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• out of the blue

  Moritz Walter • 01/05/2016 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 Walter • 12/29/2015 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!

  stephen • 12/22/2015 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

  stephen • 12/20/2015 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

  stephen • 12/18/2015 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

  stephen • 12/18/2015 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

  stephen • 12/18/2015 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

  stephen • 12/18/2015 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

  stephen • 12/18/2015 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

  stephen • 12/18/2015 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?)

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