Posted by
kdawson
on from the paging-frank-shoemaker-white-courtesy-telephone-please dept.
Saiyine sends word that the
mysterious code received at Fermilab, which we discussed last Friday, has been mostlydecoded, inside of two days, by two separate people. The poster at the second link seems to have constructed a more complete rationale for the message.
I'm not seeing anything new in the math... which isn't surprising, as I don't have time to spend on it.
But I do wonder, if it's employee 252 (rather than 508)? Reasoning:
First section looks to be the "easiest" of the 3 to decode without context. It contains a message the meaning of which is of course in question -- but maybe its purposes are (1) to establish the rules of the code for the third section, so that (with a little notational tweak) it's reasonable to solve the third, and (2) to take a jab at Shoemaker, suggesting that he would dismiss the message itself as noise and make no effort to decode it.
Third section is straightforward, except for the S that shouldn't be there. Others have suggested this is a hint; could it simply mean that the S in the 3-symbol word is also noise and should be ignored?
This would leave FC at the end of the second section (252 in decimal).
There does, as others have noted, appear to be more information in the body of section 2, though...
Regarding TFB(A)
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
This story has been interesting so far - unfortunately some of us are unable to follow links to a majority of TFAs here on Slashdot. For such people, can someone comment as to whether there have been any new developments beyond the "would call this noise" and "employee number base 16" lines (and what said developments are)? Much appreciated!
Re:Regarding TFB(A)
by
Nazlfrag
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· Score: 5, Informative
First part is ternary code, I->1, II->2, III->0
1) FRANK@SHOEMAKER@WOULD@CALL@THIS@NOISE
Second part unknown
2) ?
Third part ternary code, II= seperator, same mapping as 1)
3) EMPLOYEE@NUMBER@BASSE@SIXTEEN
It is assumed the three hex symbols are the employee number 0xAFC,
So lets assume the single "word" in the bottom middle of the page is an employee number. If we decode it using the symbols, we get (something)FC. (something) is an undefined symbol, and the only undefined numbers are 1 and A.
So the "employee number in base 16" that "frank shoemaker would call noise" is either 1FC or AFC.
My guess? Itâ(TM)s AFC (employee number 2812), who works on the AFC (Absorber Focus Coil, a component of a "neutrino factory" current being studied at Fermilab) - a coincidence Frank Shoemaker would call noise. The employee number is reasonable and fits with the established pattern at Fermilab, see this Fermilab newsletter (page 5) which states "At 802, with only three digits, Matthews' employee number reflects the length of his 25-year tenure at the Lab". Hope that helped.
Re:Regarding TFB(A)
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
i'v tried decoding the middle section. i subtracted the hex numbers in the bottom line from the top line, no result, even if i do it backwards. neither if i take their sum (though the subtraction was interesting, because the result ended with -3, which could be interpreted as =, thus possibly making the string base64 encoded, but no luck). i'm out of ideas here.
Re:Regarding TFB(A)
by
zwei2stein
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· Score: 5, Funny
Obligatory:
1) FRANK@SHOEMAKER@WOULD@CALL@THIS@NOISE
2) ?
3) profit
(Filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING... jeez)
-- --
Technology for the sake of technology is as pathetic as eschewing technology because it's technology.
Re:Regarding TFB(A)
by
xSacha
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· Score: 5, Interesting
Guys!
The symbols in the middle are: s F C Correct? You worked out F and C were the other two symbols but F and C is undefined.
Did you ever think it was: Shoemaker, F.C.? That is the initials Frank Shoemaker (mentioned in code)! In the website, using google, you will find only 7 occurances whereas you will find 107 occurances if you search for F. C. Shoemaker! Ding ding!
To clarify, I am suggesting that the 's' is short for Shoemaker. Also, I meant to say 's' is undefined, not F and C.
If you search the fermilab website for Frank Shoemaker you find 7 results. However, searching the website for F. C. Shoemaker finds 107 results because all his documents are posted as "F. C. Shoemaker".
Re:Regarding TFB(A)
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 1, Interesting
Second part (2 never repeats itself) could be some number in Fibonacci code (which has no adjacent 1 digits).
digits values from right to left are 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13...
So the valid numbers are 1 10 100 101 1000 1001 1010 10000
Taking the whole as one number and then divmodding-64 single characters off it... Well, it would be rather compact.
Re:Regarding TFB(A)
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 1, Funny
There are going to be a lot of disappointed people when it is discovered the message says "Don't forget to drink your Ovaltine!"
Well, I typed in both the top and bottom things (NOT assuming any were wrap-around splits), and the first had 115 numbers, or 5 * 23. The second had 265 numbers, or 5 * 53.
This suggested strongly that both were 5 digit data "bytes", the first in base 3 and the second in base 2.
Then I converted both into proper numbers and loaded them into a quick and dirty program I wrote to see if they were ASCII, rotating offsets for all 256 possible values, but it's obvious now why it didn't produce anything but junk.
I wonder if this (that both had a total number of 5 * (some prime)) was a deliberatly planned misdirection, or just one hell of a coincidence between the two data lists.
-- (-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
-- Occam's razor is the blind faith in the natural selection of least resistance and in universal oversimplification. -- EF
Re:Regarding TFB(A)
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
I think the BASSE is intentional. Note that an employee number goes on a BADGE.
Also note that S is the character before the FC in the 3 letters at the bottom of the hex key.
Thus we are supposed to replace SS with FC. This may mean that D->F and G->C is the key to the hex code above, or perhaps BAFCE means something in hex.
I suppose it could also be BAFCFCE if S is meant to be replaces with FC and not SS with FC.
Frank Shoemaker would call it noise because that's what it is.
Just my guess. We'll never know if I'm right, unless the author says so, because people will keep trying to crack it!
-- APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
That was ridiculously quick
by
everyplace
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· Score: 5, Insightful
One always conceptually understands the power of numbers, but in this case it is amazing, considering that this problem went unsolved for an extended period within fermilab. The second it is asked to the correct audience though, the gears start going and the answer exists!
Re:That was ridiculously quick
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Makes me wonder if the NSA gets stuff like this on a regular basis.
Re:That was ridiculously quick
by
QuantumTheologian
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· Score: 4, Insightful
From the original release by Fermilab, it seems to me like they had this sitting in a drawer somewhere. Sure, technically it went 'unsolved', but no one was really looking for a solution.
Re:That was ridiculously quick
by
wattrlz
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· Score: 3, Funny
Makes me wonder if the NSA gets stuff like this on a regular basis.
I'm pretty sure they will now.
Re:That was ridiculously quick
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
One always conceptually understands the power of numbers, but in this case it is amazing, considering that this problem went unsolved for an extended period within fermilab. It was ridiculously quick, because it wasn't that hard. Or were you just trying to pump up your ego?
It probably could have gone unsolved for another 20 years, in fermilab, if somebody hadn't found it sitting in the bottom of the file cabinet, all forgotten about, like. Yeah, when you archive old records, you tend to come across things you forgot were there. It doesn't mean anyone at Fermilab was trying to solve it so, don't go thinking everyone here is smarter than them.
The second it is asked to the correct audience though . .. Love that one!! Nigga, please!! Quit beating your chest. You ain't no genius.
solved within 7hrs...
by
adam
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· Score: 5, Insightful
Just want to point out that 1st and 3rd stanzas were cracked WITHIN the slashdot thread. See wirelessbuzzers' post here and femtobyte's post here. Either of these two individuals may be the two people whose sites are linked in the summary for this current story, but since I can't be sure, I wanted to make sure credit was given to them as well. (The first stanza was cracked within 7hrs of the/. story going live)
Also, based on the "employee number" speculation in the second link especially, I want to point out that although I am the furthest thing from a "codecracker," I do believe the BASSE misspelling of BASE is intentional and is a clue. Likewise, the FRANK SHOEMAKER WOULD CALL THIS NOISE stanza may be a reference to his work for fermilab (detecting signal that often hides amongst noise), but is probably a double entendre of some sort. If someone is methodical enough to encode this text and mail it to Fermilab, they wouldn't misspell such a simple word (BASE), unless for a good reason. Along these same lines of thought, I believe the "noise" comment is also a clue with multiple meanings. Also, from what I gather, the middle stanza can be assumed to be hex, so that makes the third stanza fairly insignificant, unless it has other meaning (hence looking at "BASSE" for a clue as to some other meaning).
-- I am Jack's complete lack of surprise.
Re:solved within 7hrs...
by
bobdotorg
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· Score: 5, Funny
they wouldn't misspell such a simple word (BASE),... (hence looking at "BASSE" for a clue as to some other meaning).
Clearly, All your Basse are belong to us.
Sorry.
-- __
Someday, but not this morning, I'll finally learn to use the preview button.
-- "Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
Re:solved within 7hrs...
by
adam
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· Score: 5, Interesting
okay, now i'm beginning to become obsessed here, haha. My lack of mathematical background precludes me from decoding the stanzas (2 of 3 already done, and "peer reviewed").. but the psychological clues feel more within my grasp. If we examine the explanation at the first link on the story...
With my initial interpretation of the top part of the coded message I got the following output:
(021) FRANK@SHOEMAKER@WOULD@CAMV@FTVTCAPSBC The second link does a better job explaining, but basically one of the "words" in ternary was "wrapped" and due to the lack of hyphen, this was misintrepreted by both crackers. What I find interesting is not that once you actually solve the stanza, you get "FRANK SHOEMAKER WOULD CALL THIS NOISE," but rather that CALL THIS NOISE was the obscured part of the message. The signal that was hidden amongst the "noise" of a missing hyphen. The first cracker (John) speculates that he missed an indentation that indicates this (although he permits the possibility that it may be random), but I think there was no indentation, and the author wanted you to see the significance of this hidden word phrase (regarding "NOISE").
Again, just as I believe "BASSE" is significant because it is misspelled (when nothing else is), I believe this wrapped word is significant (when no other words are wrapped). It's possible the encoder did this just to make things a bit harder, but if you look at the fact that it happens exactly at the part of the sentence referring to "noise," I believe you must be more inclined to lend it significance.
Regarding BASSE, again, I am not a mathematician or a cracker, so I may be at a strong disadvantage here. If the significance of BASSE is taking the "extra" S and incorporating it into the middle stanza, I will be of little help to this collective effort. That said, if we attack the problem from a psychological/wordclue aspect... Googling "basse" doesn't help much, but google: fermilab basse...and the second link talks about Wilson Hall, and the Beauvais Catherdral, "occupied by the Romanesque church known as the Basse oeuvre," This page also talks about the fermilab logo, so I spent a while thinking that logo might have sixteen points, or sixteen intersections, etc.. nothing. But if we google image search "wilson hall fermilab" -- images of wilsonhall seem to show that it has sixteen stories when I count them. A quick googling reveals, "The 16-story Robert Wilson Hall is named after Fermilab's first director and was inspired by a French Gothic cathedral" --the cathedral occupied by the Basse Oeuvre-- Coincidence?
In summary, BASSE SIXTEEN is (possibly) a sixteen story Fermilab building, named Wilson Hall. The significance of "NOISE" is still lost on me, and I believe the middle stanza should help with forward momentum. I am now going to review both explanations linked from the/. summary and attempt to parse something from the hexidecimal decoding(s) of the middle stanza.
Perhaps more now than ever I wish/, posts could be edited, as I am *NOT* done with this, but I want to post it now so others can expand on my thoughts, or perhaps save me from heading down some pointless passageways of reasoning. Further posts to come. Oh, also, if you attempt to edit your previewed post more than three times, slashdot barfs on you and you have to re-write it. Could have saved 10 mins had I known that:(
-- "Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
Re:solved within 7hrs...
by
somersault
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· Score: 4, Interesting
I'm not a cryptographer, but maybe it relates to musical notes (on a bass line rather than the standard EADGBE?).. in fact "would call this noise" also could suggest something similar, that the guy wouldn't enjoy the song the notes make?:p
I didn't see the original slashdot thread when this was first posted.
However, it is not hard to break binary hex code. But I believe that this is hex binary, however as it is being transported over a paper it was fitted into this form for easy transport.
I believe that the first code is something like 0x0c and the second is something like 0x0e, the third 0x02, the forth is 0x012. However, I have to give me more time to look at this so my on the spot decoding is most likely flawed and far from correct.
Re:solved within 7hrs...
by
somersault
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Musical notes are mostly contained within hex too, though hex only goes up to F and musical notes go up to G. It would be cool if that's somehow related to the answer (after reading below, basse seems to just relate to someone's name/a building, how boring >.> ):) But I'm off to work now, I'm not about to spend all day decoding a mysterious letter!
