The one time the challenge is related to binary, hexadecimal and programming and I miss it. Darn.

Good mailsack.

yayyyy first time making it into a mail sack! :)

Wow nice man Didn't somebody say softish earlier though?

Bungie's "fixed" endings do not give me hope for Destiny.

Blast. Was AFK last night and just now saw the challenge. Appreciated the "guided missile" reference though. ;)

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] GrinnialVex SWEET!!! I'm all front-and-center with my demonicness in that picture. I love it![/quote]:( Lucky! I was there, but not in the picture... *Feels alone*

SWEET!!! I'm all front-and-center with my demonicness in that picture. I love it!

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Locker537 [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Your MOM is MC [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Locker537 [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Your MOM is MC My question is, where were we given the pointer to take the 0's and 7's out of the hex and translate them to binary from the 91-bit code? I know Blue got the idea and pulled them out using C++ but other than that, I can't seem to find a cue elsewhere to show that we needed to do that.[/quote] The paragraph about Bungie programming in sevens from the original hexadecimal blob was the clue; albiet tricky. [/quote] Not that, blue already answered my question. I already knew to transform the 1's to 7's or vice versa, but I wasn't sure how he came up with the idea to put them in binary form. He said it was a guess, which is honestly the only way anyone could've gotten it. Hence it's high difficulty.[/quote] You have a string of sevens and zeroes. Based on the paragraph, you know Bungie uses sevens instead of ones, so you replace the sevens with ones. Now you have a string of ones and zeroes, which IS binary. [/quote] I already understood that. My question was answered already, no need trying to explain. My question was why did he choose to transform the Hex to binary and put the 0's ahead of each line. He already explained, all is well. I already knew to transform the 7's to 1's, we just didn't know what to do after that. And you don't have a string of 7' and 0's to start, you have a block of hex code to work with (there's about 3 different ways to achieve the answer, we went about it a slightly different way).

For those interested, I threw some comments into my solution script. Hopefully the comments are helpful for those who don't write software to get the idea of the entire process. https://gist.github.com/3671583

Good stuff, bluechill! :) [Edited on 09.08.2012 2:14 PM PDT]

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Your MOM is MC [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Locker537 [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Your MOM is MC My question is, where were we given the pointer to take the 0's and 7's out of the hex and translate them to binary from the 91-bit code? I know Blue got the idea and pulled them out using C++ but other than that, I can't seem to find a cue elsewhere to show that we needed to do that.[/quote] The paragraph about Bungie programming in sevens from the original hexadecimal blob was the clue; albiet tricky. [/quote] Not that, blue already answered my question. I already knew to transform the 1's to 7's or vice versa, but I wasn't sure how he came up with the idea to put them in binary form. He said it was a guess, which is honestly the only way anyone could've gotten it. Hence it's high difficulty.[/quote] You have a string of sevens and zeroes. Based on the paragraph, you know Bungie uses sevens instead of ones, so you replace the sevens with ones. Now you have a string of ones and zeroes, which IS binary.

Hey missing link canI get a congratulations as a consolation prize? I did use deductive reasoning. Last one was Ling Ling so I figured this would be another Bungie meme like that. Tell me you love me at least. :p

Thanks for the walkthrough blue, definitely helped explain things. The only thing I got hung up on was changing the hexadecimal to binary and then prepending 0's... Rest makes sense :D

Thanks for explaining, bluechill. [Edited on 09.08.2012 2:46 PM PDT]

Thanks! That really clears up the what I didn't understand about what you had did. What we did was we were looking for the different combinations of what it could be. Also, we converted the 1's into 7, not 7 into 1. That was our main mistake.

Well if you read it again you'll find I modified it a bit to make it more accurate and include more and clearer information :P [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] BIGJOW Erm... you're a bit effing good fella! :) Cracking work. You can has cookie [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] bluechill9 snip[/quote] [/quote] [Edited on 09.08.2012 1:08 PM PDT]

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] bluechill9 [/quote] Alright thanks, hopefully with that I'll be able to finish this damn puzzle. I have to go right now but I'll try again later.

