[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]
9B3E9D48B3A3C99D162D2A75E44FA14A0C3A9261C5873E6D0AB522D2A7
0E4C59D0E2D0A5063CD83524C38332659A51684583522C499663CFAF26A
48A9222C39F366CF9D4294187524C38B067449916B45A5063C59F3A2D38
33A25A8B4A7C5A7527D08B3AA488B26950A53E3D283369AE8F16745A506A
499D1E1CF89166499716A48934E3C59D169419932CC9A7068528B52A59A
F1664C5B1A7D59D122C4A106A548B4A7549F166D0993ECAE9F3AA488B1A
649A14E4C48AB21559D1E4C5934E74FA9667D5A552CD0930E0CC8B3A3C
99D162D2933A3C7A53EAD05D5E2D7A526A45A14A7C7A5066D3AF26A489F
56A4F9D169AE9F569508B3E84C8B127CE9F526499716A488B3AACD85169
2EAF22CBFAF1664C5952445A5160D28B1E94583522D2591E9419D122D29
D566C28B4A9D49F06850996634FA53EAD2AF26659874A0C6A8BA6C1B322
0D0B33EAC4934E0C7A5162ACA11694391067438B667D5831E9458ABABC
883526C1A9522D2A7269D49106A538B5A2CE934E6CFA5160D78B4E7CD8
B524419D3E745AF2664C8B5A2D293360C7933A2C9A94E2CC8D527C28AB
A0CE894E7ACAF161CF8916BC9A9220CDA1322D38B5A2CEA6B274FA93E7
45A6BA3418751D50A53E3D283369D0830E5C5895E4D4914E2D68B3A9C1
A5166CFA5160D78B4E7CD8B524419D424D491668529F1E9419B4EA48835
20D0A132CCF9D169AEB51694F8B4DFD78B3262CAF169D4933265491267
4BA9222D94F4A2C79F3E22EA14A2D4A9668419906A4185322AEAF163D283
4284C8B5E4D4916A2D29F169C19932A488B524CD8ABA2D68B3A74FAEBA
CC5A6BA445A515743833ACCFAB422CFA1322D38B16A488B35FD2931E454
9116945933AA48934E64F9D1EA45B151FD083569C5A93EA4197160CC9F3
A3CC9F3E5AEA11694391067438B52449A7220D385162CE835E4CCB31E0C
D8526A419932A48934EA499B15FD78B3262CA13E649A722A489F4E2D491
2674B933A3C383429AEB33EAC8835A2C19B426459D566C28B4A9D49F1A4
CE88BA441AD169CF9B163559C869D48366441A142CAE
[/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]
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