Thargoid message?

[Feros-da-Grundig]

I thought so too, but then I found this:
https://manual.audacityteam.org/man/spectrogram_view.html

On topic:
My money us on Shinrarta Dezhra, fits perfectly to the image. Then again, there must be countless number of fitting systems by only comparing these few parameters.

Shinrarta has more than one star though (I also ran various forms of "shinrarta dezhra" through cipher just in case, no dice on any i tried).

But thanks for the tip on audacity, once I looked it was so obvious, just choose logarithmic from the drop down box. And I've been using it for years, derp! :thumbsup:

 

[Feros-da-Grundig]

Then again, there must be countless number of fitting systems by only comparing these few parameters.

Not really, there are ~23 million systems in the eddb list (sadly they removed the info to narrow down by # bodies in system, but 23 million is not that large for this task)

brute forcing this (assuming my shift/vigenere guess is correct) is quite do-able for someone with enough interest and knowledge of algorithms, all steps would run in linear or sub linear time and only notable memory requirement would be keeping a hashtable of all english words in memory

just seems like a dumb solution, probably not what OP was going for. some rando nerd with negligible lore knowledge just makes an ugly brute force computational solution that may or may not work based on a math guess

i bit the bullet and listened to the podcast. only "clues" were this "broadcast" came from permit locked system HIP 22460, and someone around 5:16 mentioned a system by name I had trouble understanding ("Dubbuennel" maybe?). mostly was yamiks making jokes and stuff

would be nice if someone with lore knowledge happened to think of a notable 7 body system. this will nag at me until solved, even though it's not really game related

 

[Assimilator1]

I've just listened to it too, the system(?) is mentioned at 5:20, he says "it's a long way from Dub you know, he could have wrecked his ship in all sorts of ways....."(etc).
At least it sounds like 'Dub you know', he's got a bit of accent , & one which I can't remember what part of 'up north' he'd be from .

Scratch that! I think you've got it spot on after all! Dubbuennel has 7 planets & one is named Garibaldi which is also a biscuit! See EDSM
And that planet is a GG with ammonia based life which the Thargoids like.
Also the name of the only port there is Dunker's Rest lol, and a faction there is called Ed's 38.

So now we have the system name, what next? (I tried to read about Vigenère ciphers but it didn't make sense! ).

 

[Leadfoot]

Here is the spectrogram image I came up with.

Looks like they're a poor shot - just plain can't hit the bulls-eye.

 

[ethzero]

I posted this spreadsheet on the Cannon Research Group the other day to help decode and translate the Ternary message:

https://www.facebook.com/CanonnResearch/photos/a.1912033232458747/2203084680020266/

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...2TYTN9x-mparcX8sqd5P28we2BvQ8r9brgR0uYMEi4G7Q

My decoding yields a different Raw Message because a 3-trit ternary number can only express numbers in the range of: 0-25
In order to map to an alphabet you'd need to map A=0... Z=25.

By my reckoning that gives this string:
VIMPHKRQEYGNIBHOFSSCDFMUBIOVWNXCUT

Back to the apparent System Star map at the beginning of the message, I believe this is the Dubbuennel system where Ed's 38s resides (matched by ring count). In this system in a uniquely named planet, Garibaldi which is also a "Gas giant with ammonia-based life" - the same type of planet that the Thargoids have an affinity with.

I thought this might mean that using an Keyed Caesar cipher (one cipher favoured in the past) with the keyword 'Garibaldi' (translated to an keyed alphabet of 'GARIBLDCEFHJKMNOPQSTUVWXYZ') that might give us an answer, sadly not.

http://rumkin.com/tools/cipher/caesar-keyed.php

 

[Prince Tharik Otoli]

I posted this spreadsheet on the Cannon Research Group the other day to help decode and translate the Ternary message:

https://www.facebook.com/CanonnResearch/photos/a.1912033232458747/2203084680020266/

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...2TYTN9x-mparcX8sqd5P28we2BvQ8r9brgR0uYMEi4G7Q

My decoding yields a different Raw Message because a 3-trit ternary number can only express numbers in the range of: 0-25
In order to map to an alphabet you'd need to map A=0... Z=25.

I don’t think this is right.

000 = 0

222 = 2*9 + 2*3 + 2 = 26

0-26

 

[Eckee]

-deleted-

 

[Prince Tharik Otoli]

You guys are aware of this is fan fiction, aren't you? Looks like we can't even trust Canonn

Yes. This has been covered. Apologies were made at least to my satisfaction. Now I just want the solution. It’s bugging me.

 

[Prince Tharik Otoli]

It was mentioned earlier but I didn't post the resulting cypher. If we go with "top down" as opposed to "bottom up" for the trits we get:

ERNKSPIJVBTMRYSLUHHXWUNFYRLEDMCXFG

So we might consider trying that out with any key in addition to the "bottom up":

UHLOGJQPDXFMHAGNERRBCELTAHNUVMWBTS

 

[Prince Tharik Otoli]

I posted this spreadsheet on the Cannon Research Group the other day to help decode and translate the Ternary message:

https://www.facebook.com/CanonnResearch/photos/a.1912033232458747/2203084680020266/

Do you mind directing the FB folks here? Or post the gist of our efforts there?

