Comments on: Off the Hook Contest: 617-848-1172

By: Michael Hampton

Michael Hampton — Wed, 26 Jul 2006 00:33:58 +0000

We know exactly what this one was; Mike went and told us. Now try to figure out the others.

By: Kevin

Kevin — Tue, 25 Jul 2006 23:31:58 +0000

Has anyone considered that this could be more of that viral marketing that’s been gaining popularity? For example http://www.eon8.com or the billboards popping up about the cheating husband.

By: SecondAgenda : For Mein Fraulein

SecondAgenda : For Mein Fraulein — Wed, 12 Jul 2006 20:12:36 +0000

[...] Subject: For mein fraulein – Boston, Massachusetts # 617-848-1172 – Telecom Provider: Focal Communications CL Message + VoIP Transcript: [...]

By: Buff Daddy

Buff Daddy — Sat, 24 Jun 2006 08:18:48 +0000

“There’s nothing more dangerous than a resourceful idiot.” – Scott Adams

“The easiest person in the world to scam is the person who foolishly believes that they can’t be scammed.” – Me!

I’m WAY to tired to write further, so I’ll just leave you all with the above quotes and this question/answer:

Q. What’s the advantage of giving thousands of cryptologists free access to their secret messages?

A. They’ll encrypt it for them.

By: CodeAc

CodeAc — Fri, 23 Jun 2006 11:54:27 +0000

has anyone tried that using the same method that the 2600 message used to decrypt the other 3 messages??

By: 4

Fri, 23 Jun 2006 05:59:21 +0000

ok great, but what about the other three messages???

By: manus

manus — Fri, 23 Jun 2006 04:07:09 +0000

Sorry for the delay in explaining my method, but I was AFK since I left work. The posted solutions are good, though I kind of did it a backwards way which was a little harder and more reliant on educated guessing. I guessed that the plaintext would include the string “DOTCOM” (though I had also tried the same technique using other strings) and then looked at the differences between the consecutive numbers and compared them to the differences between consecutive character values in each string. After I discovered a pattern, remembering the hint just confirmed to me that I was on the right track, and the solution was found soon after. I knew there had to be a smarter way to do it, but at the time, I just wanted to chug through and get the answer.

-manus

By: Michael Hampton

Michael Hampton — Fri, 23 Jun 2006 02:50:11 +0000

Okay, time to turn our attention back to the other numbers stations, I guess. At this rate I’ll never get free tickets to HOPE!

By: mlc

mlc — Fri, 23 Jun 2006 02:35:09 +0000

Hey folks, We've posted an explanation of sorts on the HOPE Number Six blog, if you're interested.

By: alwyz

alwyz — Fri, 23 Jun 2006 01:27:33 +0000

spoiler…

since a solution has been published, i’ll post one here, which is a little different than the one i saw, but damn i feel like an idiot for not getting it sooner…

one answer key for this particular station. reminding that we “lose the 5″

Group 21. make a chart like this, subtract from all the 3 digit groupings in order, compare to a-z chart that makes a=0, b=1, c=2 and so on…, there’s your answer

start with 0. subtract from 012 = 012 = m
add 2 to 0=2. subtract from 006 = 004 = e
add 1 to 2=3. subtract from 011 = 008 = i
add 2 to 3=5. subtract from 018 = 013 = n
add 1 to 5=6. subtract from…. etc etc etc