-- which is totally what she said
Re:solved within 7hrs...
by
MoriaOrc
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· Score: 4, Interesting
Just to help you stay on track, a note about the odd line breaks from the link to the "thought process" from below:
The odd breaks occur because the way it's written is in a fixed-width row format. Each row contains an equal number of columns, and each column contains either a '|' or a ' ' (dash or space). The correct interpretation of the message removes the line breaks and translates the sentence as a single line.
The first stanza has 47 columns per row. The 5-6 and 6-7 breaks occur because the last column in line 5/6 is a '|' but the first column in line 6/7 is also a '|'.
The third stanza uses the same notation, but now each row consists of 85 columns. The 2-3 break has the same problem as in the first stanza, the row ran out of columns and the gap character had to be continued on the next row.
If you're looking for significance with those gaps, instead consider the number of columns per row, and the fact that both stanzas have 7 complete rows and an 8th partial row.
Misc numbers that may or may not be helpful:
25 columns in the last row of Stanza 1
21 columns in the last row of Stanza 3
Re:solved within 7hrs...
by
Psychotria
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· Score: 1
I actually think you're on the right track. I tried very hard not to think about this at work today and tried not to look at that confounded letter. The hexadecimal solution for the middle part is just too obvious (i.e. you didn't even need to decode the other parts to work out it was [supposedly] hex...). Too easy, and this bothers me.
Re:solved within 7hrs...
by
JoeKilner
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· Score: 3, Interesting
My gut feeling was that it was a dig at Frank Shoemaker - i.e. Frank would miss the message in this because he would call it noise.
So, either a friend having a friendly jibe or a disgruntled ex-colleague lashing out (maybe at someone who told him that the "signal" he saw in some data was "just noise")?
But I think I am probably reading _way_ too much in to things here...
Re:solved within 7hrs...
by
adam
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· Score: 4, Interesting
Expanding upon your "significance of 7 rows for both third and first stanza" theory, I immediately notice that the Wilson Hall building has 7 columns (count them: here and here. Your suggestion appears helpful.
If the orientation of the columns is rotated 90deg to make them rows, the stanzas may map to the columns in the building. If we assume the messages are significant, and the correlation to building "rows" is significant, and the left over "8th rows" from stanzas are significant.. we could derive all sorts of possibilities for the mapping of the remaining rows to a position in the building. Again, seeing how others here are much better at finding mathematically significant aspects than I am, I will throw this theory out and see if you or someone else can parse it.. because I believe the "25 columns in the last row of Stanza 1,
21 columns in the last row of Stanza 3" will need to be parsed somehow.
Also, speaking of my lack of math background-- can anyone post something useful for the second stanza? I know John and Geoff (linked crackers) have decoded the three character string below the second stanza, as being "508 (0Ã--1fc) or 2812 (0xafc)" but what about the second stanza itself? If it's base sixteen encoded can someone work on decoding it? We are really working with 2/3 of the available information here, and I think the remaining third will provide a lot of momentum.
also, as I expect this will continue long after this story is no longer at the top of the page, anyone who wants to collaborate via e-mail, may feel free to contact me. my email address is encoded as follows;)... myslashdotusernamewhichisfourcharacters.slashdot at gmail. Now I really wish I'd looked closer at the original story, instead of glancing and thinking, "wow, lots of math and the letter is probably a prank.. what else is there to read on slashdot today.."
-- I am Jack's complete lack of surprise.
Re:solved within 7hrs...
by
nacturation
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· Score: 5, Interesting
I think the noise refers to the many black dots found on the page itself. Just below the vertical bottom of the first section, if you scroll all the way to the right you'll see a cluster of three dots and, going down-left from there, another two dots, another two dots, etc.
Or look at the symbol section. You'll see the first symbol for 6 looks like a horizontal bar with a vertical hook and a dot under the bar. The second symbol for 6 has no dot. And to the right of the second symbol for 6 is a vertical cluster of three dots.
Maybe they're nothing, but I get the sneaking suspicion that it's the dots (noise) that's the real puzzle here. Potentially with the symbols indicating the relative geometric arrangement of the dots that then map back to the letters/numbers.
-- Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
Re:solved within 7hrs...
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Notice that the top two lines have the "@" as spacers and the same character spacing in between. Looks like the guy did the hard part already, and the rest involves the substitution. At least he has the key given to him now with the top two lines. Now just a matter of figuring out where A rotates back to Z, or what have you. (Might be numbers and extended set characters too.) I'd try a matrix A-Z across and down, then longer ASCII sets, and then maybe try some shifting if that doesn't quite work out.
Maybe the middle part is a formula for creating some waveform, then you evaluate the values at some interval and shift the matrix up or down by that amount. So the top two lines are a key, and the formula acts as a modifier or filter layer on the key. Just guessing though.
I didn't read this before, but the second 'S' introduced, could it be a mapping to or from the non solved 'S' above the text?
-- Support Eachother, Copy Dutch Property!
Re:solved within 7hrs...
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 4, Interesting
The date on the fax actually seems significant... TFA suggests that this was received by Fermilab just over a year ago, which was not long after the (very well publicized) Fermilab-manufactured quadropole triplet failure at the CERN Large Hadron Collider.
According to a 2006 Princeton Physics News article (page three of the PDF), Frank Shoemaker was a pioneer in using quadopole doublets to focus particle beams... coincidence?
"25 columns in the last row of Stanza 1, 21 columns in the last row of Stanza 3" will need to be parsed somehow.
25-1=24
21+3=24
24 symbols
With the digits reversed, 24 = 42.
One less than a non-cola or a Jim Carrey movie.
Ok, that was a bit tongue in cheek. It's cool how this has been partly decoded already. I wanted to play as well. Nothing to see here.
Re:solved within 7hrs...
by
Bladesonfire
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· Score: 0
Just like you, I'm anxious to post this and get some minds working on it:
If you look up Robert Wilson on Wikipedia, there's a picture with his ID on it. The number is 014. I haven't found a clever way to connect this with the HEX, though. Hopefully, someone else can.
Geoff also has been posting on xkcd forums (linked in case anything interesting shows up there).
I don't get your last part, but what whould happen if someone took the hexadecimal numbers, converted them to binary/trinary and then used just the same principle as in part 1 and 3? I'm to lazy to do it.
Probably nothing useful and probably already done by someone else but anyway:)
Re:solved within 7hrs...
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Noise as in PR advertisement!
Re:solved within 7hrs...
by
TropicalCoder
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· Score: 1
I think the noise refers to the many black dots found on the page itself.
I think the statement "Frank Shoemaker would call this noise" may actually be self-referential ie: It adds nothing to the main message, it is only a misdirection.
Re:solved within 7hrs...
by
ErroneousBee
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· Score: 1
You could try comparing handwriting to that of colleagues of Frank Shoemaker.
Also, does the paper have any indentations from previous letters, and can the paper itself be identified as a particular type?
What if the S in BASSE can be replaced by A (as shown by the second Stanza)? That would result in BAAAE, which would be the hexa representation of 764590. I know, quite a strech.
I'm not sure what I'm missing but I could not see a 2nd Stanza. The second paragraph is actually a lookup for the three characters below it.... well actually it's a partial lookup as it does not have all of base 16 in it.
Anyway, I think all the data has been decoded but as the FA says, not all meaning has been derived and the three characters still has ambiguity in it.
Hope this helps.
--
Pinky: "What are we going to do tomorrow night Brain?" Brain: "I would tell you Pinky but this 120 char limi
the Wilson Hall building has 7 columns And 16 stories.
Maybe we should be looking for a building with 46 floors? Actually, I don't believe much in the whole building thing.
-- sudo ergo sum
Re:solved within 7hrs...
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
It could be that the creator is not a native English speaker or is multi-lingual. The only language in which I could find it is French. It means "low". Unfortunately that doesn't seem too helpful to me, but might be to others.
Re:solved within 7hrs...
by
Alarindris
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· Score: 2, Interesting
You may be on to something. Maybe the middle section are notes of a tune he didn't like? Like when your mom says rock and roll is just noise? Or maybe it's just random notes?(unlikely, I think)
A--------
G
F--------
E X here is our E
D--------
C
B--------
A
G--------
Those are the corresponding notes to the bass clef.
BASSE could be referring to the E below middle C (seen above) which is the 32nd key (from left to right or low to high on a piano) and is sometimes notated as E3.
IMHO, if he were to encode a song, it would probably be by piano key numbers, or E3 is the starting point (value of 0 or 1) although, that shouldn't make any difference at all.
A few more thoughts, 16 * 2 = 32.
14 unique symbols, thats 2 octaves of a 7 note scale (99% of what the average person has heard).
There are 24 'notes', possibly a song in 3/4, a waltz. (Think german drinking music, oom pa pa, oom pa pa. Or the underwater melody from Mario Bros.). That gives us 8 measures, plenty for a melody.
Burnt out for now, but coming back to this tomorrow.
On closer inspection, the first three rows are 47 columns, and the next 4 rows are 46. In row 4, there is a section near the end when the extra column is dropped, and ' |||' from R3 (4 bits) turn into a '| |' on R4 (3 bits).
Re:solved within 7hrs...
by
JeepFanatic
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· Score: 2, Interesting
So I post this then refresh the front page of/. to read this:
ET Will Phone Home Using Neutrinos, Not Photons
"Neutrinos are better than photons for communicating across the galaxy. That's the conclusion of a group of US astronomers who say that the galaxy is filled with photons that make communications channels noisy whereas neutrino comms would be relatively noise free. Photons are also easily scattered and the centre of the galaxy blocks them entirely. That means any civilisation advanced enough to have started to colonise the galaxy would have to rely on neutrino communications. And the astronomers reckon that the next generation of neutrino detectors should be sensitive enough to pick up ET's chatter."
(Emphasis mine). Coincidence?
Re:solved within 7hrs...
by
EveLibertine
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· Score: 1
Awesome work here.
I assume you've also looked at the man the building is named after, Robert R. Wilson.
Possibly of some coincidence, Robert Wilson has a sculpture named "Topological III", which is on display at "Cabot Science Center building, Harvard University." which you can see at the above wikipedia page. From what I can tell from the photo, it looks like a representation of a kind of Mobius strip.
I only looked at the sculpture because the name contains "III" in it, which strikes me as significant since the message is apparently encoded using only the "I" character (middle stanza excluded of course), though I imagine this is all probably me just getting completely sidetracked from not having slept since Sunday night.
Basse is "low" in french.
"Low sixteen" corresponding to the hex-like 2nd second stanza?
Re:solved within 7hrs...
by
Alarindris
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· Score: 2, Interesting
From an AC down the thread:
The only 'basse' that I am aware of is a renaissance dance, which is usually in 3/2 time. The basse was the precursor of the pavanne. It may be a red herring, but John Downland composed a pavanne called 'The Shoemaker's Wife'
3/2 is essentially the same as 3/4 as is 6/8 and so on.
This may help somebody, not sure, I didn't find any obvious 24 note phrases, but music is interpretive, so I'll have to learn it and see if I can find anything.
Someone mentioned that "BASSE" can refer to a building... "Robert Wilson Hall"...
So...
"FRANK SHOEMAKER WOULD CALL THIS NOISE" "EMPLOYEE NUMBER BASSE SIXTEEN"
So I wonder if the "BASSE" building's sixteenth floor has a room whose number is equal to Frank Shoemaker's employee number or phone extension...
Maybe there's something in that room that would be needed to decode the rest of the message.
Or maybe "BASSE SIXTEEN" refers to the building (It has sixteen floors), and it's asking for the employee number of Robert Wilson, the namesake of the building and a former director at Fermilab.
-- "The amount of intelligence on this planet is a constant. The population is growing." -Cole's Axiom
Re:solved within 7hrs...
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Interesting given the 'frank shoemaker' reference. Maybe while the name is real, the fact that he's been involved with fermilab is coincidence/misdirection?
Re:solved within 7hrs...
by
bonehead
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· Score: 2, Interesting
That's actually very interesting. Were there any incidents during his time at Fermilab where seemingly interesting data was found, and Frank Shoemaker dismissed it as noise?
Has this colleague done further research, became convinced that it is significant, and pointing the direction to data that needs to be revisited?
Could this be someone's way of letting the folks at Fermilab know that they're sitting on a major breakthrough in their archives? One that has been dismissed as meaningless?
Who knows? Interesting stuff to ponder, though.
