Post by mortlach on Sept 3, 2016 17:28:30 GMT
I really am in 3 minds about what to do with this puzzle and my interpretation of the Jan 2016 message.
1. You must find the deep web page – until you do all decrypting efforts are pointless
There are projects looking for the deep web page in the onion web. So far it seems very unlikely the hash is of an onion URL. Though note, "Deep-Web" includes more than just onion pages. Given what information we have at the moment this is a game of chance, although it may produce results – someone might get lucky.
2. You have to decrypt the runes
But no-one knows how. Systematically try everything? Find some new piece of analysis that helps make progress? The runes have been remarkably robust to analysis – the only thing that seems to look like the Liber Primus is the Liber Primus itself. Decrypting also seems like a game of chance. However, that also means when anyone ever tries to decrypt there’s a chance they might succeed!
3. There is a "hidden message" that has been missed.
This option is one of the least discussed and so worth expanding on. Where might this hidden message be? Unused elements from previous puzzles? Steganography in the 58 .jpg files? My suggestion would be in the runes themselves, based on the 2016 message. Say… the first rue of every line, every word, etc. etc. etc. One possible place is in the repeated rune pairs, they have an extremely low occurrence: imgur.com/eAVCeeC (once I estimated they had a probability of 10^-69 to occur by random imgur.com/ZCytrje ).
A Hidden Message In The Repeated Runes?
There are 89 (prime) repeated pairs in the 58 pages cipher text:
{TH, X, EA, J, L, AE, S, (I)NG, G, AE, N, OE, J, F, Y, G, X, U, AE, G, IO, O, M, H, W, D, X, J, EA, AE, G, IO, O, S, N, X, U, L, S, E, L, O, E, R, C, F, EO, AE, M, TH, EO, F, N, T, D, H, R, A, TH, J, T, AE, F, X, W, I, OE, W, EA, N, OE, I, AE, OE, X, E, O, E, P, W, W, W, Y, (I)NG, G, TH, W, D, N}
The last 3 of these pairs have been decrypted to:
{N,N} = {N,N} {D,D} = {X,I}
{W,W} = {P,W}
There is no B. There are no two rune repeats, apart from the ones associated with a single 3 rune repeat “WWW” and no other repeats. “WWW” is a suggestive tri-gram of runes. With 7 runes after them giving enough characters for “HTTP://WWW” ? If we take the repeats of the remaining pages as “special” – in some sense they are special: they are in pages that have resisted all attempts at decryption - then the WWW has four runes after it, still suggestive of “HTTP WWW” ?
What are the odds these runes come from a random distribution?
This can be broken down into separate parts - with the odds decreasing as you increase the number of constraints.
A. The odds of only getting 28 out of 29 runes in 86 throws of a 29 sided coin are actually relatively high. 28/29 is the most likely result occurring about 37% of the time. The following are the probabilities of randomly getting 20 to 29 runes from 86:
20=8.10^-8 21=2.6.10^-6 22=0.00005 23=0.0006 24=0.005 25=0.031 26=0.12 27=0.28 28=0.37 29=0.2
B. The chances of getting 3 in a row, of any rune, at any point in 86 runes and no other consecutive repeats, (plus only 28/29 runes) are 0.19%, about 1 in 500.
These I think are the best odds that everyone should agree to. However, we can speculate and go further.
C. Due to the suggestive nature of "WWW" and because if it is part of URL it would makes sense to have exactly 4 runes before/after it we can add the constraint that the 3 rune repeat happens after the first 4 runes or before the last 4 runes (plus no other repeats and 28/29 runes). The probability of that sequence occurring by random is 1 in 21 000. Certainly worth thinking about. Is that likely to be random or not?
D. I think we can add in one further “reasonable” constraint – the “WWW” is so suggestive of URLs what are the chances that we get 4 runes before or after a “WWW” and not some other three runes? (Still keeping the constraint of no other repeats and only 28 out 29 runes.)
Well, the odds of that occurring are one in a few million.
Does This Mean Anything?
Well, to be sure: the puzzle makers will have known about the low numbers of repeats and the WWW in a row. Maybe it is a hidden message - maybe the decrypted repeats will give a URL pointing to the deep web page? The probability numbers are basically reliable, but how you pick the pattern you try to produce randomly is a judgement call. If you believe it’s a genuine clue to a possible hidden message in the runes then maybe you favor the million to one shot. Even if you think it’s just randomly happened I think you must accept it’s a 500 to one shot – and how often would you bet on an event with those odds?