 

[ethzero]

Yeap. Just come back here to post that I'd -up
Three-trits of course can accommodate 0-26, so A=1 is most probable.

I've updated my Google Sheet accordingly.

 

[ethzero]

Interestingly I'd just done a similar thing reversing the trits (so instead of ^9,^3,^1 I'm using ^1,^3,^9) and got:

KXJSUDYVLTRMXCUPOBBFIOJHCXPKNMQFHE

 

[Shobah]

Spotted in the original Hutton Orbital transmission: "We've received this message through the Eagle Eye Network... from Thargoids. The signal was discovered in HIP 22460... which is currently permit-locked" - bottom of the page audio https://canonn.science/news/thargoid-message/

7 planet system near there?

 

[Prince Tharik Otoli]

Interestingly I'd just done a similar thing reversing the trits (so instead of ^9,^3,^1 I'm using ^1,^3,^9) and got:

KXJSUDYVLTRMXCUPOBBFIOJHCXPKNMQFHE

Check your work please. I got:

EXDGOJYPLHFMXIOVUBBRCUDTIXVENMWRTK

when reversing.
I used a python script not an excel table for all my work.

Reversing (using 1^3^9^ AND using top-down) yields:

UBVSKPAJNRTMBQKDEXXHWEVFQBDULMCHFO

But honestly I think we are over thinking.

I'd just exhaust every key anyone can think of for:

UHLOGJQPDXFMHAGNERRBCELTAHNUVMWBTS

No one knows of any other famous 7 body unary systems?

 

[Feros-da-Grundig]

My decoding yields a different Raw Message because a 3-trit ternary number can only express numbers in the range of: 0-25

I don’t think this is right.

It's definitely not right, 3^3 = 27, meaning there are 27 possible symbols, labeled as 0-26. Just like a triad of base 10, 10^3 = 1000, so can hold 1000 symbols commonly labeled as 0-999. My expectation is the extra symbol is probably just unused since "222" didn't appear. It could alternately be a space or a dash, but that would make the solving part more annoying and I don't think that's what OP was going for.

EDIT - disregard the previous, now removed ramblings, I need more coffee as always.

 

[ethzero]

I'm trying various cracking methods now (yeah, boo me ).

My favourite so far is using Vigenere with the key "CTAATDMDVU" to get:

SO LONG EMIDD THANKS OWH ALL THE BRA SUITS

Which is also close to what I want it to be:

"So long and thanks for all the biscuits"


http://rumkin.com/tools/cipher/vigenere.php

UPDATE:
Just spotted that the following guess is 34 characters long:
"solongedandthanksforallthebiscuits"

So long Ed and thanks for all the biscuits


UPDATE 2:
CRACKED IT!

I manually tweaked the key until it generated the message; a key of "CTAATDMmdK" does indeed yield:
So long Ed and thanks for all the biscuits

UPDATE 3:
My post on the Canonn Research Group Facebook group:
https://www.facebook.com/CanonnResearch/posts/2203084776686923

UPDATE 4:
Also let the good people at Hutton Orbital Radio Truckers know:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/HuttonOrbital/permalink/1997951560241049/

 

[Prince Tharik Otoli]

Good work! But what the heck does a 7-planet system have to do with "CTAATDMmdK" ?

 

[ethzero]

Cheers! But I have *no* idea!

I feel that despite a few inspired insights like "Oh look, the last few characters 'BTS' of the encrypted message look like BISCUITS", then wondering if the entire phrase was the Douglas Adams'est "So long and thanks for all the biscuits", then realising it was two characters too short but then "Oh, yeah - just add 'Ed' "... I wholehearted agree - we do still need to know what the 7-planet association is.

I know absolutely sod all about this Vigenère cipher and it's could be possible that "CTAATDMmdK" is not some unique keyphrase that's needed and some other keyphrase value is cryptographically equivalent?

Love to hear what it is!

 

[Feros-da-Grundig]

Good work! But what the heck does a 7-planet system have to do with "CTAATDMmdK" ?

Eh maybe something like, had we figured out the system, C would be C type star, name of first planet begins with T, etc. Maybe the Canonn guy will let us know.

So the puzzle turned out not figuring out the message, but knowing the message and figuring out the key, bypassing the system map part entirely. :shrug:

Along with not knowing who Ed was until this thread, I also don't know what the biscuits thing is. Definitely an in-crowd event that just kind of leaves us randos who stumbled on that page due to thargoid interest wondering, "huh?"

 

[Prince Tharik Otoli]

Eh maybe something like, had we figured out the system, C would be C type star, name of first planet begins with T, etc. Maybe the Canonn guy will let us know.

So the puzzle turned out not figuring out the message, but knowing the message and figuring out the key, bypassing the system map part entirely. :shrug:

Along with not knowing who Ed was until this thread, I also don't know what the biscuits thing is. Definitely an in-crowd event that just kind of leaves us randos who stumbled on that page due to thargoid interest wondering, "huh?"

Well the biscuit thing is from another in-crowd thing entirely, Douglas Adams series of "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy." Brilliant and great fun, I recommend it.

ethzero:
Wasn't it "So Long and Thanks for all the Fish?" or was the biscuit thing from one of the follow-on books?