Re:solved within 7hrs...
by
Alarindris
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· Score: 1
sorry for the noise:-) , you are right: 1234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789 xxx xx xxx|xx xxx xxx|xxx xxx x|x x xx|x xxx xx 020=F 200=R 001=A 112=N 102=K |xxx xxx xxx|xx xxx x|xxx xx xx|x xx xxx|xxx x_ 000=_ 201=S 022=H 120=O 012=E xx|x x x|xxx xxx x|x xxx xx|xxx x xx|xx xxx xxx 111=M 001=A 102=K 012=E 200=R |xxx xxx xxx|xx x xx|x xx xxx|xx x xxx|x x xxx 000=_ 212=W 120=O 210=U 110=L |xxx x x|xxx xxx xxx|xxx x xxx|xxx xxx x|x x x 011=D 000=_ 010=C 001=A 110=L xx|x x xxx|xxx xxx xxx|xx xxx xx|xxx xx xx|x x 110=L 000=_ 202=T 022=H 100 xx xxx|xx xxx x|xxx xxx xxx|x x xx|x xx xxx|x_ =I 201=S 000=_ 112=N 120=O xxx xxx|xx xxx x|xxx x xx 100=I 201=S 312=E
-- sudo ergo sum
Re:solved within 7hrs...
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Parent is on to something! Upon further investigation I discovered that the file actually contains the code for the letters JFIF. Using my incredible powers of mathematical reasoning I deduced that this must be a jpeg file. After running it through a jpeg decoder and viewing it on my oscilloscope, I've conclusively determined that this is in fact an that appears to have a bunch of apparently hand written lines and some strange symbols!
Then I changed the focus slightly and realized that this is just a blurry, low resolution rendering of hello.jpg.:(:(:(
you assume we're dealing with cryptography, maybe that's the red herring.
Re:solved within 7hrs...
by
mr_mischief
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· Score: 1
Well, the whole chromatic scale is 12 notes per octave including sharps/flats, so if you don't restrict the notes to being represented by the same symbols as in hex, you have more than enough. Octal could even fit the notes of a particular key with a space/rest included.
"Basse" is the feminine for "low" in French. It's also used in the names of certain buildings and groups of people. I've seen something about the building where Shoemaker works at the lab resembling a Gothic cathedral which has "Basse" in the name and having 16 floors. So that's one possible non-musical meaning for the "basse 16". Then again, The French I think use "basse" for our "bass" in music (according to this site found by a quick Google search, my memory is correct), so that might still say something about musical notation being involved.
Re:solved within 7hrs...
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Jesus. You remind me of the guy that claimed to have "metaphorically solved" the last part of Kryptos. And we all know that was complete crap.
I think you're reading into it too deeply. I think this is nothing more than a crypto fan composing a simple message and sending it from outside their system to someone inside the system. I don't think there's any deep meaning and the message probably only means anything to someone actually working there and knowing the people involved.
Re:solved within 7hrs...
by
mr_mischief
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· Score: 1
4 squares per inch by 11.5 inches gives 46 full squares.
Re:solved within 7hrs...
by
mr_mischief
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· Score: 2, Informative
It means "low" in several contexts, including the musical meaning like English "bass". It's also used in names.
"Lower Normandy" is "Basse-Normandie". Basse-Terre is the capital of Guadeloupe. Basse Pointe is a city in Martinique. "Basse chiffree" is "figured bass", a particular type of musical notation. There's a city named Basse in Gambia.
"Basse" is a surname, and I think it's been used that way in that spelling in many countries for a couple of centuries at least. The most famous Basse of which I can think is an English poet who is primarily known today for producing (or at least having attrivuted to him) the earliest known poem written in response to the death of Shakespeare.
About that poem "Elegy on Shakespeare": It consists of 16 lines of poem preceded by a dedication. The 16th word starting with just the poetry is "little", while the 16th starting with the dedication is "nye" (which is "nigh" these days). The 16th line is "Honor hereafter to be laid by Thee.", meaning that anyone would be proud to be buried near Shakespeare. The 15th line of the poem (in case you start from the dedication) is "That unto us and others it may bee". William Shakespeare died April 23, 1616.
Whether it's anything to do with the poet or the poem, I have no idea, but it's one possibility.
All your Basse are belong to us. Are they ill-tempered?
-- Ice Cream has no bones.
Re:solved within 7hrs...
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Enemy Flag Carrier?
Gah! Sorry, too much WoW.
Great job on the Wilson Hall, by the way, Adam!
Re:solved within 7hrs...
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Anyone tried running 'Barcode Battler' across it ?
Re:solved within 7hrs...
by
mr_mischief
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· Score: 1
Are those 22-note scales called the "chromatic scale"?
A scale can be of many types, but the "chromatic scale" is a particular one. The word "chromatic" here acts as an adjective. An adjective modifies a noun (here, "scale" is the noun) by providing more information about the noun.
Any statement I make specifically about the chromatic scale while specifying the chromatic scale by name which only applies to the chromatic scale is meant to describe only the chromatic scale.
So, yes, there are other musical scales. What I said about the chromatic scale being 12 notes is 100% true for every musical scale commonly referred to as the chromatic scale. There are seven tones and five half-tones, for a total of 12 notes in the chromatic scale. Look it up. You can find it through Google or another source. I'd suggest the keywords "chromatic scale".
Re:solved within 7hrs...
by
somersault
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· Score: 1
Good thinking adam. You could post some comments in your journal, we could keep an eye on that:)
-- If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
Re:solved within 7hrs...
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
What if the "SFC" (FC converted) simply stands for "Shoemaker, Frank C"?
If his work involved pattern recognition and identification of coincidental "noise", this would make something of an obvious inside joke, and he's had us all.
My other thought was that the "s" could simply be short for "signed", so "FC" could be employee #252, but somebody already pursued that dead end to a professor at Princeton, I believe.
However, the meaning of stanza 2 still defies decryption, and it seems unlikely to just be random noise. 24 characters, 14 discreet, 3 repeated 3x, 2 repeated 3x, 7 unique. Most could be ASCII characters but 4, 9, C and 3 especially defy this. (Color in F and it fits a control character.)
Or to the 9 dots between the first and second stanzas.
I'm probably pushing it too far but if you stick a left-handed music staff (bass clef) in there, it's a nice little melody (approx.: G, low F, D, middle C, low A-E, D, A, G). Perhaps figuring out a Basse Donnee for it might yield something interesting.
Re:solved within 7hrs...
by
ReptileQc
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· Score: 1
That would make a lot of sense to me.
I was actually reading a lot of the comments. And the one that striked me the most, is to realize that both the 1st and 3rd paragraph are made up of 8 lines each.
Added together, that makes 16 which is equal to the number of floors the building has.
Could it be that the "S" in the 3rd paragraph points to an office in that building where that employee resides?
The image you posted is of Wilson's Los Alamos ID badge not a FermiLab badge. The two institutions are distinct and they would not (and do not) share the same badge numbering system.
The top floor of Wilson Hall has a lounge area and a lots of windows and it's where they take visitors for the view. You can however get to the floor above that but it's all concrete and DANGER signs, it is very noisy though: A clue!
While the building has 16 floors, the "first" floor is actually on the second level, the "ground" floor being on what we would consider the first. If there is no "16th" floor, maybe it's an allusion to the roof?
-- http://www.mhall119.com
Almost isn't good enough! ;)
by
njfuzzy
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· Score: 1
It seems most likely that the "noise" referred to in the first stanza is the extra S is "basse" in the third. This leads me to believe that there is more information in the middle stanza than the employee number.
-- My Photography - http://ian-x.com
The Deathlings (comic) - http://thedeathlings.com
basse
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
- are you aware that Basse and Bosse are nicknames in Swedish? Not sure for which names..
Many eyes make all bugs shallow
by
CarpetShark
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· Score: 5, Interesting
Yes, and if anyone needed proof that open source is better than closed source for finding bugs or fixing security vulnerabilities, this is yet more evidence.
Re:Many eyes make all bugs shallow
by
struppi
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· Score: 5, Insightful
No, not really. This only shows that a lot of people will try to solve interesting problems, and some of them eventually will. It does not say anything about open source software and finding bugs or security vulnerabilities, which involves (among other things) reading tons of "boring" code.
Note: I did not say that open source is bad for finding bugs and vulnerabilities, I just want to mention that breaking this code does not say anything about open source software.
Re:Many eyes make all bugs shallow
by
CarpetShark
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· Score: 5, Insightful
Well, the fact that you don't see the connection does not preclude the link. Many people would say that coding is boring, and yet others find it interesting just to browse code. The fact that people on slashdot (mostly coders and other IT people) are interested in these codes suggests an overlap. In fact, I doubt many people would argue with that (although I'm sure it'll be the few who would argue that will reply;). I stand by what I said.
Re:Many eyes make all bugs shallow
by
Ethanol-fueled
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· Score: 1
Note: I did not say that open source is bad for finding bugs and vulnerabilities, I just want to mention that breaking this code does not say anything about open source software. You're correct. Here, people are working to figure out a common consensus on a solution. The open source world, by contrast, is all about a million people each finding their own solution. Speaking of finding one's own solution, everybody don your tinfoil hat: the answer lies in the number 23. Wait, did I say 23? I meant Wikipedia.
Re:Many eyes make all bugs shallow
by
SQLGuru
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· Score: 2, Interesting
I would suspect that most here that are interested in this puzzle don't have any thoughts of open source vs closed source while they ponder a solution. Many (like myself) are some of the smartest people in their family and likely their circle of friends...and possibly even broader communities (not the Goatse guy, obviously). They seek a solution because it would provide further evidence of their mental superiority. It's a form of validation; much like responses and mods to your slashdot posts provide a form of validation. Everyone wants to be accepted, even those of the world that have been shunned by "normal" groups (these people are usually called Nerds, Dorks, Geeks, etc.)......this is just another way for these people to acheive it.
Layne
Re:Many eyes make all bugs shallow
by
Erie+Ed
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· Score: 0
I am a nerd, dork, geek, whatever they call us, and I'm damn proud of it.
Re:Many eyes make all bugs shallow
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Are you sure you aren't a derd, gork, or a neek?
I'm more of any anonymous cownerdorgeek, with a tinfoilasshat.
Re:Many eyes make all bugs shallow
by
Builder
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· Score: 2, Insightful
It might not preclude a link, but the parent is correct - the results of the public resolution of this problem have nothing to do with Open Source software.
Furthermore, many bugs do NOT make all bugs shallow - look at recent news, the 25 year old BSD bug, the Debian OpenSSL debacle. Why did the many eyes not make those bugs shallow? Partly because that isn't an interesting problem for nearly as many people as the fermilab stuff, and partly because code changes.
You see, I could fully audit some code tomorrow. My eyes would have made all the bugs shallow. But what is the likelihood of me going back and reauditing that SAME code time and time again, whenever a change is made? Far lower and far fewer people actually do that or enjoy doing it. That's how bugs creep in and stay, even in open source software.
Re:Many eyes make all bugs shallow
by
dave420
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· Score: 1
I imagine if they had a bunch of people PAID to decode the message, they'd find it just as quickly. Your post really has nothing to do with open source bug fixing, apart from the fact that they both include people. Great work:)
Re:Many eyes make all bugs shallow
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Actually, you're wrong. As Struppi says, all this shows is that exposing one interesting problem to a large group is (on this occasion) a good way of solving it. One data point is not enough to make any more general statements.
When you increase the number of problems (e.g. all the bugs in all the code) without increasing the number of people significantly (how many people looked at this problem as opposed to each bug in an open source project?) you get a very different result.
"Many eyes make all bugs shallow" is not the full story. A good article by Ross Anderson can be found here. The key quote being: "So, other things being equal, we expect that open and closed systems will exhibit similar growth in reliability and in security assurance. This does not of course mean that, in a given specific situation, proprietary and open source are evenly matched. But we have to look at second-order effects, asymmetries, transients and nonlinear effects to determine which is better where. This is where we expect the interesting economic and social effects to be found."
Re:Many eyes make all bugs shallow
by
galoise
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· Score: 1
but the whole point is that in closed source scenarios, the likelihood of that auditing is even less. and the probability of a bug creeping thru the audit decreases as the number of simultaneous auditors increase. and to top it off, the auditing depends on a concerted decision to divert scarce resources to auditing. In open source development, the problem is out in the open, and that increases the number of people (potentially) trying to solve it.
the argument is still correct: the probability of arriving to a satisfactory solution increases as the number of people trying to solve it increases, not even accounting for the talent of the people involved, and this is *obvious*, its a pure mathematical truth, spurious counter examples not-withstanding.
and this is a perfect example. Fermilab staff try to break it for a year without getting nowhere, and after the problem goes "open-source", it is solved in one week.
