Steganography Puzzle - Dream or Reality?

The puzzle was originally posted four days ago. 13 hours ago, I posted that one section contained ascii coded as groups of 2 hex digits.

The very first puzzle in the new ARG phase (the Myriad website) consisted of ascii coded as groups of 2 hex digits.

I first became aware of the new ARG phase about 4 hours ago. Definitely not 4 days ago.

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Yeah, but that could easily be chance. Now if the next step involves converting sound to images, I might be convinced. Maybe youā€™re right. Maybe we should look into solving this puzzle? Perhaps the method for the next clue can be used in the ARG?

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In a way I wish I was involved, because I bet the other side is intruiging to be part of, then again, I am glad I am not and looking forward to continue participation. I am fine with whatever anyone thinks though and find it kind of funny and interesting at the same time.

As for hex to ascii (text), this is commonly used in puzzles, and usually easily recognised. Waking Titan has used it as well; 6475706C65 (DUPLE) for example. ASCII used 128 characters, and is expanded to 256. Together with binary, they form a history in computing, because it makes reading code easier to read for a human. Give it a try, hint :wink:

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What settings did you use in the sstv tool to clear up the image? with the default, i got
Capture
or maybe the volume makes a difference?

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I used a headset, with the microphone folded between the earpieces, and the volume pretty high. It needs to get a good signal. I used the default setting for MMSSTV.

I believe @DevilinPixy puts the microphone up against the speakers.

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This is fun!

Thereā€™s plain text at the end of the file.

The password is: 14E2C6B --5R 2L 10R 1R 12L 1R 7L--

And thatā€™s where Iā€™m stuck.

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I was being a little playful. No need to get defensive. Yet this whole thing comes out of ARG land. A place of smoke and mirrors, where nothing can be relied on to be what it seems. We know the organisers use fake user accounts and trusted agents to make sure certain pieces of information get found. They have to - otherwise, if a puzzle turned out to be too hard, the whole thing would grind to a halt.

Anyway, looks like the experts are on the case nowā€¦

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That password didnt worked for me, maybe R means right and L left (5 right > 2 leftā€¦)

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Those look like instructions for using the code wheels we had in the previous phases of the ARG.

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It is. Iā€™ve tried it in both directions without result though.

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Yeah, I figure itā€™s some sort of rotation/shift cipher. I tried a variety of cipher combinations on it and got nowhere. I will point out that the number of digits in the code matches the number of combination steps. Also the characters in the code could be hex, (nothing above F), but the odd number of characters mean they donā€™t translate directly to ascii.

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@lastchance I donā€™t know where you found that clue. Could you double check you got it right?

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Open the wav file in a text editor. Itā€™s at the very end.

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I think you need these - or something very like them

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I ran it forwards to get 6283074 and backwards to get C641852. Neither worked.

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You print out the wheels, cut out the smaller one, lay it over the centre of the larger, and put a pin through the middle.

Then you align both wheels so the broad line between F and 0 matches.

Then the instruction is 5R - so turn the inner wheel 5 spaces to the right.

The first number of the clue is 1. So find 1 on the outer wheel. Read the corresponding number on the inner wheel, and write it down.

Now DO NOT RESET THE WHEEL.

The next instruction is 2L - so turn the inner wheel 2 spaces left, and read off the next clue number.

Carry on until the end.

I wish I knew where Iā€™d put my code wheelsā€¦

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Thatā€™s it. Thank you!

The password is C114A3F

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Wonderful! Exceptional team effort. Now, whatā€™s the trick with the picture at the end?

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No tricks, but would love to see some results. What did you get?

I got a bitmap file (.bmp) which I canā€™t upload directly - Iā€™ll have to convert it, and a little .txt file.

Coming up in a minute.

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