Cracking the Quicksilver Code

wka writes "Todd Garrison describes in detail how he solved the cryptographic puzzle promoting Neal Stephenson's forthcoming book Quicksilver, and the reward for his effort. Stephenson himself calls Garrison's story 'remarkable' because Garrison was completely unfamiliar with the system of writing (Real Character) used in the puzzle. Also, Stephenson notes that the system and its creator play roles in The Baroque Cycle."

Comments

Been there..

[User 956]

That's kind of like when I cracked the "stilted English" code used in Tolkein's Lord of the Rings.

Remarkable

[MisterFancypants]

I also think Garrison's story is remarkable in that you'd think just about anyone would have better things to do with his or her time than crack a fake cipher being used as a promotional tool for a book.

Guess not!

Re:Remarkable

[Anonymous Coward]

I also think Garrison's story is remarkable in that you'd think just about anyone would have better things to do with his or her time than crack a fake cipher being used as a promotional tool for a book.

Right, like posting to slashdot to belittle an effort to crack a fake cipher being used as a promotional tool for a book.

Re:Remarkable

[Saige]

But you might also think that just about anyone would have better things to do with their time than post messages to a website to do little more than comment on someone else's use of their time.

Some people have an insatiable sense of curiousity about some things, and you never know what or when will trigger that curiousity. Apparently his was triggered by the cipher and the obscure symbols.

And who knows, perhaps your message here will trigger someone else's quest to figure out just how much free time Garrison has in his life to devote to solving such puzzles.

Re:Remarkable

[dasmegabyte]

Hey! I participated in the "hacking" contest on the Swordfish website. Compared to that bullshit, on the waste o chronometer, solving this contest is akin to curing cancer.

If it ain't Baroque...

[killmenow]

why fix it?

Re:If it ain't Baroque...

[zerOnIne]

that was horrible... this is worse:

Baroque: When you are out of Monet.

I've been looking forward to this book.

[Apiakun]

Stephenson has always appealed to me as a writer. His writing is eloquent, and he is able to tell a wonderful story. By the time I had finished Cryptonomicon, behemoth that it is, I was craving for more. I'm eagerly awaiting the release of this book!

Already slashdotted...

[Lane.exe]

Whew... mention Stephenson and the /. starts almost immediately...

::clutches his copy of Snow Crash::
It's my preciousssss...

The secret. SHHHHH

[AtariAmarok]

Here's the secret. Don't tell anyone. The password he uses is "neal".

BTW - I invented the Universe.

[teamhasnoi]

I explain my Law of Unified Fields on the /.ed page too. WTF good is an article that nobody can read?

I guess the only thing that is ontopic is dicussion of 404, 500 and timeout messages.

/waiting for inevitable mod point retribution - go gettim, Tiger!

and here you are sniping about it on slashdot

[autopr0n]

Yup, doing a puzzle is not interesting at all. We should immediately burn all puzzles and brainteasers immediately. In fact, even reading a book is a waste of time. So we should burn those too. And movies, television.

It's clear that human time is to precious to waste on anything. We must endeavor to eradicate time wasting from existence, in order to concentrate on important things. Like insulting people on the internet.

Re:and here you are sniping about it on slashdot

[Suppafly]

We must endeavor to eradicate time wasting from existence, in order to concentrate on important things. Like insulting people on the internet.


And porn.. never forget porn.

Re:Tp xibu?

[sebi]

So what?
Cyrto breahing is for dorks.

As is orthography, it seems.

Re:Slashdotted ...

[orthogonal]

If you understand this, send a fax to 1 (212) XXX-XXXX

That fax number's in a strange code too. And it's really resistant to the character frequency analyses I've been trying.

I think it might be 555-5555 though, I heard that number in some movie.

After reading the article, the funny thing is this

[SuperKendall]

Imagine being the guy so obsessed with Real Character that you have scanned in the whole book and made a huge website about it.

Meanwhile, someone just stumbling across the site uses all your work to get a signed copy of the book!

If the web site author had run across it, he probably could have just read the thing right there and solved it in about a minute. I wonder if they knew the site existed before publishing the puzzle?

Bugger it all...

[Darken_Everseek]

Read faster people; I've already read the first three pages, stop /.'ing the fourth!

Cowboy Neal Stephenson?

[AtariAmarok]

Cowboy Neal Stephenson? Ah... That explains.... nothing at all.

and the message read...

[greenskyx]

"drink more Ovalteen"

Re:I found Snow Crash fairly weak

[Tackhead]

> Starts off well, but loses it long before the fairly disappointing conclusion. It didn't make me want to rush out and get Cryptonomicon, which I've never bothered to read.

Yeah, give Cryptonomicon a chance. After two or three novels, he's gotten to the point where he can end a novel in about 4-5 pages, rather than just a paragraph or two.

I'm a Stephenson fan, and Snow Crash is among my favorite reads, but I do feel your pain. It's as if the ending of most of his books is cut off in mid-

Here's the plaintext

[prockcore]

Here's the plaintext:

"You have just violated the DMCA, our lawyers shall be contacting you soon. Have a nice day."