Erm... you're a bit effing good fella! :) Cracking work. You can has cookie [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] bluechill9 [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Verachi I don't know if anybody would be up for this, but here we go. I'd appreciate it if somebody made a video of them doing this puzzle. With all the explanations that you all gave me, it helped out a lot but I still get stuck in certain places (I'm still trying to do the puzzle). I'm a visual learner so that would help me out a lot. I would be kind of cheating myself but I don't think I can do this without a visual explanation. So if anybody does this <3[/quote] The best I can do right now is the following: To start off we take this photo: [url]http://www.bungie.net/images/News/Inline12/mailsack/09072012/PAX.png[/url] And look in the bottom right corner at the squares. The RGB values represent three low order (non-extended) ascii codes, doing this for all of them leads you to the following code: [quote] 70 105 114 115 116 32 99 111 110 118 101 114 116 32 116 104 101 32 104 101 120 97 100 101 99 105 109 97 108 32 116 111 32 98 105 110 97 114 121 46 32 84 104 101 110 44 32 114 101 103 114 111 117 112 32 116 104 101 32 98 105 116 115 32 105 110 116 111 32 99 104 117 110 107 115 32 101 113 117 97 108 32 116 111 32 111 117 114 32 102 97 118 111 114 105 116 101 32 110 117 109 98 101 114 46 32 70 105 110 97 108 108 121 44 32 113 101 97 100 32 97 115 32 65 83 67 73 73 46 [/quote] which when converted to binary gives us: [quote] 010001100110100101110010011100110111010000100000011000110110111101101110011101100110010101110010011101000010000001110100011010000110010100100000011010000110010101111000011000010110010001100101011000010110110000100000011101000110111100100000011000100110100101101110011000010111001001111001001011100010000001010100011010000110010101101110001011000010000001110010011001010110011101110010011011110111010101110000001000000111010001101000011001010010000001100010011010010111010001110011001000000110100101101110011101000110111100100000011000110110100001110101011011100110101101110011001000000110010101110001011101010110000101101100001000000111010001101111001000000110111101110101011100100010000001100110011000010111011001101111011100100110100101110100011001010010000001101110011101010110110101100010011001010111001000101110001000000100011001101001011011100110000101101100011011000111100100101100001000000111001001100101011000010110010000100000011000010111001100100000010000010101001101000011010010010100100100101110[/quote] then read as ascii we get: [quote]First convert the hexadeal to binary. Then, regroup the bits into chunks equal to our favorite number. Finally, read as ASCII.[/quote] Favorite number = 7 Hexadeal = Hexadecimal Bits = 1 binary character (a 1 or a 0) This means take the following message: [quote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quote] and convert the hex representations to the binary representations. Once we have that we must split everything up into groups of 7 characters (bungie's favorite number). Then since this is low order ascii we prepend (insert at the beginning) of each chunk "0" (1 would be extended ascii). Then we convert this binary to ascii and we get the following message: [quote] MOSTENGINEERSWHOPRACTICECOMPUTERSCIENCEPRAGMATICALLYREPEATEDLYGOWITHTHECOMMONPRACTICEANDLEVERAGEONESANDZEROESTOPENTHEIRPROGRAMS.GENERATINGCODELIKETHISGENERALLYISAPRETTYWELL-FOUNDEDPATTERNTOEMPLOY.ONTHEFLIPSIDE,BUNGIEISNOTYOURTYPICALENGINEERINGGROUP.WEWRITEPROGRAMSWITHOUTONES.OURPEOPLEDONOTLIKETHENUMBER.WHY?WELL,THEREAREGREATER,GRANDERNUMBERSTOAPPLYFOROURWILYCRAFT.MAYHAPYOUDISAGREE,PERCHANCEYOUAGREE.WHATMATTERSISTHATSEVENISMOREAWESOMETHANONEWILLEVERIMAGINEITSELFTOBE.ANDSO,WECODEWITHAMPLESEVENS,NOTONES.FACT:PROGRAMSPACKEDWITHSEVENSAREMOREAWESOMETHANPITHYPROGRAMSTHATAPPLYONES.ZEROES?WELL,WESTILLTHINKTHEY'REGOOD.PRETTYPALATABLE.WEGRAPPLEWITHZEROESALLTHETIME.EVENNOW.YES.HERE.CANYOUPEOPLESEETHEM?RIGHTHEREINTHISLONGTEXT?PAUSETOTAKEALONGLOOK.PERCHANCETHISHASBEENAWILYGAMBITALLTHISTIME?WELL,POLISHTHOSETHINKINGCAPS.YOUHAVEAMPLENUMBERSTOFIND.HAVESOMEFUN!STAYHAPPY. [/quote] This is the main riddle. What it ends up being is that you must understand that they do not like "1s" but love 7s and they still find 0s to be ok. So since this message was original hex and there are 7s and 0s in the original hex. There is exactly 91 of them. 91/7 is 13 as in 13 ascii characters in binary. So based on the hint TheMissingLink gave, we use a program to go through the hex sequentially and pull out each 7 and 0 in order. Then swap each 7 with a 1. Then based on the earlier math of 91/7 being 13 *low order* ascii we split it into 13 chunks of 7. Prepend again 0s to them and read the binary: [quote] 01100010 01101001 01110100 00101110 01101100 01111001 00101111 01110010 01100100 01111001 01001100 01101011 01010000 [/quote] as ascii. Then we get the following link: [url]http://bit.ly/rdyLkP[/url] this link leads to the soffish page on bungie.net which is the answer.[/quote]

