal box in your kitchen cabinet, steganography keeps the existence of the secret item from everyone but those in the know."

this reminds me of the page in the Nancy Drew book where they say "don't overlook small blotches on pieces of paper...they might turn out the be very small words" (or something along those lines)
also, i know that in previous drops there have been data cards that contained image files. could perhaps the same password that opened the data card file in the first place also reveal steganography within the pictures themselves??

anyway, i don't know if OpAphid/Tachyon/Brother(1003, Sebastian) even know about or use steganography, but i thought i would post this here, because it may be useful on old drop clues, but mostly because i thought it would be nice to have one more weapon in our arsenal of message decoding.
plus, it's just a fun concept.

anyway this message is stupidly long. i hope that all this was at least interesting, if not helpful in some way!

-theslyestfox

Hi fox.

Although there hasn't been that many situations where we've needed to even think about it, the few images that we have dealt with have been checked for steg. It has not been used in the game as of yet.

Great information in this post. It's been awhile since we've had an image to check, and I'm sure many will learn something new from it.

And I completely agree that it's a super fun concept. Tachyon needs to leave the beach in Fiji and get back to work already. We need more puzzles!

i remember playing around with stenography is comp sci very fun stuff just waiting for it to pop up here soon

sphinx wrote:Hi fox.

Although there hasn't been that many situations where we've needed to even think about it, the few images that we have dealt with have been checked for steg. It has not been used in the game as of yet.

Great information in this post. It's been awhile since we've had an image to check, and I'm sure many will learn something new from it.

And I completely agree that it's a super fun concept. Tachyon needs to leave the beach in Fiji and get back to work already. We need more puzzles!

*laughs* darn, and i thought maybe i was the first to mention it!
how silly of me. i should have known you guys were on top of it!

and yeah, she really does need to come home. or at least brother could post!
though i guess it'll probaly take a bit longer for them to make us clues because they'll have to coordinate with teh creators to a certain degree to make sure everything matches up!

i'll give you an example of a brother puzzle


2+2 = 4



you sure you want puzzles from brother?

two plus two equals four

slot false put row WQOUU

WQOUU = 23 + 17 + 15 + 21 + 21 = 97 = a

slot false put row a

...now where the hell is this "row a"?

Or it might be something more like 2 + 2 = 5...

Puzzles from Brother would be somewhat worrysome, IMO.

Duuuuuudes

The music mashup and math hell that followed were brother's puzzles.

yea really though
they took forever to solve and were pretty complicated

2+2=4 my butt

This was not the answer in TLE and prolly won't be here either...

*laughs*

you guys are hilarious.

seriously? i'm sure we would all be <i>thrilled</i> for even a 2+2=4 (or 5!) clue at this point....



not like i would know how to solve either of them *laughs* the ways you guys decipher all the clues is still a little beyond me.

lol... Yes I would take ANYTHING at this point...

The cool thing is that the creators read the forums so now that you posted this there is a chance it may come into play later!

itsreallyreal wrote:lol... Yes I would take ANYTHING at this point...

The cool thing is that the creators read the forums so now that you posted this there is a chance it may come into play later!

You mean the LG15 Creators right? Is there any evidence the OpAphid PMs actually read the forums? That would be pretty sweet.

tigerlilylynn wrote:Duuuuuudes

The music mashup and math hell that followed were brother's puzzles.

And so was "Look Familaar?" of Dutch spelling fame.
Your point?

JALG, we were once told (early in the game) that OpA had operatives who read the forums, and so I think we are supposed to consider the forums in-game--at least, the on-topic/puzzle sections. However, my observation has been that if we solve a puzzle, we still have to contact OpA/Tachyon if we want them to acknowledge the solution. Sometimes, though, we'll get a hint or a pointer based on something that's being discussed on the forums.

tiltingwindward wrote:

tigerlilylynn wrote:Duuuuuudes

The music mashup and math hell that followed were brother's puzzles.

And so was "Look Familaar?" of Dutch spelling fame.
Your point?

No that was Tachyon. She tried to deflect the heat by saying that brother probably wouldn't have noticed the difference, with his 5th grade remedial english skills. Obviously a cop-out. Here's that email to sphinx: