Posted September 12, 2011
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csmith
GOG Veteran
Registered: Sep 2008
From United States
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JMich
A Horrible Human Person. If you need me, chat.
Registered: Apr 2011
From Greece
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adambiser
fascimania.com
Registered: Dec 2009
From United States
Posted September 13, 2011
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Also, I think that the umlaut characters are padding, though not sure about the Capital one, is that padding as well?
I toyed with this for a long time and pretty much gave up. I figured once I put all that time into it, it'd be my luck that if it was a gift code, it'd be for something I already have. :D
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csmith
GOG Veteran
Registered: Sep 2008
From United States
Posted September 13, 2011
My thoughts were along the same line regarding the four letters that are most used. I didn't use the "fancy" letters since those were a different key on the keyboard. I tried counting the rest, grouped them by letter (x number of "a", y number of "c", and so forth), then used the numbers I came up with (x and y in my above example) and matched them with the corresponding letter of the alphabet. Tried that in about 10 different methods with 10 different resulting codes... none of which worked.
I figured I'd let it go at that point.
I figured I'd let it go at that point.
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ExplosiveCat
Explosive Cat
Registered: Jul 2011
From Russian Federation
Posted September 13, 2011
I got rid of all letters not being part of the code, converted them, played with the results a bit, got 4 or 5 different solutions, all wrong. Most likely I've missed some clever hint, but because of lack of time I will not solve it any time soon.
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adambiser
fascimania.com
Registered: Dec 2009
From United States
Posted September 13, 2011
Some possible clues that I completely did not regard in my method:
1) Fujek calls it spam twice. (Might not be important to solve it, though.)
2) The words "might" and "limitations" in "Oh and, the poor riddling soul might find this a bit tricky at some positions, in which case it might help to remember certain limitations."
I assumed "tricky at some positions" referred to the whole thing. :D
1) Fujek calls it spam twice. (Might not be important to solve it, though.)
2) The words "might" and "limitations" in "Oh and, the poor riddling soul might find this a bit tricky at some positions, in which case it might help to remember certain limitations."
I assumed "tricky at some positions" referred to the whole thing. :D
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JMich
A Horrible Human Person. If you need me, chat.
Registered: Apr 2011
From Greece
Posted September 13, 2011
After you remove the padding, you end up with a combination of g, c, a and u. The padding is mostly the qwerty keyboard added in it, though since it's a german one it's actually qwertz one.
My ideas were the following.
Idea 1) Assume that g and c are 0, while a and u are 1, then convert the binary to ascii. Didn't get anything useful, and neither did I by changing 0s and 1s.
Idea 2) Since the code is an alphanumeric one, that means that if it is binary, then it would be numbers from 32 to 127, so if a binary octet started with 1, I would add a 0 in the beginning, while if it started with a 0 I'd leave it as is. That gave me an 18 character text, which contained 2 special characters '&' and '(' if I recall correctly. The other 16 characters seemed like a code, but it wasn't one unfortunately.
Idea 3) Assume the pairs weren't g+c, a+u but another combination. Still didn't get anything.
Idea 4) Assume that instead of each character being a 0 or a 1, you use pair of characters, if the pair was an RNA pair, value was 1, else value was 0. That gave me way too few characters for a code.
So, those were what I tried, but still didn't manage anything, and since we are currently about 30 hours from the code's post, I do feel like sharing my tries.
My ideas were the following.
Idea 1) Assume that g and c are 0, while a and u are 1, then convert the binary to ascii. Didn't get anything useful, and neither did I by changing 0s and 1s.
Idea 2) Since the code is an alphanumeric one, that means that if it is binary, then it would be numbers from 32 to 127, so if a binary octet started with 1, I would add a 0 in the beginning, while if it started with a 0 I'd leave it as is. That gave me an 18 character text, which contained 2 special characters '&' and '(' if I recall correctly. The other 16 characters seemed like a code, but it wasn't one unfortunately.
Idea 3) Assume the pairs weren't g+c, a+u but another combination. Still didn't get anything.
Idea 4) Assume that instead of each character being a 0 or a 1, you use pair of characters, if the pair was an RNA pair, value was 1, else value was 0. That gave me way too few characters for a code.