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Verachi I don't know if anybody would be up for this, but here we go. I'd appreciate it if somebody made a video of them doing this puzzle. With all the explanations that you all gave me, it helped out a lot but I still get stuck in certain places (I'm still trying to do the puzzle). I'm a visual learner so that would help me out a lot. I would be kind of cheating myself but I don't think I can do this without a visual explanation. So if anybody does this <3[/quote] The best I can do right now is the following: To start off we take this photo based on the hint from Deej: [url]http://www.bungie.net/images/News/Inline12/mailsack/09072012/PAX.png[/url] And search around. If you look at the the bottom right corner you find a bunch of 4 pixel squares. Each one is a weird color too. Strange isn't it? Well if you look at the rgb values for them you notice that they're all within the range of low-order ascii characters. If you read all of them you get these: [quote] 70 105 114 115 116 32 99 111 110 118 101 114 116 32 116 104 101 32 104 101 120 97 100 101 99 105 109 97 108 32 116 111 32 98 105 110 97 114 121 46 32 84 104 101 110 44 32 114 101 103 114 111 117 112 32 116 104 101 32 98 105 116 115 32 105 110 116 111 32 99 104 117 110 107 115 32 101 113 117 97 108 32 116 111 32 111 117 114 32 102 97 118 111 114 105 116 101 32 110 117 109 98 101 114 46 32 70 105 110 97 108 108 121 44 32 113 101 97 100 32 97 115 32 65 83 67 73 73 46 [/quote] which gives us the following message: [quote]First convert the hexadeal to binary. Then, regroup the bits into chunks equal to our favorite number. Finally, read as ASCII.[/quote] Favorite number = 7 Hexadeal = Hexadecimal Bits = 1 binary character (a 1 or a 0) This means take the following message: [quote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quote] and convert the hex representations to the binary representations. Once we have that we must split everything up into groups of 7 characters (bungie's favorite number). Then since this is low order ascii we prepend (insert at the beginning) of each chunk "0" (1 would be extended ascii). Then we convert this binary to ascii and we get the following message: [quote] MOSTENGINEERSWHOPRACTICECOMPUTERSCIENCEPRAGMATICALLYREPEATEDLYGOWITHTHECOMMONPRACTICEANDLEVERAGEONESANDZEROESTOPENTHEIRPROGRAMS.GENERATINGCODELIKETHISGENERALLYISAPRETTYWELL-FOUNDEDPATTERNTOEMPLOY.ONTHEFLIPSIDE,BUNGIEISNOTYOURTYPICALENGINEERINGGROUP.WEWRITEPROGRAMSWITHOUTONES.OURPEOPLEDONOTLIKETHENUMBER.WHY?WELL,THEREAREGREATER,GRANDERNUMBERSTOAPPLYFOROURWILYCRAFT.MAYHAPYOUDISAGREE,PERCHANCEYOUAGREE.WHATMATTERSISTHATSEVENISMOREAWESOMETHANONEWILLEVERIMAGINEITSELFTOBE.ANDSO,WECODEWITHAMPLESEVENS,NOTONES.FACT:PROGRAMSPACKEDWITHSEVENSAREMOREAWESOMETHANPITHYPROGRAMSTHATAPPLYONES.ZEROES?WELL,WESTILLTHINKTHEY'REGOOD.PRETTYPALATABLE.WEGRAPPLEWITHZEROESALLTHETIME.EVENNOW.YES.HERE.CANYOUPEOPLESEETHEM?RIGHTHEREINTHISLONGTEXT?PAUSETOTAKEALONGLOOK.PERCHANCETHISHASBEENAWILYGAMBITALLTHISTIME?WELL,POLISHTHOSETHINKINGCAPS.YOUHAVEAMPLENUMBERSTOFIND.HAVESOMEFUN!STAYHAPPY. [/quote] This is the main riddle. What it ends up being is that you must understand that they do not like "1s" but love 7s and they still find 0s to be ok. In the original hex there is 0s and 7s. Also if you read a program in a hex editor you get similar lookingish things but not the same and so it was a hint that way too, "they program in 7s not 1s." There is exactly 91 7s and 0s too. 91/7 is 13, as in 13 ascii characters in binary. So based on the hint TheMissingLink gave, we use a program to go through the hex sequentially and pull out each 7 and 0 in order. Then swap each 7 with a 1. Then based on the earlier math of 91/7 being 13 *low order* ascii we split it into 13 chunks of 7. Prepend again 0s to them and read the binary (without the 0s it wouldn't be binary because it needs to be divisible by 8!): [quote] 01100010 01101001 01110100 00101110 01101100 01111001 00101111 01110010 01100100 01111001 01001100 01101011 01010000 [/quote] as ascii. Then we get the following link: [url]http://bit.ly/rdyLkP[/url] this link leads to the soffish page on bungie.net which is the answer. By the way, I did all of this in pure C++/C which makes some conversions nice like converting characters to their ascii versions (take a char and then do int(charactervar) ). It is possible to do this in most other languages which allow fine grain text manipulation. The only reason I did it in C++ is I'm the best at that. So that's how I solved and became the first person to complete the challenge. Also here is all the C++ programs I used. It's a bit convoluted but if you dig through them you can find good bits of code: [url]http://cl.ly/3o2q40121q00[/url] Also you'll note there is no binary to ascii converter in there, I was lazy so I just used: [url]http://www.roubaixinteractive.com/PlayGround/Binary_Conversion/Binary_To_Text.asp[/url] It should be trivial because all you'd be doing is converting binary ascii characters (base 2 versions) to their base 10 version then constructing a character variable of some sort around the decimal (base 10 version) and then looping and reading it. Also this took me ~5 hours to do. I worked last night from when the mail sack came out to around 11EST then woke up and worked on it in the morning after a lot of sleep. I tried many many things. And it turns out that if you do things like treat 7 letter words as 1s and commas, periods, question marks, and colons as 0s you get 7 ascii characters too but that was wrong. Same thing if you read the message with spaces and grab the first letter of each word then check whether it is divisible by 7 (character % 7 in C++/C/Obj-C) and if the remainder is 0 or 1 you get 7 ascii characters that way too. Those were annoying coincidences :P [Edited on 09.08.2012 1:28 PM PDT]