(who cares anyway? OSS is good only as it is a prerequisite for FS. its technical atributes are irrelevant)
-- entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem
Re:Many eyes make all bugs shallow
by
geekoid
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· Score: 1
At least your modest~
-- The Kruger Dunning explains most post on/. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
Re:Many eyes make all bugs shallow
by
geekoid
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· Score: 1
I am me, and I don't care what label people give me one way or another.
-- The Kruger Dunning explains most post on/. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
Re:Many eyes make all bugs shallow
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Well, the fact that you don't see the connection does not preclude the link.
The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence?
Re:Many eyes make all bugs shallow
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
"Many people would say that coding is boring, and yet others find it interesting just to browse code." Kinda like my dad watching the weather channel for hours on end without heavy sedation. I just think the the two blokes just wanted to work on something outside the mundane and this fell into their laps.
Re:Many eyes make all bugs shallow
by
Builder
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· Score: 1
Actually, I've got a better counter argument for you - a professional software house (at least, both of the ones I've worked for so far) will have people who are paid to do code reviews and audits. This actually increases the chances of someone doing this work, as not many people enjoy this deadly dull task, but getting paid for it means that you have to.
The 'many eyes make all bugs shallow' idea relies on lots and lots of people looking at the code all the time. This simply does NOT happen and there are loads of examples from the open source community over the last 10 years, not just the big ones we've seen this month to prove this.
I won't argue your statement of the probability of arriving to a satisfactory solution increases as the number of people trying to solve it increases - I'm just saying that your statement relies on a world that doesn't exist. I prefer to account for reality.
Re:Many eyes make all bugs shallow
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Why is his modest least, and not my modest?
Hmm??
Re:Many eyes make all bugs shallow
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Oh, I'd do, but I'm pretty sure you'll always hit "reply" just because you want the last word;-)
Re:Many eyes make all bugs shallow
by
Warbothong
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· Score: 2, Funny
I think this is actually negative publicity for the open source development model, since this merely shows that collaboration results in broken code.
Answer =! Question.
by
kidsizedcoffin
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· Score: 4, Funny
I got an answer of 42.
Re:Answer =! Question.
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Someone hurry up and solve this... I encoded my luggage combination and faxed it to Fermilab, but my flight got canceled and now I really need those boxers.
That's strange, I got a message of "We apologize for the inconvenience".
-- I am officially gone from/. Long live http://www.soylentnews.com/
Left Hander
by
FlatWhatson
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· Score: 4, Interesting
The message seems to have been written by a left-handed person. Analysis of the vertical lines in the two partially decrypted stanzas show a consistant skew a few degrees to the left which increases towards the right side of the page.
Another clue on the psych path to decoding the SEKRIT MSGS !?
-- BLAM!
'Basse'
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
The only 'basse' that I am aware of is a renaissance dance, which is usually in 3/2 time. The basse was the precursor of the pavanne. It may be a red herring, but John Downland composed a pavanne called 'The Shoemaker's Wife'
I think someone has already speculated that the hexidecimal section could be music of some sort. Is there also a Base/Basse/Bass/Noise pun at the heart of this?
Middle stanza not a key?
by
FalcDot
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· Score: 3, Interesting
Why would that middle stanza only be a mapping, used to decode those three items? There seems to be too much information for it to be just that, especially since you only need to decode 3 'letters'.
So why the rest of the key? Why are some hex numbers repeated?
Why does every hex number (that shows up) appear once, twice or three times? Again with the three, again with the ternary? *Three* stanzas, all in some form of base *three*?
Just wondering out loud, I couldn't really get far with this train of thought but maybe someone else will be able to hop on.
Re:Middle stanza not a key?
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Middle stanza contains 2 lines with each 12 characters. Each of the characters appear not more than 3 times: B-1, C-1, D-2, E-3, F-3, 5-1, 8-1, 2-2, 6-3, 3-2, 7-1, 9-2, 4-1, 0-1. 'A' and '1' are not present at all, I am not sure if we are really looking at hex.
Instead, transcribing each character with there appearance number gives us: 311311323232 311222312233
looks somehow similar to the other two stanzas: 311 311 323 232 311 222 312 233
but i can't decode it.
final 3 digit could be something like S31, if 'S' remains plain text.
Re:Middle stanza not a key?
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 1, Informative
I noticed that if you write out the symbols in order, 0-F, with 1 and C missing, if you fill in 1 with the unknown symbol below, "S", then you get IS> as the first three characters in the character map, with 2 being the > symbol.
Perhaps if you remove all the characters except 0 1 and 2 from the middle text those remaining mean something.
Another thing to consider is how many of those symbols are in the ascii table and what their ascii codes are.
The symbol for E, the right angle with a dot at the corner also seems familiar to me. As does the symbol for 2.
I seem to recall there being a code where you would draw a + and an X without dots in the corners, and one of each with the dots, and each portion would map to a letter, that I learned as a kid, but I don't know what the type of code is called and have no idea how to google something like that.
Re:Middle stanza not a key?
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 1, Informative
Well what do you know. I thought like a kid and searched for "secret codes" and found this boy scouts link. I was a memeber of the scouts when I was a kid, so that must be where I learned "pigpen":
http://www.scouting.org.za/codes/pigpen.html
In pigpen, the symbol for E would be B, and 2 would be U.
Unfortunately none of the other symbols seem to match up, so this is likely a dead end.
Re:Middle stanza not a key?
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Again with the three, again with the ternary? *Three* stanzas, all in some form of base *three*? Clearly, it's the ramans.
Re:Middle stanza not a key?
by
SputnikPanic
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· Score: 1
[Tongue somewhat in cheek here] Maybe the guy's really into Dante or something. The numerology of Dante's Divine Comedy is tremendously significant, and the number three is inescapable. There are three canticas (Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso), each with 33 cantos, and the whole Comedy is written in a terza rima rhyming scheme. And that just scratches the surface. See here for more. The numerology -- Dante's, that is -- is centered on 3, as opposed to 2 or 4, because of central importance of the Trinity.
I don't understand the interest
by
noidentity
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· Score: 1
I don't understand the interest in this. It's just some code a person came up with. Why is decoding it so interesting?
Re:I don't understand the interest
by
bloodninja
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· Score: 0
I don't understand the interest in this. It's just some code a person came up with. Why is decoding it so interesting? Why did Hillary climb Everest?
-- Lock the wife and the dog in the boot of the car.
Return one hour later.
Who's happy to see you?
Re:I don't understand the interest
by
bloodninja
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· Score: 0
I don't understand the interest in this. It's just some code a person came up with. Why is decoding it so interesting? For that matter, DNA is just code. All the 'noise' that SETI records may be just noise or may be code. We won't know unless someone tries to decode it.
-- Lock the wife and the dog in the boot of the car.
Return one hour later.
Who's happy to see you?
Re:I don't understand the interest
by
Zoolander
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· Score: 5, Funny
I don't understand the interest in this. It's just some code a person came up with. Why is decoding it so interesting? Why did Hillary climb Everest? She'll do anything to get a vote.
-- Meep.
Re:I don't understand the interest
by
LaskoVortex
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
For that matter, DNA is just code.
DNA is beyond just code. DNA can code for protein both forward and backwards in the same element, doubling the protien information its capable of specifying. The very same element can bind factors and contain "epigenetic" information in the form of modifications like methylation. It can also assume multiple three dimensional conformations, any of which can be decoded based on the cell's state or external stimuli. The information density of much of the genetic material in the planet is absolutely saturated. We look at DNA and apply Shannon's entropy to it and think we understand its information content. This is naivety. Shannon's entropy doesn't scratch the surface because the informational content of DNA depends on context, which is potentially infinite.
-- Just callin' it like I see it.
Re:I don't understand the interest
by
wattrlz
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· Score: 1
Because it makes us feel like big smarties?
Re:I don't understand the interest
by
TapeCutter
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· Score: 1
Every programmer knows behaviour depends on context, and when the context involves humans the potential for screwing up is infinite. I agree we have no idea how to measure the information content in DNA, but just because it has awe inspiring complexity does not mean the analogy to "code" is a useless one.
Getting back to the title of this post - Code is interesting for it's own sake, if the original poster can't see the beauty and terror of a "clockwork universe" in that video, words won't help.
-- And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Re:I don't understand the interest
by
stuporglue
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· Score: 1
Meh. Python can do that too.
-- https://www.facebook.com/digitizeicm -- Show your support for the digitization of the Iron County Miner newspaper archiv
Re:I don't understand the interest
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Because she's a woman? Wait, wrong joke.
Re:I don't understand the interest
by
noidentity
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· Score: 1
Artificial puzzles can never match the depth of real ones. Once everyone's done decoding this artificial puzzle, they'll end up with the same thing the person who created the puzzle had already, unlike when a "real" problem is solved and we end up with something new.
Re:I don't understand the interest
by
TapeCutter
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· Score: 1
"Artificial puzzles can never match the depth of real ones."
Your missing my point. And you probably haven't thought about the significance of "artficial puzzles" such as the undeciphered script of the Indus valley or the cracking of the enigma machine in WW2.
In both examples "someone else" knew the answer, unfortunately in the first example they are all dead, and in the second they were trying to kill the code crackers.
-- And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Message by time travel
by
dargaud
·
· Score: 1, Interesting
This reminds me of a few science fiction stories based on the hypothesis that you can transmit messages backwards in time, but that noise and causality acts against them being understood fully. One book, Timescape by Benford has the protagonist living in a world gone to ecological hell and he's trying to warn a young physicist in the early 50s.
The target receives messages on his lab equipment, but the funny thing is that messages that can potentially change the course of time are gibberish (because then the originator wouldn't have sent them) and the harmless ones go through just fine. It's an interesting idea. How can you transmit important information this way ?
Re:Message by time travel
by
DarkWicked
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· Score: 5, Informative
I won't spoil the book for you...
Because then we wouldn't purchase it through your affiliate link. Clever !
Re:Message by time travel
by
bill_mcgonigle
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· Score: 1
Because then we wouldn't purchase it through your affiliate link. Clever !
What kind of retard would post a book on the web without an affiliate link? Oh, right, Jeff Bezos.
I don't understand the perverse idea that Amazon should keep all the money and our Slashdotter friends should pass up any opportunity. It's not like the code taints the selection; Amazon has everything.
-- My God, it's Full of Source! OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
A Basse Donnee is, literally, a given bass. In music, that would be to take the bass notes and generate the 'upper three voices' (soprano, alto, tenor). There are rules (though not universally agreed on) that generalize what sounds bad; a Basse Donne is a set of notes for each of soprano, alto, and tenor that doesn't violate any of the rules.
Second Stanza ANSI Block Characters
by
wrook
·
· Score: 1
The second stanza looks like ANSI block characters to me. Take a look at these tables.
When I saw the second paragraph, my first thought was to fire up Char Map.
Whereas other people kept thinking that the middle section was supposed to be substituting the hex numbers for the symbols above, I had to wonder if the symbols were trying to tell us something. After all, as was pretty clearly pointed out by the people who have solved paragraphs one and three, each section contains only five lines. (In fact, the middle paragraph was your clue to this one -- it was just obscured by the fact that it was in two different codes -- but still, only five lines).
Anyway, I realized that many of the symbols in the middle paragraph were in Charmap. AND each of these has a corresponding UTF code, which could be translated in to hex
For instance:
"Not Sign", U+00AC
"Inverted Exclamation Mark", U+00A1
"Greater Than Sign" (duh), U+003E
"Single Right-Pointing Angle Quotation Mark", U+203A (note in the code they are two different sizes)
"Greek Phi", U+03A6
(Unfortunately, slashdot does not support these extended characters, as I found out. So I could not display all of them.)
Not sure about the rest. The triangle COULD be a Greek Delta, but usually that is represented as a triangle with its base flat, not turned sideways. I have no idea what to make of the squiggly-"8"-like symbol. The three-pointed symbol could be a Greek Lambda, and possibly the top line is a Greek Tau. For the rest? You guess is as good as mine. I don't have the patience to go through CHARMAP symbol by symbol. Hopefully someone else just KNOWS this stuff.:-p
I'm not a genius, so I'll leave this to the board to ponder some more. But the way I figure it, once you have the whole middle paragraph in hex, you should be able to translate it easily enough.
The pairs of lines do look like a key, or perhaps the same message using 2 codes.
The greater than sign above the 2's has been carefully drawn quite high which is probably U+02C3. The 6 might be U+031A. The 7 could be U+0553. F would be U+22B3 or U+25C1 there seems to be a couple of triangles.
-- 09F91102 no, 455FE104 nope, F190A1E8 uh-uh, 7A5F8A09 that's not it, C87294CE no. Ah! 452F6E403CDF10714E41DFAA257D313F.
The 1914 matches Wilson... but seems like a stretch...
Maybe ...
