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[Puzzle] JayNineteen Youtube Profile Update [5/7/07]
Posted: Mon May 07, 2007 5:04 pm
by TOSG
"Every man and every woman is a star."
ijoopyaattzbqkipyerggjqa
060060061061060061060060040060 060061060061060060060040060060 061060061060061061040060060061 061060060060061040060060061061 060060061061040060060061060061 060060061040060060061060060060 060060040060060061061060060060 061040060060061060061060060060 040060060061060061060061061040 060060061061060061060060040060 060061060061060060061040060060 061060060060060060040060060061 061061060060060040060060061060 061060060060040060060061060061 060061061040060060061061060060 060061040060060061061060061061 061040060060061060061060060061 040060060061060060060060060040 060060061061060061060060040060 060061060061060060060040060060 061060061061060061040060060061 061060060060061040060060061061 060060060061040060060061060061 060060061040060060061060060060 060060040060060061061060060060 061040060060061060061060060060 040060060061060061061060061040 060060061061060060060061040060 060061061060061060060040060060 061060061060060061040060060061 060060060060060040060060061061 061060060060040060060061060061 060060060040060060061060061061 060061040060060061061060060060 061040060060061061060061061060 040060060061060061060060061
Octal ---> ASCII Text:
00110100 00101000 00101011 00110001 00110011 00101001 00100000 00110001 00101000 00101011 00110100 00101001 00100000 00111000 00101000 00101011 00110001 00110111 00101001 00100000 00110100 00101000 00101101 00110001 00110001 00101001 00100000 00110001 00101000 00101101 00110001 00110100 00101001 00100000 00111000 00101000 00101101 00110001 00110110 00101001
Binary ---> ASCII Text:
4(+13) 1(+4) 8(+17) 4(-11) 1(-14) 8(-16)
The quote is from Crowley. I'm working on figuring out what the decoding numbers may apply to.
Posted: Mon May 07, 2007 5:17 pm
by TOSG
No immediate insights. Assuming the decoding numbers work as before, we should be looking for an 18-base DNA sequence. The "ijoopyaattzbqkipyerggjqa" string of letters (maybe a Vigenere key or a message to decode) is 24 letters, and the Crowley quote is more yet. Any ideas?
Posted: Mon May 07, 2007 5:27 pm
by TOSG
Also, his myspace quote is now "SIRS." I'm not sure if this is new or not. I think that it refers to "Systemic Inflammatory Response Syndrome," which is often caused by "cytokine storms." Interleukins are often hugely upregulated in such storms. Walter titled one of his photobucket pictures "interlukin" [sic] and interleukins also play a role in XSCID, which we've seen before.
A bit of a stretch, but interesting.
ETA: In the coded message that I sent him a little while ago, the vigenere passphrase was "cytokine." In the one he sent back, the passphrase was "storm." I think this is on the right track
.
Posted: Mon May 07, 2007 9:09 pm
by ignatzmouse
Well I tried Vigenere decrypting "ijoopyaattzbqkipyerggjqa" with as many sequences of {A,C,G,T} as I could stand, and none of them produced a sensible-looking key. The nearest I got was "chimps" which decrypts to "gcgcag..." but after that it's gibberish. Er, and what have chimps got to do with it? Will we see animal rights demonstrators outside Facility J?
Posted: Mon May 07, 2007 9:11 pm
by ignatzmouse
OOG PS: Ooh, this is nice timing, Maddison winds down and the Facility J gamejack starts up...
Posted: Mon May 07, 2007 10:02 pm
by Luminous
ignatzmouse wrote:Well I tried Vigenere decrypting "ijoopyaattzbqkipyerggjqa" with as many sequences of {A,C,G,T} as I could stand, and none of them produced a sensible-looking key. The nearest I got was "chimps" which decrypts to "gcgcag..." but after that it's gibberish. Er, and what have chimps got to do with it? Will we see animal rights demonstrators outside Facility J?