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] dmg04 Looks like i'm never winning a mailsack challenge! lol![/quote]QFT.

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] TheMisssingLink [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Verachi Thanks for the explanation, but that explanation is not going to change the fact that I'm going to give you dirty looks from now on when I see you in the forums. *Gives dirty look*[/quote] Please, go ahead. If you didn't, I would suspect that you were trying to ply answers out of me. :) Besides, it is highly likely that I will be back here yet again with another nefarious puzzle for you.[/quote]Looks like i'm never winning a mailsack challenge! lol!

I don't know if anybody would be up for this, but here we go. I'd appreciate it if somebody made a video of them doing this puzzle. With all the explanations that you all gave me, it helped out a lot but I still get stuck in certain places (I'm still trying to do the puzzle). I'm a visual learner so that would help me out a lot. I would be kind of cheating myself but I don't think I can do this without a visual explanation. So if anybody does this <3

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Your MOM is MC [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Locker537 [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Your MOM is MC My question is, where were we given the pointer to take the 0's and 7's out of the hex and translate them to binary from the 91-bit code? I know Blue got the idea and pulled them out using C++ but other than that, I can't seem to find a cue elsewhere to show that we needed to do that.[/quote] The paragraph about Bungie programming in sevens from the original hexadecimal blob was the clue; albiet tricky. [/quote] Not that, blue already answered my question. I already knew to transform the 1's to 7's or vice versa, but I wasn't sure how he came up with the idea to put them in binary form. He said it was a guess, which is honestly the only way anyone could've gotten it. Hence it's high difficulty.[/quote] Oh no it was a guess to use the hex from the original page but to put it in binary form was a guess based on what I had already done for earlier parts

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Locker537 [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Your MOM is MC My question is, where were we given the pointer to take the 0's and 7's out of the hex and translate them to binary from the 91-bit code? I know Blue got the idea and pulled them out using C++ but other than that, I can't seem to find a cue elsewhere to show that we needed to do that.[/quote] The paragraph about Bungie programming in sevens from the original hexadecimal blob was the clue; albiet tricky. [/quote] Not that, blue already answered my question. I already knew to transform the 1's to 7's or vice versa, but I wasn't sure how he came up with the idea to put them in binary form. He said it was a guess, which is honestly the only way anyone could've gotten it. Hence it's high difficulty.

Good job to both TheMisssingLink for making such a challenge, and bluechill9 for solving it. I believe bluechill9 deserves a little more for the effort it took in solving this one. Give him an extra sticker... :D [Edited on 09.08.2012 11:59 AM PDT]