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
you need Frank employee number to decode the second part in base 16...
Part 2
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
I played around with the 2nd part a bit here is what I saw:
F0BE58F2FD636C79D2E493E6 code 311311323232311222312233 occurrences of each letter
010111000000000000100010 dots per sign 311212323022223202212222 straight lines per sign 000010000300001030030000 circles per sign
121221111211111211242121 disjunct figures
Interesting:
1) 4 has the only symbol made out of 4 elements. The number of dots, lines and circles can be coded base 4. 2) There are dots all over the paper which can be seen as NOISE. This might be a hint that the solution lies in the dots of the symbols.
My guess is that we can decode the message in the symbols using the employee number base 16.
The Noise?
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
A thought from a totally math-tarded person. The comments things "hidden in noise", and the "Basse" misspelling, perhaps it instead refers to "Bass E" as in a low E on a music scale?
I wasn't able to turn up any sort of connection between Frank Shoemaker and musical notes, but perhaps another person can? Or perhaps the numeric value of that note could lead one of you clever math types to decrypt the center section somehow? I dunno, just a thought.
The first and third stanzas/paragraphs only technically have five lines. There are two indents. Note how the second stanza has only 5 lines (of mixed code) -- that's your clue right there.
Is someone trying to prove Fermilab employees are not so bright because they won't waste their time decoding a nerdy spam message? Considering they had it over a year before mentioning it to the public, it lost any publicity boost it might have for the authors. Leave our researchers alone and take this with your pie to the MENSA meeting.
I don't think the entire reason for the symbols is just for show. Yes, this is a great example of what open community can do, but seriously what do the symbols mean?
I've seen no one crack that yet.
Frank Shoemaker did work at Fermi and at Princeton.
I'm not certain what his area was, but Phi is the symbol for magnetic flux. Could it be that the symbols represent some error in data that Frank would dismiss as noise?
Re:It's not finished!
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Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
This seems to me to be a note sent by a (former?) Fermilab employee to make some kind of point about data interpretation.
"Mostly" decoded?
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Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
I don't know if you can call the message "mostly" decoded. It seems that only the part that was meant to get decoded easily, right away, has been decoded. That just gives us enough information to peak our interest with tantalizing clues.
Pipe organ?
by
Wilson_6500
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· Score: 2, Interesting
A little half-hearted google searching indicates that "basse 16" has something to do with pipe organs. This is probably not relevant, though.
Re:Pipe organ?
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Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 1, Interesting
for an organ, the 16 refers to the length of the longest pipe in a specific rank of pipes.
An 8' pipe will sound at the "right" octave, whereas a 16' pipe would sound an octave lower, and a 4' would sound an octave higher.
Some of the stops in the organ have french names, so that would explain why "basse" came up on your search.
But if Fermilab were the ones who punched those binding holes in the page, they might've made a message of that sort unreadable.
BASSE - Interesting...
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
I believe the extra S in BASSE is designed to point out the significance of the S in the 3-char code. It's the only character not present in the 2 lines above. So what does sFC mean?
Subtract FC? Swap F and C? S=FC?
Re:BASSE - Interesting...
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Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
One more thing. BA and E are all hex digits, but not S, which is doubled, and appears in the code above. Do the letters BA and E combine with the S code above like this:
BAFCE? This would equal 765902...
Anyway, it's possible the double S and the 2-digit S code above are meant to be combined.
Has anyone considered it might be a trap?
by
wattrlz
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· Score: 1
The, "FRANK@SHOE..." line is possibly an alternate translation just stuck in there to confuse wannabe cryptoanalysts. The self referential description could be an homage to mr. Shoemaker, not a dig.
The little dots particle strikes?
by
Script+Cat
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· Score: 1
Those dots you speak of could be particle strikes on a film.
Do they seem to have a particular distribution on the page?
random, gaussian, etc
Re:The little dots particle strikes?
by
SQLGuru
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· Score: 1
I took the 4MB image and passed it through Elements using the following filters: Inverse (to make the dots show up better -- like astronomers do with star field plates), Despeckle, Despeckle.
What remains are some very "strong" dots between code group 1 and code group 2. In fact, there is the impression of a "tail" or something similar to the right. There are very few dots interspersed with code group 1 and code group 2, most of which I dismiss as artifacts left by the fax process.
This examination also shows that the symbol for E actually includes the dot, which I hadn't really noticed as much before.....I had dismissed them as just artifacts, but you can easily see that all E symbols include the dot and in the same location. Whereas the symbol for 6 does not include a dot, so we dismiss the one from row one as spurrious. The symbols for 5 and 8 may or may not include the dot and the symbol for 0 is assumed to include it because it resembles the letter i (even though the symbol for 9 shows that "tick" marks alone can represent a symbol).
Does this get us anywhere? I don't know. but I think there is a code between group 1 and the hex group that makes use of the dots. I'd like to see some attempts to match the dots from the hex with the dots in the "image" to see if something shows up.
Layne
Re:The little dots particle strikes?
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ThunderBird89
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· Score: 1
I checked the dots in PSCS3 myself, and frankly, I don't see how there could be any code in them. However, I do agree that the symbols for E have their dots in the same location, with tolerance to human error. this makes them somewhat similar to the cypher used by freemason groups, although I can't see how that could help.
-- Hyperbole: I use it liberally!
Re:The little dots particle strikes?
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SQLGuru
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· Score: 1
The dots could form a message similar to the "Smilies" puzzle in the CISRA contest this year (http://puzzle.cisra.com.au/puzzles.php). In that puzzle, the word ORION was overlayed as well as the image of the constellation to form a single picture. Which is what I alluded to when I said I'd like to see some attempts to use the codes (and their relative dots) to try to pull something out of the dots. I think the obvious gap between group 1 and the "hex" section is large enough to be intentional and the dots themselves have enough non-random feel to them that *something* must be there......the question is "what?"
Layne
Re:The little dots particle strikes?
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ThunderBird89
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· Score: 1
I think the purpose of the gap is for the letter to fill the page. true, the dots sort of form a dipper over the second half of the first hex line, but other than that, I see no code in them.
however, I made some headway with the hex section, managing to decode it into assembly opcodes, but I'm stumped there. see my last comment!
Could it be their phone number? Office/Cube number?
-- "There are no facts, only interpretations." --Friedrich Nietzsche.
Using Fermilab to do my homework
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MobyDisk
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· Score: 1
This is great! I've got a take home quiz due next week - I'll just fax it to Fermilab and wait for the answers to appear on Slashdot!
Re:Using Fermilab to do my homework
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omnichad
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· Score: 1
This is great! I've got a take home quiz due next week - I'll just fax it to Fermilab and wait for the answers to appear on Slashdot! Got a year to turn it in?
Neighboring Argonne National Laboratory, which has ties to the DOE and Fermi might be behind this.
The phone number (630) 508-2812 appears to be for a cell phone in the greater Chicago area, however, in the classified ad of an ANL newsletter, a (630) 508-xxxx number can be found, as can another reference in a nearby Clarendon Hills, IL newsletter. It might be reasonable to think that these numbers were allocated from a nearby store.
-- -mls
Well, Obviously this is a test.
by
WindBourne
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· Score: 4, Interesting
I am guessing that it is one of 2 things
Seeing how we will do with alien messages. It is possible that we are trying so hard to see OUR information in there that we have missed the real message. Keep in mind that all of ource text is related to our experience. An alien's world will be different, so different context. IOW, we are seeing what we want to see and missing the real message.
The other is that this is an experiment by the NSA to see how humans solve an issue. I suspect that if this is not one, then we have 2 messages embedded in this. That is, there is an innocuous message designed to throw us off i.e. noise. The real message is hidden as steganography i.e. a telephone number or an email. tele is going to be easier to embed in there.
-- I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Re:Well, Obviously this is a test.
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backwardMechanic
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· Score: 2, Funny
I read your message with interest. I think the most significant part is the missing 's' in source in point 1. I think this may be the extra 's' found in the original message which is causing so much confusion.
Hex in the Middle
by
UCRowerG
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Repeating symbols in the middle, plus the complexity of the outer sections suggests (to me at least) that there is more than just a key here. Ignoring the symbols (which look a little like bastardized geometry notations) and breaking the hex into words:
The first section seemed to decode via base three. So converting the values produces:
f 0 b e 5 8 f 2 f d 6 3
6 c 7 9 d 2 e 4 9 3 e 6
122 000 102 121 012 022 122 002 122 111 020 010
020 110 021 100 111 020 121 011 100 010 121 020
Using the mapping in the first paragraph doesn't seem to make any sense:
RALQFI... or Q KPEH...
Who's to say I'm on the right track here, but if I am, I think a new mapping is required.
Aha! It's obviouslt in Klingon! Someone summon the KLI!
As a FNAL user (not employee)
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skwang
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· Score: 1
As someone who works at FNAL as a grad. student I believe that the 16th floor of Wilson Hall is the "attic" I believe the observation deck is on floor 15. IMO, I doubt that the message is referring to anything up there.
Frank Shoemaker is a Princeton physicist who also does his research at FNAL. Neither his mail station number of phone number match any of the numbers given in the message. (I don't want to give his info out because people will contact him.)
Finally, I believe Robert Wilson's User ID number is 000001. Seriously. He was the founder of the laboratory and its first director.
Re:As a FNAL user (not employee)
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mhall119
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· Score: 1
The building has 16 floors, labeled "Ground" and 1 through 15 I would assume. So Basse 16 could refer to an "attic" or roof-top.
-- http://www.mhall119.com
Re:As a FNAL user (not employee)
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skwang
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· Score: 1
Let me clarify. The building is built in such a way that there is a ground floor, a mezzanine, then the 1st floor. The 1st floor is the floor with the lobby, cafeteria, and the main entrances. The reason there is a ground floor is that the building resides of a man-made hill. You can enter the building through the main entrance which sits atop a large stairway and you will find yourself on the 1st floor. Or you can go into the building through a side entrance and you will be on the ground floor. Lastly, buildings in Europe are numbered differently from those in the USA. This building more or less follows the American standard where the "bottom" floor is the 1st floor. There is a ground floor below it but that's only because of the man-made hill.
To answer sporkme's question below, there is a 13th floor in Wilson hall, but yes some buildings omit floor 13.
The 15th floor is of Wilson hall is the observation deck. While giving a tour I pressed the 16 button in the elevator accidentally. This lead me the 16th floor which is one large "room" that was basically full of machinery. Think of it as a attic or facilities room.
My point being is that all this is probably a red herring. And in my opinion Wilson Hall has nothing to do with this note/code. This is just my opinion, you are free to speculate otherwise.
Did anybody else misread the title as...
by
istartedi
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· Score: 1
...breaking the Feminine code?
-- For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Re:Did anybody else misread the title as...
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Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Nope. The rest of us may be desperate, but not that desperate.
Re:Did anybody else misread the title as...
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Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
No, but if there is a such a post about that topic, please pass it on. I have a feeling it's more impossible to break than the code received at Fermilab.
Hi,
I noticed that the letter 'E' symbol is from the Standard Galactic Alphabet (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Galactic_Alphabet) but it's backwards. Maybe we should try looking at it in a mirror? That would change the order of the bits in the 1st and 3rd stanzas for sure and require a new alphabeta mapping.
Just to rule out the blatantly obvious...
by
mengel
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· Score: 1
I tried groups of 2, 4, and then 3 hex digits converted to decimal as badge numbers... At first I thought I was on a roll with the 3-digit set, becuase I got actual, current (visitor) badge numbers for the first two triples F0B, and E58, but it turns out the rest are not active badge numbers.
Just to save anyone else the trouble...
-- - "History shows again and again how nature points out the folly of men" -- Blue Oyster Cult, 'Godzilla'
I did a quick scan of the two linked methods and both seem to ignore the double spacing between the 1's on lines 4 and 5 (possibly 6). It's most noticable when comparing lines 3 and 4: 1 111 1 1
Re:Double Spacing?
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Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
I've got it, the middle section says "Don't forget to drink your ovaltine"
Making a mountain out of a mole hill
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
I think people are reading too much into this to try to find some sort of hidden meaning. This is probably some simple little prank done by someone inside the lab that knows this Frank guy. I'm betting frank is some sort of skeptic. Perhaps they had a discussion on seti and frank thinks it's crap. The noise part of the message probably just refers to something that frank has said or done. "You'll never find a message in all that random radio noise. " And it's probably in reference to the code itself - Frank would just look at it and says it's noise.
I think the only thing I agree with people here is that there's something more to the middle section. People *assume* it's hex. But where are the 1 and the A characters? And why are some there twice?