Hi iMous
Hey can you explain what you just did there for me? I'm confused. Sorry
Posted: Mon May 07, 2007 10:42 pm
by ignatzmouse
Luminous wrote:Hi iMous
Hey can you explain what you just did there for me? I'm confused. Sorry
Ah, it's getting like the old Facility J days, oh the nostalgia...
I didn't do anything very rocket sciency, just a bit boring. I put the message ijoopyaattzbqkipyerggjqa into the
Rumkin Vigenere-omatic and then started going through possible decrypt keys.
The idea is that Vigenere is given by ciphertext_i = (plaintext_i + key_i) mod 26, so decryption is given by plaintext_i = (ciphertext_i - key_i) mod 26, but you can just as well use it for key_i = (ciphertext_i - plaintext_i) mod 26. So if you feed in guesses for the plaintext, you'll get guesses for the key back.
So taking ciphertext = "ijoopyaattzbqkipyerggjqa" and then starting with plaintext = "aaa" we get key = "ijo..." which looks like gibberish, so next we try "aac" and get key = "ijm..." ditto. Keep going, diving deep when you get something like "chimps" which actually is a word.
The reason why this works is that there's not many combinations of {A,C,G,T} to deal with, and we're guessing that the key is probably something recognizable.
Posted: Mon May 07, 2007 10:53 pm
by Luminous
So here's what we've tried so far in chat:
Message: Everymanandeverywomanisastar
Pass: ijoopyaattzbqkipyerggjqa
Result: Wmqdjoanhuedfujjykvuhzcakkmd
Message: Everymanandeverywomanisastar
Pass: SIRS
Result: Mnnzgejvifmmdwagegvivabialjz
Message: ijoopyaattzbqkipyerggjqa
Pass: SIRS
Result: qbxwxqjiblijycrxgwaoobzi
Message: ijoopyaattzbqkipyerggjqa
Pass: Everymanandeverywomanisastar
Result: eokxrmantgwxvgrrcqfgtbya
Message: ijoopyaattzbqkipyerggjqa
Pass: storm
Result: qqaxdghmchhictwxfqauoqcj
Message: Everymanandeverywomanisastar
Pass: storm
Result: Mcqamuhzjbllhnfgdavovpejgbhd
Message: ijoopyaattzbqkipyerggjqa
Pass: star
Result: qqoxxfajbazkyriyglrpoqqj
Message: ijoopyaattzbqkipyerggjqa
Pass: abrahadabra
Result: iixoiyxasczbptiiybrfpjqz
Obviously, there's something we're missing
Posted: Mon May 07, 2007 11:22 pm
by Musique
This is a really random train of thought about possible "key words".
The quote by Crowley mentions how every man and every woman is a star. Stars are illuminated bodies of light in the universe... so I'm thinking, "light", or illuminate, or the like might be a possibility?
Then I thought about what TOSG said about "storms". Storm, maybe?
Now I've combined the two. A light during a storm... lightning, thunderbolt? Or even a beacon of light during a storm on the seas, a lighthouse?
Posted: Tue May 08, 2007 8:33 am
by silverblue
Can I get a hallelujah?!
Sorry that I can't help with the decoding.
Posted: Tue May 08, 2007 1:19 pm
by ignatzmouse
And as a check to see if it's keyed Vigenere, the lookup table for {A,C,G,T} Vigenere-encrypted with {A,C,G,T} is:
Code: Select all
a+a a+c a+g a+t c+c c+g c+t g+g g+t t+t
a c g t e i v m z m
so the ciphertext we've got is:
Code: Select all
* * * * * * a+a a+a a+t a+t g+t *
i j o o p y a a t t z b
* * c+g * * c+c * a+g a+g * * a+a
q k i p y e r g g j q a
If this was an {A,C,G,T} sequence encrypted with keyed Vigenere, the "*"s above would disappear after a while (once the passphrase runs out). Since they don't, this is probably not an {A,C,G,T} sequence encrypted with keyed Vigenere.