So, those were what I tried, but still didn't manage anything, and since we are currently about 30 hours from the code's post, I do feel like sharing my tries.
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Lexor
👽
Registered: Apr 2010
From Poland
Posted September 13, 2011
Well, I spent a lot of time during last day, night and today. Now, by sharing my thoughts I probably will not win this as first now but... well. I've sent PM to Fujek today with my answer which I think is the only possible.
If you look at this code it easy to recognise that in the last part of it there are only gcau letters - its RNA code. Last part of Fujek's spam is the only part where there are no other letters between. After converting this using genetic code you are getting this: MPTGEESEVENEMWTWQPEE. RNA code is limited - you can not get any digits nor B, J, O, U, X and Z letters. One example to get digit is to type it like here: SEVEN = 7. So now we are getting: MPTGEE7EMWTWQPEE - it is perfectly 16 characters suitable to be code. But MPTG-EE7E-MWTW-QPEE does not work. Tricky part of this is: some letters are coded by two different codes: P (once it is "ccu" and the other "ccc"), T ("acu" and "acc") and E ("gaa" and "gag") - so these letters in other codes could be used to play "missing letters" from genetic code - that is the limitation Fujek was talking about. I tried many combinations in last nearly 20 hours with no valid answer. Now I'm really tired of this one but it is the only possible answer for me so.. sigh. :(
If you look at this code it easy to recognise that in the last part of it there are only gcau letters - its RNA code. Last part of Fujek's spam is the only part where there are no other letters between. After converting this using genetic code you are getting this: MPTGEESEVENEMWTWQPEE. RNA code is limited - you can not get any digits nor B, J, O, U, X and Z letters. One example to get digit is to type it like here: SEVEN = 7. So now we are getting: MPTGEE7EMWTWQPEE - it is perfectly 16 characters suitable to be code. But MPTG-EE7E-MWTW-QPEE does not work. Tricky part of this is: some letters are coded by two different codes: P (once it is "ccu" and the other "ccc"), T ("acu" and "acc") and E ("gaa" and "gag") - so these letters in other codes could be used to play "missing letters" from genetic code - that is the limitation Fujek was talking about. I tried many combinations in last nearly 20 hours with no valid answer. Now I'm really tired of this one but it is the only possible answer for me so.. sigh. :(
Post edited September 13, 2011 by Lexor
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DebugMode
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Registered: Jun 2011
From Germany
Posted September 13, 2011
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If you look at this code it easy to recognise that in the last part of it there are only gcau letters - its RNA code. Last part of Fujek's spam is the only part where there are no other letters between. After converting this using genetic code you are getting this: MPTGEESEVENEMWTWQPEE. RNA code is limited - you can not get any digits nor B, J, O, U, X and Z letters. One example to get digit is to type it like here: SEVEN = 7. So now we are getting: MPTGEE7EMWTWQPEE - it is perfectly 16 characters suitable to be code. But MPTG-EE7E-MWTW-QPEE does not work. Tricky part of this is: some letters are coded by two different codes: P (once it is "ccu" and the other "ccc"), T ("acu" and "acc") and E ("gaa" and "gag") - so these letters in other codes could be used to play "missing letters" from genetic code - that is the limitation Fujek was talking about. I tried many combinations in last nearly 20 hours with no valid answer. Now I'm really tired of this one but it is the only possible answer for me so.. sigh. :(
Good luck!
Post edited September 13, 2011 by DebugMode
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Lexor
👽
Registered: Apr 2010
From Poland
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adambiser
fascimania.com
Registered: Dec 2009
From United States
Posted September 13, 2011
I have all 16 letters/numbers using your technique (I had looked at the wrong DNA-hiding codes for mine.), but it's an invalid certificate, from what I see...
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wodmarach
booooooooooored
Registered: Feb 2010
From United Kingdom
Posted September 13, 2011
I get 20 >.< I've made a mistake somewhere
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Lexor
👽
Registered: Apr 2010
From Poland
Posted September 13, 2011
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Post edited September 13, 2011 by Lexor
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adambiser
fascimania.com
Registered: Dec 2009
From United States
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Lexor
👽
Registered: Apr 2010
From Poland
Posted September 13, 2011
Ha, I've found the code at last :D But... the code is still waiting :>