Ain't it weird that they're trying to decipher this on the dawn of the LHC tests? I believe that there's more here than what we think. </paranoia>
-- ATH++
Re:No coincidences
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Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Shoemaker was supposedly a master at designing magnets, and Fermilab's magnetic component of the LHC failed last month...
The noise in the background is....
by
TermII
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· Score: 1
...totally a map of the sky! Dippers are clearly visible in between the first and second section...
Anyone know how to do an analysis to figure out the date when the northern sky looked like that?
Actually, this is more interesting than u realize
by
WindBourne
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· Score: 2, Insightful
I have serious doubts that what is coming out is the real message. For starters, fermilab placed this out and said that it was simply found. Yet, it is obvousily a test of some sorts.
In another post, I indicated that this was most likely either about our dealing with alien mesgs, or this was an experiment funded by NSA.
I see 2 issues here, The first is that it really was too easily "solved".
My guess is that the real message really is being missed (i..e keep looking).
But the second and more important issue is what group thought appears to do to dynamics. If fermi did this interesting, they have 3 messages in here and are watching us get focused on just one. IOW, group though leads to solutions (local maximas), but may end up having us miss the other messages (absolute maximas). It really shows that group thought needs outsiders to shake things up.
-- I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Noise?
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Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
I think the concept of noise is a key here. Perhaps if you remove the text that is easily cypherable, the remaining information will contain the next set of information. Whether that means removing the "Frank Shoemaker" text or removing the extra "S" from Basse. I believe the clues found about the Ouerve Hall and the 16 story building may come into play later. -JW
Damn, these new CAPTCHA's are tough!
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Just throwing this out there for someone more patient. . .
The middle seams to be organized in a fashion that the first and second line correspond and the 3rd and 4th correspond in a fashion that leads to a modular movement of the meaning of the symbols to ultimately reveal what the last three mean. ..much like a typical video game puzzle. . .
Anyone look up the Unicode for all these symbols?
by
omnichad
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· Score: 2, Insightful
I think it's pretty easy (big fat lie) to find Unicode for each of the symbols in the middle section. When you convert the hex to binary or ternary, is there a secret message??? 24 symbols * 4 hex digits each = 96 bytes or 768 bits, or 256 ternary-encoded letters! That's a long message.
Maybe you put them in order by the indexes printed below them?
Re:Anyone look up the Unicode for all these symbol
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omnichad
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· Score: 1
So far, I have:
0 = 0x0069
2 = 0x02C3
5 = 0x25EF
6 = 0x00AC
7 = 0x03A6
8 = 0x22BA
B = 0x2010
E = 0x27D3
F = 0x25C1
No idea what D, 3, 4, C, and 9 are. I'm almost willing to believe that 4 and D can't be found anywhere in Unicode. They're just too weird...even taking into account all the alphabets on the planet.
maybe a clue to B-ASSESixteen!
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Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
I know this older (in his 70s), wiser, funnier, physics PhD Princeton graduate who always says... Princeton physics guys... asses... all of them are asses!!!
Ah, has anyone looked up this employee number?
by
ittybad
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· Score: 1
It says employee number basse sixteen (perhaps referring to Wilson Hall). What is the street address for Wilson Hall? I bet it is five digits and it could be the ID number for the author.:) Just a thought.
-- No single raindrop believes it is to blame for the flood.
Ok, so how do I get this past the lameness filter? lll ll lll l lll lll l l ll lll lll l l l lll l l lll ll ll l lll lll lll ll l ll lll l ll lll lll lll lll ll ll lll lll l ll l l lll l ll lll lll lll ll lll l l ll lll l l l lll l ll ll lll ll lll ll ll l lll lll l l ll lll ll l lll lll lll lll lll ll lll l ll ll lll ll ll lll ll lll l ll ll lll lll lll lll lll ll lll ll lll ll ll lll lll l l l ll lll lll lll ll lll lll l ll lll ll lll ll lll lll lll ll lll ll lll ll ll l lll lll ll lll lll ll lll ll lll l ll lll l ll l l ll lll lll lll lll ll lll l ll lll ll lll lll lll lll lll ll lll l l lll lll l l lll l l lll ll ll l lll lll lll ll lll l l l lll lll lll l ll lll l lll ll ll lll l l l ll lll ll lll ll lll lll lll l lll l l ll lll l lll ll lll l ll ll lll l
I think the S in the code is to be replaced by the location of the extra S in basse. The extra S is the 20th character in the phrase, and if you look at the hex/symbol pairs, the 20th character is a 4. That leaves you with 4FC in hex which translates to 1276. Of course this seems too simple so it's probably wrong, but I thought it might spawn an idea or two about how to tie in the significance of the extra S to the symbols at any rate...
What if the middle paragraph is cyphered, and the three characters are the cypherkey?
-- Hyperbole: I use it liberally!
I think I'm making some headway here...
by
ThunderBird89
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· Score: 1
The HEX section looked curiously like excerpts of machine code I have seen a while ago, so I looked up a free assembler, named RosAsm, and had it decode the hex strings, line by line. this is the result:
The first one yields strange, though, first locking, then moving a dataset, but the second is even stranger, I don't even know what it could mean.
Hope someone can use this to further cracking attempts.
-- Hyperbole: I use it liberally!
Re:I think I'm making some headway here...
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ThunderBird89
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· Score: 1
okay, I got so far as deducing that the first line is corrupt, since the lock command is before mov, so it would generate an "undefined opcode exception" on assembling. so now I'm stumped...
as for the insb opcode, I can't even begin, since I don't know what assembler it's from, or what it does.
-- Hyperbole: I use it liberally!
Something interesting - the code refers to itself!
by
JaumPaw
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· Score: 1
I took these from John Graham's notation:
The first block: (012) CIBYS@KDUGZBSGI@PUOXH@FBXX@JDRK@YURKG (021) FRANK@SHOEMAKER@WOULD@CALL@THIS@NOISE (102) JDNXUMEISOZNUODMFSGYQMPNYYMCIVEMXSVEO (120) PVLBEMUQGK@LEKVMTGSAIMJLAAMWQDUMBGDUK (201) THYLOZGRKUMYOUHZCKENVZWYNNZFRQGZLKQGU (210) WQXAGZOVES@XGSQZJEKBRZTXBBZPVHOZAEHOS
Take a closer look at two consecutive lines and see that they tell you how to exchange letters. The letters exchange are stable. Notice that lines 3 and 4 is very similar in format (notice the stops) to 5 and 6.
Armed with tr, I got variants as: (see the semi-garbled message repeated. you can "fix" this because it is still stable)
"Frank Shoemaker would call this noise" is going to turn into the new "What's the frequency, Kenneth"
About "Basse"
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Perhaps a clue : William Basse(c.1583-1653/4) was an English poet(of the 16th century); so perhaps the name of the author is William(there is a lots in the fermilab) check for one William with ID 16 please.
"Employee number basse sixteen"
let's decode "sixteen" using the midle stanza:
we can "draw" 16 using the symbols I, I > and ^,
(try to put'em one to one)and if we take the hex corresponding to each symbol we have:
8863 or 8836 (6 = I>^ or 6 = I^>)
we have to separe 1 and 6, so we put 0 as separator:
80863 or 80836
but we have got "BASSE" which means in french "low" so we have to start with the lower symbol(which is >, note that we also have 3 lower than 6)
so our employee ID is :
80836N
Please check this ID, to see if I'm wrong or not(I think I'm not) or let me know how to check by myself.thx
Note: the employee ID at the fermilab is encoded on 5 integers and a caracter (C for Contractor, V for Visitor and N for Employee )
I took the second stenza, and I've counted the number of occurence of every hex caractere(THE FREQUENCIES), so I got:
F 3
0 1
B 1
E 3
5 1
8 1
2 2
D 2
6 3
3 2
C 2
7 1
9 2
4 1
we include the third line with 1 instead of S, and we rearrage ordering the list:
0 1
1 1
2 2
3 2
4 1
5 1
6 3
7 1
8 1
9 2
A 0 (left blank)
B 1
C 3
D 2
E 3
F 4
Now, we see it seems to be a trits system(except F) if we parse that using the second mapping and putting 1 = 0, 2 = 1,
3 = 2 we have:
001 100 200 100 112 which gives "AIRIN"
note that I ommited the F, i think it's just here to lead us in wrong way.
Airin Older is the name of the bassist/singer of an alternative rock group called "sugarcult"
so there is an obvious correlation between "airin","bass" and "shoemaker would call this noise".
is it the solution? I don't know, it doesn't tell us where is the employee ID (perhaps it is E16 from bass(E 16))
but I can't imagine it is just a coincidence.
William Basse (c.1583-1653/4) was an English poet(notice that he lived in the 16th century) so perhaps the name of the author is William.
William Basse was also known as a follower of f Edmund Spenser(c. 1552 â" 1599) ho was an important English poet that contribute mainly to the english poetry by his "Spenserian stanza".A stanza construct as this : 8 lines of 10 syllabus verse and the last line is an alxandrin (12 syllabus)
Perhaps the author use this construction somewhere.
I think also the author's name is William, try to find some William in the Fermilab
Try to look in the phoenician and and other semitic alphapets(arab, hebrew...) even the greek one to decrypt the midle stanza
I made some interessting discoveries (the first symbol is the letter 'D' in phoenician alphabetâ¦)
Re:The Symbols mean ...
by
ThunderBird89
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· Score: 1
I always thought the phoenician alphabet goes like aleph, beth, etc, which stands for ox and house...
Then the greeks adopted, but they said alpha for aleph, and beta for beth. And the contraction of the two gave us the word alphabet.
as for arabic and hebrew, those are... different:)
none of these symbols look even remotely like arab or hebrew glyphs...
With a closer sight to the symbols and to the alphabets you'll see the matching.
The first symbol of the midlle stanza(corresponding to F) match exactly the dÄleth pheonician letter, there is also similar symbols in the hebrew and greek alphabets(haven't found arabic ones yet), so I suppose we've to search in this semitic alphabets, there's perphaps a clue.
For a closer look:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenician_alphabet
I think I've got the author
by
arkoon
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· Score: 1
To #175: Thank you Devin for your notes, I've retried the combinasion above and I substitued F by C : I mean I remove one F and add one C; so I got now some think like
0 1 1 something 2 2 3 2 4 1 5 1 6 3 7 1 8 1 9 2 A something B 1 C 2 D 2 E 3 F 3
If I use the same mapping with 1 = 0, 2 = 1, 3 = 2; we have: 0*1 100 200 1*0 112 2 == * I R * N (still this odd 2, let's just ignore it, just note that 2 represents 3 without the mapping!)
so now we have 9 combinations, 9 possible word, only 2 are meanful AIRIN(I talked about it in #172) and if we consider the * as 2(another 3!) we get 021 100 200 120 112 which corresponds to GIRON.
And mysteriously, in the fermilab there's someone called Steve GIRON and who work on the neutrinos also. who's GIRON? is it the author?if someone knows him, please help us!
Middle part.... Figured it out.
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
First row is HIGH byte Second row is LOW byte. 1111011000001100101101111110100101011101100000101111111000100100 Break into 4 bit groups.
Slashdot Mirror
Ahh, the mystery of Employee #508.
/.er is going to come forward?
Which
This story has been interesting so far - unfortunately some of us are unable to follow links to a majority of TFAs here on Slashdot. For such people, can someone comment as to whether there have been any new developments beyond the "would call this noise" and "employee number base 16" lines (and what said developments are)? Much appreciated!
One always conceptually understands the power of numbers, but in this case it is amazing, considering that this problem went unsolved for an extended period within fermilab. The second it is asked to the correct audience though, the gears start going and the answer exists!
Just want to point out that 1st and 3rd stanzas were cracked WITHIN the slashdot thread. See wirelessbuzzers' post here and femtobyte's post here. Either of these two individuals may be the two people whose sites are linked in the summary for this current story, but since I can't be sure, I wanted to make sure credit was given to them as well. (The first stanza was cracked within 7hrs of the /. story going live)
Also, based on the "employee number" speculation in the second link especially, I want to point out that although I am the furthest thing from a "codecracker," I do believe the BASSE misspelling of BASE is intentional and is a clue. Likewise, the FRANK SHOEMAKER WOULD CALL THIS NOISE stanza may be a reference to his work for fermilab (detecting signal that often hides amongst noise), but is probably a double entendre of some sort. If someone is methodical enough to encode this text and mail it to Fermilab, they wouldn't misspell such a simple word (BASE), unless for a good reason. Along these same lines of thought, I believe the "noise" comment is also a clue with multiple meanings. Also, from what I gather, the middle stanza can be assumed to be hex, so that makes the third stanza fairly insignificant, unless it has other meaning (hence looking at "BASSE" for a clue as to some other meaning).