For {A,C,G,U} the situation is similar:
Code: Select all
a+a a+c a+g a+u c+c c+g c+u g+g g+u u+u
a c g u e i w m a o
* * u+u u+u * * a+a a+a * * * *
i j o o p y a a t t z b
* * c+g * * c+c * a+g a+g * * a+a
q k i p y e r g g j q a
Boy, I learned something playing Maddison Atkins
Posted: Tue May 08, 2007 1:23 pm
by Luminous
ignatzmouse wrote:And as a check to see if it's keyed Vigenere, the lookup table for {A,C,G,T} Vigenere-encrypted with {A,C,G,T} is:
Code: Select all
a+a a+c a+g a+t c+c c+g c+t g+g g+t t+t
a c g t e i v m z m
so the ciphertext we've got is:
Code: Select all
* * * * * * a+a a+a a+t a+t g+t *
i j o o p y a a t t z b
* * c+g * * c+c * a+g a+g * * a+a
q k i p y e r g g j q a
If this was an {A,C,G,T} sequence encrypted with keyed Vigenere, the "*"s above would disappear after a while (once the passphrase runs out). Since they don't, this is probably not an {A,C,G,T} sequence encrypted with keyed Vigenere.
For {A,C,G,U} the situation is similar:
Code: Select all
a+a a+c a+g a+u c+c c+g c+u g+g g+u u+u
a c g u e i w m a o
* * u+u u+u * * a+a a+a * * * *
i j o o p y a a t t z b
* * c+g * * c+c * a+g a+g * * a+a
q k i p y e r g g j q a
Boy, I learned something playing Maddison Atkins
Wow! good work mouse!
Posted: Tue May 08, 2007 1:32 pm
by ignatzmouse
Luminous wrote:Wow! good work mouse!
Thanks. Pity it didn't go anywhere.
Posted: Tue May 08, 2007 2:03 pm
by Luminous
ignatzmouse wrote:Luminous wrote:Wow! good work mouse!
Thanks. Pity it didn't go anywhere.
I wouldn't say that. You've eliminated an option. That's always progress. I've found, with these Facility J puzzles, that's how it goes. It's a process of elimination that sometimes takes days. This is an incredible analysis you've contributed.
Hmmm.
Back to think about other possible attacks.
Posted: Tue May 08, 2007 2:51 pm
by ignatzmouse
OK, next bit of cryptanalysis that doesn't get us a result...
If it's an {A,C,G,T} sequence that's Vigenere-encrypted (and the key is short enough to repeat, otherwise it's essentially one-time-pad and cryptanalysis isn't going to get us very far) then the key has to repeat eventually. The possible keys are:
Code: Select all
a ijoopyaattzbqkipyerggjqa
c ghmmnwyyrrxzoignwcpeehoy
g cdiijsuunntvkecjsylaadku
t pqvvwfhhaagixrpwflynnqxh
e.g. you can see in this table how "chimps" is a possible key for the beginning of the sequence, and produces plaintext "gcgcag".
Now, we try comparing this sequence with itself shifted right, to see if we can get a match. Nope. The nearest match I could get was:
Code: Select all
a ijoopyaattzbqkipyerggjqa
c ghmmnwyyrrxzoignwcpeehoy
g cdiijsuunntvkecjsylaadku
t pqvvwfhhaagixrpwflynnqxh
a ijoopyaattzbqkipyerggjqa
c ghmmnwyyrrxzoignwcpeehoy
g cdiijsuunntvkecjsylaadku
t pqvvwfhhaagixrpwflynnqxh
g-oipwyyrag-o-
Note that the shift is 10, so we're looking for a length 10 key, and how exciting, the key actually repeats at the right point. Indeed trying the key "gboipwyyra" produces the plaintext "ciagaccccttaccttagagaics" which is very close to a DNA sequence, but a miss is as good as a mile. Oh, and gboipwyyra is gibberish as well, not much to do with storms, stars, etc.
I tried this for U rather than T and also got gibberish for that.
Hmm, I guess I could try doing this all again for {I,K,O,Y} but my head hurts too much right now.