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.
That was ridiculously quick
by
everyplace
·
· 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
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.
solved within 7hrs...
by
adam
·
· 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
SQLGuru
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
Maybe the double S is to show the hidden mapping for the S symbol.....as E.
Does EFC mean anything?
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
·
· 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.
Slashdot Mirror
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.
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.
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.