I am Jack's complete lack of surprise.
Good work that man :)
Some of the thought process that went into the second solution. http://www.gmilburn.ca/2008/05/16/fermilabs-strange-code-letter/
This is by far the most convoluted way of getting someone's email adress spammed.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
After some Google work:
Wilson Hall has a connection to ""Basse oeuvre". See this.
Wilson Hall has 16 floors, and you must have an employee badge to access the 16th floor.It seems most likely that the "noise" referred to in the first stanza is the extra S is "basse" in the third. This leads me to believe that there is more information in the middle stanza than the employee number.
My Photography - http://ian-x.com
The Deathlings (comic) - http://thedeathlings.com
- are you aware that Basse and Bosse are nicknames in Swedish? Not sure for which names ..
Yes, and if anyone needed proof that open source is better than closed source for finding bugs or fixing security vulnerabilities, this is yet more evidence.
I got an answer of 42.
The message seems to have been written by a left-handed person. Analysis of the vertical lines in the two partially decrypted stanzas show a consistant skew a few degrees to the left which increases towards the right side of the page.
Another clue on the psych path to decoding the SEKRIT MSGS !?
BLAM!
The only 'basse' that I am aware of is a renaissance dance, which is usually in 3/2 time. The basse was the precursor of the pavanne. It may be a red herring, but John Downland composed a pavanne called 'The Shoemaker's Wife'
I think someone has already speculated that the hexidecimal section could be music of some sort. Is there also a Base/Basse/Bass/Noise pun at the heart of this?
Why would that middle stanza only be a mapping, used to decode those three items? There seems to be too much information for it to be just that, especially since you only need to decode 3 'letters'.
So why the rest of the key? Why are some hex numbers repeated?
Why does every hex number (that shows up) appear once, twice or three times? Again with the three, again with the ternary? *Three* stanzas, all in some form of base *three*?
Just wondering out loud, I couldn't really get far with this train of thought but maybe someone else will be able to hop on.
I don't understand the interest in this. It's just some code a person came up with. Why is decoding it so interesting?
The target receives messages on his lab equipment, but the funny thing is that messages that can potentially change the course of time are gibberish (because then the originator wouldn't have sent them) and the harmless ones go through just fine. It's an interesting idea. How can you transmit important information this way ?
I won't spoil the book for you...
Non-Linux Penguins ?
Basse Donnée system is a system that generates all the allowable solutions for given bass tasks within triads There are a few abstracts to the effect of the above that come on on google if one searches Basse and Science. I have no idea what it means, but i note: 1. It mentions triads - 3 is important in problem 2. It has something to do with music - sound, noise! 3. There is some sought of algorithm around it. ... Might be a trap though...
(http://ci.nii.ac.jp/naid/110003111379/en/ )
The second stanza looks like ANSI block characters to me. Take a look at these tables.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms947792.aspx
The middle stanza says "I've wasted a million man hours".
lol: You see no door there!
When I saw the second paragraph, my first thought was to fire up Char Map.
:-p
Whereas other people kept thinking that the middle section was supposed to be substituting the hex numbers for the symbols above, I had to wonder if the symbols were trying to tell us something. After all, as was pretty clearly pointed out by the people who have solved paragraphs one and three, each section contains only five lines. (In fact, the middle paragraph was your clue to this one -- it was just obscured by the fact that it was in two different codes -- but still, only five lines).
Anyway, I realized that many of the symbols in the middle paragraph were in Charmap. AND each of these has a corresponding UTF code, which could be translated in to hex
For instance:
"Not Sign", U+00AC
"Inverted Exclamation Mark", U+00A1
"Greater Than Sign" (duh), U+003E
"Single Right-Pointing Angle Quotation Mark", U+203A (note in the code they are two different sizes)
"Greek Phi", U+03A6
(Unfortunately, slashdot does not support these extended characters, as I found out. So I could not display all of them.)
Not sure about the rest. The triangle COULD be a Greek Delta, but usually that is represented as a triangle with its base flat, not turned sideways. I have no idea what to make of the squiggly-"8"-like symbol. The three-pointed symbol could be a Greek Lambda, and possibly the top line is a Greek Tau. For the rest? You guess is as good as mine. I don't have the patience to go through CHARMAP symbol by symbol. Hopefully someone else just KNOWS this stuff.
I'm not a genius, so I'll leave this to the board to ponder some more. But the way I figure it, once you have the whole middle paragraph in hex, you should be able to translate it easily enough.
http://xkcd.com/356/
See subject - he was first director of Fermilab, born March 4th, 1914. Letter was received on March 5th.
Also, if you:
1) Take each letter in the middle code, and replace it with its frequency (i.e. F = 3, D = 2, A = 0, etc)
2) Add up groups of 4 numbers in each line
You get:
3103 1132 3232 = 77A = 1914
3112 2231 2233 = 78A = 1930
The 1914 matches Wilson... but seems like a stretch...
you need Frank employee number to decode the second part in base 16
I played around with the 2nd part a bit here is what I saw:
F0BE58F2FD636C79D2E493E6 code
311311323232311222312233 occurrences of each letter
010111000000000000100010 dots per sign
311212323022223202212222 straight lines per sign
000010000300001030030000 circles per sign
121221111211111211242121 disjunct figures
Interesting:
1) 4 has the only symbol made out of 4 elements. The number of dots, lines and circles can be coded base 4.
2) There are dots all over the paper which can be seen as NOISE. This might be a hint that the solution lies in the dots of the symbols.
My guess is that we can decode the message in the symbols using the employee number base 16.
A thought from a totally math-tarded person. The comments things "hidden in noise", and the "Basse" misspelling, perhaps it instead refers to "Bass E" as in a low E on a music scale?
I wasn't able to turn up any sort of connection between Frank Shoemaker and musical notes, but perhaps another person can? Or perhaps the numeric value of that note could lead one of you clever math types to decrypt the center section somehow? I dunno, just a thought.
The first and third stanzas/paragraphs only technically have five lines. There are two indents. Note how the second stanza has only 5 lines (of mixed code) -- that's your clue right there.
and get back to work. I pay you to code, not decode!" says the pointy haired boss. ]8O
Invenio via vel creo
You get:
... 2170 is the year BEFORE this code will be cracked, making this a encrypted recursive prophecy. GENIUS.
3103 1132 3232 = 77A = 1914
3112 2231 2233 = 78A = 1930
Wrong, you get:
3113 1132 3232 = 87A = 2170
3112 2231 2233 = 78A = 1930
Oh, but wait
æè±s
The ghosts at night shine so bright.
On the plains of a final frontier.
They mystify night by night.
Though they are better with beer.
B4SKmwmAxXsl836XDkvCla1KfbKM+wYIC5wYTxx6xxsZZ1Ks
40.383333Â, -3.716667Â
... Charles M. Schulz.
Is someone trying to prove Fermilab employees are not so bright because they won't waste their time decoding a nerdy spam message? Considering they had it over a year before mentioning it to the public, it lost any publicity boost it might have for the authors. Leave our researchers alone and take this with your pie to the MENSA meeting.
I don't think the entire reason for the symbols is just for show. Yes, this is a great example of what open community can do, but seriously what do the symbols mean? I've seen no one crack that yet. Frank Shoemaker did work at Fermi and at Princeton. I'm not certain what his area was, but Phi is the symbol for magnetic flux. Could it be that the symbols represent some error in data that Frank would dismiss as noise?
I don't know if you can call the message "mostly" decoded. It seems that only the part that was meant to get decoded easily, right away, has been decoded. That just gives us enough information to peak our interest with tantalizing clues.
A little half-hearted google searching indicates that "basse 16" has something to do with pipe organs. This is probably not relevant, though.
But if Fermilab were the ones who punched those binding holes in the page, they might've made a message of that sort unreadable.
I believe the extra S in BASSE is designed to point out the significance of the S in the 3-char code. It's the only character not present in the 2 lines above. So what does sFC mean?
Subtract FC?
Swap F and C?
S=FC?
The, "FRANK@SHOE..." line is possibly an alternate translation just stuck in there to confuse wannabe cryptoanalysts. The self referential description could be an homage to mr. Shoemaker, not a dig.
Those dots you speak of could be particle strikes on a film.
Do they seem to have a particular distribution on the page?
random, gaussian, etc
Could it be their phone number? Office/Cube number?
"There are no facts, only interpretations." --Friedrich Nietzsche.
This is great! I've got a take home quiz due next week - I'll just fax it to Fermilab and wait for the answers to appear on Slashdot!
Neighboring Argonne National Laboratory, which has ties to the DOE and Fermi might be behind this.
The phone number (630) 508-2812 appears to be for a cell phone in the greater Chicago area, however, in the classified ad of an ANL newsletter, a (630) 508-xxxx number can be found, as can another reference in a nearby Clarendon Hills, IL newsletter. It might be reasonable to think that these numbers were allocated from a nearby store.
-mls
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
BASSE = LOW http://www.google.com/search?q=basse+site%3Afnal.gov
Repeating symbols in the middle, plus the complexity of the outer sections suggests (to me at least) that there is more than just a key here. Ignoring the symbols (which look a little like bastardized geometry notations) and breaking the hex into words:
... to decimal is...
...or binary...
...the length of which is divisible by three, curiously...
...or in decimal...
F0 BE 58 F2 FD 63
6C 79 D2 E4 93 E6
240 190 88 242 253 99
108 121 210 228 147 230
111100001011111001011000111100101111110101100011
11011000111100111010010111001001001001111100110
Taking each symbol/value individually:
111100001011111001011000111100101111110101100011
011011000111100111010010111001001001001111100110
111 100 001 011 111 001 011 000 111 100 101 111 110 101 100 011
011 011 000 111 100 111 010 010 111 001 001 001 001 111 100 110
7 4 1 3 7 1 3 0 7 4 5 7 6 5 4 3
3 3 0 7 4 7 2 2 7 1 1 1 1 7 4 6
The first section seemed to decode via base three. So converting the values produces:
f 0 b e 5 8 f 2 f d 6 3
6 c 7 9 d 2 e 4 9 3 e 6
122 000 102 121 012 022 122 002 122 111 020 010
020 110 021 100 111 020 121 011 100 010 121 020
Using the mapping in the first paragraph doesn't seem to make any sense:
RALQFI... or Q KPEH...
Who's to say I'm on the right track here, but if I am, I think a new mapping is required.
As someone who works at FNAL as a grad. student I believe that the 16th floor of Wilson Hall is the "attic" I believe the observation deck is on floor 15. IMO, I doubt that the message is referring to anything up there.
Frank Shoemaker is a Princeton physicist who also does his research at FNAL. Neither his mail station number of phone number match any of the numbers given in the message. (I don't want to give his info out because people will contact him.)
Finally, I believe Robert Wilson's User ID number is 000001. Seriously. He was the founder of the laboratory and its first director.
...breaking the Feminine code?
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Hi, I noticed that the letter 'E' symbol is from the Standard Galactic Alphabet (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Galactic_Alphabet) but it's backwards. Maybe we should try looking at it in a mirror? That would change the order of the bits in the 1st and 3rd stanzas for sure and require a new alphabeta mapping.
Just to save anyone else the trouble...
- "History shows again and again how nature points out the folly of men" -- Blue Oyster Cult, 'Godzilla'
I did a quick scan of the two linked methods and both seem to ignore the double spacing between the 1's on lines 4 and 5 (possibly 6). It's most noticable when comparing lines 3 and 4:
1 111
1 1
Further cryptographic analysis of the first message reveals the following message:
BAS TARD MATT HEWS VAR LET MATT HEWS SCUM WOULD BASH THAT FLAP EAR ASS WITH PLEA SURE GREAT THAT MATT HEWS BAS
Our men from the Department of Codes are continuing analysis on this fragment to see what it yields.
Hey. Just messing around I took the second part of the letter, all the hex, and converted it to binary,
11110000 10111110 01011000 11110010 11111101 01100011 01101100 01111001 11010010 11100100 10010011 11100110
then took the binary and converted it into ascii and got this:
ð¾XòýclyÒäæ
some unicode mixed with some normal letters (X cly) Maybe there is some signal in this noise?
~Buckley
I've got it, the middle section says "Don't forget to drink your ovaltine"
I think people are reading too much into this to try to find some sort of hidden meaning. This is probably some simple little prank done by someone inside the lab that knows this Frank guy. I'm betting frank is some sort of skeptic. Perhaps they had a discussion on seti and frank thinks it's crap. The noise part of the message probably just refers to something that frank has said or done. "You'll never find a message in all that random radio noise. " And it's probably in reference to the code itself - Frank would just look at it and says it's noise.