*Comments, questions, suggestions, omissions etc ? please try #cicadasolvers
MSGA
1. You must find the deep web page – until you do all decrypting efforts are pointless
There are projects looking for the deep web page in the onion web. So far it seems very unlikely the hash is of an onion URL. Though note, "Deep-Web" includes more than just onion pages. Given what information we have at the moment this is a game of chance, although it may produce results – someone might get lucky.
2. You have to decrypt the runes
But no-one knows how. Systematically try everything? Find some new piece of analysis that helps make progress? The runes have been remarkably robust to analysis – the only thing that seems to look like the Liber Primus is the Liber Primus itself. Decrypting also seems like a game of chance. However, that also means when anyone ever tries to decrypt there’s a chance they might succeed!
3. There is a "hidden message" that has been missed.
This option is one of the least discussed and so worth expanding on. Where might this hidden message be? Unused elements from previous puzzles? Steganography in the 58 .jpg files? My suggestion would be in the runes themselves, based on the 2016 message. Say… the first rue of every line, every word, etc. etc. etc. One possible place is in the repeated rune pairs, they have an extremely low occurrence: imgur.com/eAVCeeC (once I estimated they had a probability of 10^-69 to occur by random imgur.com/ZCytrje ).
A Hidden Message In The Repeated Runes?
There are 89 (prime) repeated pairs in the 58 pages cipher text:
{TH, X, EA, J, L, AE, S, (I)NG, G, AE, N, OE, J, F, Y, G, X, U, AE, G, IO, O, M, H, W, D, X, J, EA, AE, G, IO, O, S, N, X, U, L, S, E, L, O, E, R, C, F, EO, AE, M, TH, EO, F, N, T, D, H, R, A, TH, J, T, AE, F, X, W, I, OE, W, EA, N, OE, I, AE, OE, X, E, O, E, P, W, W, W, Y, (I)NG, G, TH, W, D, N}
The last 3 of these pairs have been decrypted to:
{N,N} = {N,N} {D,D} = {X,I}
{W,W} = {P,W}
There is no B. There are no two rune repeats, apart from the ones associated with a single 3 rune repeat “WWW” and no other repeats. “WWW” is a suggestive tri-gram of runes. With 7 runes after them giving enough characters for “HTTP://WWW” ? If we take the repeats of the remaining pages as “special” – in some sense they are special: they are in pages that have resisted all attempts at decryption - then the WWW has four runes after it, still suggestive of “HTTP WWW” ?
What are the odds these runes come from a random distribution?
This can be broken down into separate parts - with the odds decreasing as you increase the number of constraints.
A. The odds of only getting 28 out of 29 runes in 86 throws of a 29 sided coin are actually relatively high. 28/29 is the most likely result occurring about 37% of the time. The following are the probabilities of randomly getting 20 to 29 runes from 86:
20=8.10^-8 21=2.6.10^-6 22=0.00005 23=0.0006 24=0.005 25=0.031 26=0.12 27=0.28 28=0.37 29=0.2
B. The chances of getting 3 in a row, of any rune, at any point in 86 runes and no other consecutive repeats, (plus only 28/29 runes) are 0.19%, about 1 in 500.
These I think are the best odds that everyone should agree to. However, we can speculate and go further.
C. Due to the suggestive nature of "WWW" and because if it is part of URL it would makes sense to have exactly 4 runes before/after it we can add the constraint that the 3 rune repeat happens after the first 4 runes or before the last 4 runes (plus no other repeats and 28/29 runes). The probability of that sequence occurring by random is 1 in 21 000. Certainly worth thinking about. Is that likely to be random or not?
D. I think we can add in one further “reasonable” constraint – the “WWW” is so suggestive of URLs what are the chances that we get 4 runes before or after a “WWW” and not some other three runes? (Still keeping the constraint of no other repeats and only 28 out 29 runes.)
Well, the odds of that occurring are one in a few million.
Does This Mean Anything?
Well, to be sure: the puzzle makers will have known about the low numbers of repeats and the WWW in a row. Maybe it is a hidden message - maybe the decrypted repeats will give a URL pointing to the deep web page? The probability numbers are basically reliable, but how you pick the pattern you try to produce randomly is a judgement call. If you believe it’s a genuine clue to a possible hidden message in the runes then maybe you favor the million to one shot. Even if you think it’s just randomly happened I think you must accept it’s a 500 to one shot – and how often would you bet on an event with those odds?
*Comments, questions, suggestions, omissions etc ? please try #cicadasolvers
MSGA