I think the only thing I agree with people here is that there's something more to the middle section. People *assume* it's hex. But where are the 1 and the A characters? And why are some there twice?
Look at the dots among the symbols.
01 01 10 (112) 00 00 10 (002)
00 00 00 (000) 10 00 10 (202)
The 2nd part is "NB T".
Note that Nb(t) is a notation representing noise.
:-)
^(oo)^pig~
Ain't it weird that they're trying to decipher this on the dawn of the LHC tests?
I believe that there's more here than what we think.
</paranoia>
ATH++
...totally a map of the sky! Dippers are clearly visible in between the first and second section...
Anyone know how to do an analysis to figure out the date when the northern sky looked like that?
I have serious doubts that what is coming out is the real message. For starters, fermilab placed this out and said that it was simply found. Yet, it is obvousily a test of some sorts. In another post, I indicated that this was most likely either about our dealing with alien mesgs, or this was an experiment funded by NSA.
I see 2 issues here, The first is that it really was too easily "solved". My guess is that the real message really is being missed (i..e keep looking).
But the second and more important issue is what group thought appears to do to dynamics. If fermi did this interesting, they have 3 messages in here and are watching us get focused on just one. IOW, group though leads to solutions (local maximas), but may end up having us miss the other messages (absolute maximas). It really shows that group thought needs outsiders to shake things up.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I think the concept of noise is a key here. Perhaps if you remove the text that is easily cypherable, the remaining information will contain the next set of information. Whether that means removing the "Frank Shoemaker" text or removing the extra "S" from Basse. I believe the clues found about the Ouerve Hall and the 16 story building may come into play later. -JW
Take that evil spammers!!
Don't they omit floor 13 on some many-storied buildings?
FairTax baby!
Just throwing this out there for someone more patient. . . The middle seams to be organized in a fashion that the first and second line correspond and the 3rd and 4th correspond in a fashion that leads to a modular movement of the meaning of the symbols to ultimately reveal what the last three mean. . .much like a typical video game puzzle. . .
I think it's pretty easy (big fat lie) to find Unicode for each of the symbols in the middle section. When you convert the hex to binary or ternary, is there a secret message??? 24 symbols * 4 hex digits each = 96 bytes or 768 bits, or 256 ternary-encoded letters! That's a long message. Maybe you put them in order by the indexes printed below them?
So far, I have:
0 = 0x0069
2 = 0x02C3
5 = 0x25EF
6 = 0x00AC
7 = 0x03A6
8 = 0x22BA
B = 0x2010
E = 0x27D3
F = 0x25C1
No idea what D, 3, 4, C, and 9 are. I'm almost willing to believe that 4 and D can't be found anywhere in Unicode. They're just too weird...even taking into account all the alphabets on the planet.
Hmm...looks like player piano music on the top and bottom to me.
The Ramans do everything in threes...
sig sig sig siggy sig
I know this older (in his 70s), wiser, funnier, physics PhD Princeton graduate who always says... Princeton physics guys... asses... all of them are asses!!!
It says employee number basse sixteen (perhaps referring to Wilson Hall). What is the street address for Wilson Hall? I bet it is five digits and it could be the ID number for the author. :) Just a thought.
No single raindrop believes it is to blame for the flood.
Ok, so how do I get this past the lameness filter?
lll ll lll l lll lll l l ll lll lll l l l lll l l lll ll ll l lll lll lll ll l ll lll l ll lll lll lll lll ll ll lll lll l ll l l lll l ll lll lll lll ll lll l l ll lll l l l lll l ll ll lll ll lll ll ll l lll lll l l ll lll ll l lll lll lll lll lll ll lll l ll ll lll ll ll lll ll lll l ll ll lll lll lll lll lll ll lll ll lll ll ll lll lll l l l ll lll lll lll ll lll lll l ll lll ll lll ll lll lll lll ll lll ll lll ll ll l lll lll ll lll lll ll lll ll lll l ll lll l ll l l ll lll lll lll lll ll lll l ll lll ll lll lll lll lll lll ll lll l l lll lll l l lll l l lll ll ll l lll lll lll ll lll l l l lll lll lll l ll lll l lll ll ll lll l l l ll lll ll lll ll lll lll lll l lll l l ll lll l lll ll lll l ll ll lll l
bla
Hi, Geoff here... one of the sites linked above.
I don't believe that "BASSE" is a misspelling - I think it's an error on the part of the writer.
See this for more detail.
...and I'm getting a kick out of these replies.
"I have a truly marvellous proof of this proposition which this posting window is too narrow to contain."
I think the S in the code is to be replaced by the location of the extra S in basse. The extra S is the 20th character in the phrase, and if you look at the hex/symbol pairs, the 20th character is a 4. That leaves you with 4FC in hex which translates to 1276. Of course this seems too simple so it's probably wrong, but I thought it might spawn an idea or two about how to tie in the significance of the extra S to the symbols at any rate...
Has anyone tried converting the hex values into decimal, then looking them up in an ASCII character table? maybe that yields something meaningful...
Hyperbole: I use it liberally!
A HYPERSPACE BYPASS will be constructed (LOCAL DATE) 23 DECEMBER 2012. Please make arrangements to evacuate to a safe zone before that date.
This is your final warning. Resistance is useless.
VOGON CONSTRUCTOR FLEET
Prevent Windows piracy. Use Linux instead.
What if the middle paragraph is cyphered, and the three characters are the cypherkey?
Hyperbole: I use it liberally!
The HEX section looked curiously like excerpts of machine code I have seen a while ago, so I looked up a free assembler, named RosAsm, and had it decode the hex strings, line by line. this is the result:
f0 be 58 f2 fd 63 => Decoded => lock mov esi 063FDF258
6c 79 d2 e4 93 e6 => Decoded => insb
The first one yields strange, though, first locking, then moving a dataset, but the second is even stranger, I don't even know what it could mean.
Hope someone can use this to further cracking attempts.
Hyperbole: I use it liberally!
I took these from John Graham's notation:
The first block:
(012) CIBYS@KDUGZBSGI@PUOXH@FBXX@JDRK@YURKG
(021) FRANK@SHOEMAKER@WOULD@CALL@THIS@NOISE
(102) JDNXUMEISOZNUODMFSGYQMPNYYMCIVEMXSVEO
(120) PVLBEMUQGK@LEKVMTGSAIMJLAAMWQDUMBGDUK
(201) THYLOZGRKUMYOUHZCKENVZWYNNZFRQGZLKQGU
(210) WQXAGZOVES@XGSQZJEKBRZTXBBZPVHOZAEHOS
The second block:
(012) GZWXUNGG@YOZAGI@ABKKG@KRLJGGY
(021) EMPLOYEE@NUMBER@BASSE@SIXTEEN
(102) OZTYSBOOMXGZLODMLNEEOMEVACOOX
(120) K@FAGXKKMBS@NKVMNLUUKMUDYWKKB
(201) UMJNKAUUZLEMXUHZXYGGUZGQBFUUL
(210) S@CBELSSZAK@YSQZYXOOSZOHNPSSA
Take a closer look at two consecutive lines and see that they tell you how to exchange letters. The letters exchange are stable.
Notice that lines 3 and 4 is very similar in format (notice the stops) to 5 and 6.
Armed with tr, I got variants as: (see the semi-garbled message repeated. you can "fix" this because it is still stable)
(012) JINXUMEDSOZNUOIMFSGYQMPNYYMCDREMXSREO
(021) PRLBEMUQGK@LEKRMWGSADMJLAAMTQIUMBGIUK
(102) CDBYS@KIUGZBSGD@PUOXH@FBXX@JIVK@YUVKG
(120) FVANK@SHOEMAKEV@TOULI@CALL@WHDS@NODSE
(201) TQXAGZORES@XGSQZJEKBVZWXBBZPRHOZAEHOS
(210) WHYLOZGVKUMYOUHZCKENRZTYNNZFVQGZLKQGU
and:
(012) OZWYSBOOMXGZLOIMLNEEOMERACOOX
(021) K@FAGXKKMBS@NKRMNLUUKMUIYTKKB
(102) GZTXUNGG@YOZAGD@ABKKG@KVLJGGY
(120) EMPLOYEE@NUMBEV@BASSE@SDXWEEN
(201) S@CBELSSZAK@YSQZYXOOSZOHNPSSA
(210) UMJNKAUUZLEMXUHZXYGGUZGQBFUUL
There's also the same for the last row.
This could be a leading hint to some sort of mapping you need to get the real message (this is just noise).
"Frank Shoemaker would call this noise" is going to turn into the new "What's the frequency, Kenneth"
Perhaps a clue :
William Basse(c.1583-1653/4) was an English poet(of the 16th century);
so perhaps the name of the author is William(there is a lots in the fermilab)
check for one William with ID 16 please.
"Employee number basse sixteen" :
let's decode "sixteen" using the midle stanza:
we can "draw" 16 using the symbols I, I > and ^, (try to put'em one to one)and if we take the hex corresponding to each symbol we have
8863 or 8836 (6 = I>^ or 6 = I^>)
we have to separe 1 and 6, so we put 0 as separator:
80863 or 80836
but we have got "BASSE" which means in french "low" so we have to start with the lower symbol(which is >, note that we also have 3 lower than 6)
so our employee ID is : 80836N
Please check this ID, to see if I'm wrong or not(I think I'm not) or let me know how to check by myself.thx
Note: the employee ID at the fermilab is encoded on 5 integers and a caracter (C for Contractor, V for Visitor and N for Employee )
I took the second stenza, and I've counted the number of occurence of every hex caractere(THE FREQUENCIES), so I got:
:
F 3
0 1
B 1
E 3
5 1
8 1
2 2
D 2
6 3
3 2
C 2
7 1
9 2
4 1
we include the third line with 1 instead of S, and we rearrage ordering the list:
0 1
1 1
2 2
3 2
4 1
5 1
6 3
7 1
8 1
9 2
A 0 (left blank)
B 1
C 3
D 2
E 3
F 4
Now, we see it seems to be a trits system(except F) if we parse that using the second mapping and putting 1 = 0, 2 = 1, 3 = 2 we have
001 100 200 100 112 which gives "AIRIN"
note that I ommited the F, i think it's just here to lead us in wrong way.
Airin Older is the name of the bassist/singer of an alternative rock group called "sugarcult" so there is an obvious correlation between "airin","bass" and "shoemaker would call this noise".
is it the solution? I don't know, it doesn't tell us where is the employee ID (perhaps it is E16 from bass(E 16)) but I can't imagine it is just a coincidence.
William Basse (c.1583-1653/4) was an English poet(notice that he lived in the 16th century) so perhaps the name of the author is William.
William Basse was also known as a follower of f Edmund Spenser(c. 1552 â" 1599) ho was an important English poet that contribute mainly to the english poetry by his "Spenserian stanza".A stanza construct as this :
8 lines of 10 syllabus verse and the last line is an alxandrin (12 syllabus)
Perhaps the author use this construction somewhere.
I think also the author's name is William, try to find some William in the Fermilab
Try to look in the phoenician and and other semitic alphapets(arab, hebrew...) even the greek one to decrypt the midle stanza
I made some interessting discoveries (the first symbol is the letter 'D' in phoenician alphabetâ¦)
To #175:
Thank you Devin for your notes, I've retried the combinasion above and I substitued F by C : I mean I remove one F and add one C;
so I got now some think like
0 1
1 something
2 2
3 2
4 1
5 1
6 3
7 1
8 1
9 2
A something
B 1
C 2
D 2
E 3
F 3
If I use the same mapping with 1 = 0, 2 = 1, 3 = 2; we have:
0*1 100 200 1*0 112 2 == * I R * N (still this odd 2, let's just ignore it, just note that 2 represents 3 without the mapping!)
so now we have 9 combinations, 9 possible word, only 2 are meanful AIRIN(I talked about it in #172) and if we consider the * as 2(another 3!) we get
021 100 200 120 112 which corresponds to GIRON.
And mysteriously, in the fermilab there's someone called Steve GIRON and who work on the neutrinos also.
who's GIRON? is it the author?if someone knows him, please help us!
First row is HIGH byte
Second row is LOW byte.
1111011000001100101101111110100101011101100000101111111000100100
Break into 4 bit groups.
Value of bits, in binary =
15 6 0 12 11 7 14 9 5 13 8 2 15 14 24 (plus 64 for ascii)
O F @ L K G N I E M H B O N B D
H@ (Hbomb Ferguson)
BBKING
MENOFOLD
This very well could be noise to F.Shoemaker.
~William Fisher...
Hrm.. or Maybe not.
debofklingon@MHB
More random letters trying to make a pattern there of... Grr.
~WF