The Hunt For Theta Seven - You Could Win 750,000,000 Cr!

Adel

A
Raziel Talner said:
I think this is key here. I think we're looking at a two key encryption. I brought this puzzle to the attention of my father (he also plays and is about to retire from being an OG red teamer in InfoSec), he thinks it's possibly a two key encryption as well. He also said it could be pki encryption, but if it's using ASCII shifting (possibly as well as keyed encryption) it's using the extended set
Possible keys include:
  • the ship logs
  • "Fragile" - from the last log at Serene Harbour, a steel box from Theta 7 with the words "Fragile" on it.
  • AFAd423b - the location of Serene Harbour minus the sector name. Condensed it's a hexadecimal number
  • XTU67065 - the ID code of the commander of Serene Harbour
  • 31073307 - the date of the encoded message (or possibly another date of relevance, like 29073307 for the bombing of the Marlinist colonies)

Numbers of note:
17423 - from the septet array. This number appears twice. Adding the numbers in each row together and then adding those numbers together get you this result. Same with the columns.
20012023 - the ship logs included one duplicate number. This could be a red herring or it could be a point of note, signifying that it is important.

Also of note, as mention previously, there is a theta function in the SHA-3 encryption standard, but there is also a "SPL-Theta/-vigenre cipher" out there but I can't read the academic paper on it. If someone in university has access to their campus library, generally your university login at the library computers will give you access to the academic journals.

I'm slowly plugging away today. I'm trying not to upset my wife by burying myself in numbers, and keep an eye on my kids.
Click to expand...
31073307 => 33070731
In english the date format is YYYYMMDD

Good luck, i'm not so smart but i hope it will help (y)
 

Razael Talner

Razael Talner
Adel said:
31073307 => 33070731
In english the date format is YYYYMMDD

Good luck, i'm not so smart but i hope it will help (y)
Click to expand...
Thanks. I knew it was in order of time, I'll include both. I just knew it wasn't the American dating system with the month and day flipped (YYYYDDMM or MMDDYYYY).
 

Jaden Capek

J
shevek said:
I don’t have a clue how to solve the cipher, but I’ve enjoyed doing a deep dive into the marlinist story line looking for clues and following them up in game.
Click to expand...
If you're interested in Marlinist storylines, I'm in a Marlinist player squadron who's recruiting.

As for the cipher, has anyone checked out Mudhrid for anything new yet?
 

bigcee75

bigcee75
Mong Morg said:
I hear Raaxla only requires brute forcing the entire galaxy, might try there ;) don't worry, I like these puzzles precisely because they make me feel like an idiot, I try to learn something
Click to expand...
Oh, is that all? I'll get right on it. I like the puzzles and codes too but don't have a hope in hell of solving it but like yourself I do try to learn from them, this one in particular has taught me so much about code breaking and algorithms etc etc.
 

Razael Talner

Razael Talner
Theta7-message-septet-overlay.JPG

So that more people can scratch their brains at it as well.
The message in septet overlaid with the ship log. Colour coded for numeric value of ship log (0,1,2,3).
It provides the following sequences:

0's:
61 76 113 96 117 103 91 117 141 134 108 90 115 102 91 104 96 79 91 150 114 83 94 81 147 162 150 98 99 74 125 123 98 91 75 95 89 97 151 105 64 89 96 116 127 103 51 47 88 61 112 147 134 114 90 111 84 151 113 73 106 97 123 104 90

1's:
126 99 74 41 103 69 98 76 92 99 78 83 115 80 105 114 93 123 108 131 108 82 111 109 129 155 98 131 152 144 128 123 90 52 124 153 121 80 113 153 84 104 129 117 105 126 118 75

2's:
67 71 81 55 104 84 90 79 95 57 83 132 106 147 163 138 128 140 129 59 55 107 124 71 135 149 152 155 81 59 94 51 98 112 111 109 87 131 131 130 123 99 83 78 49

3's:
51 114 102 115 29 112 87 89 129 144
 

Jmanis

Jmanis
bigcee75 said:
Oh, is that all? I'll get right on it. I like the puzzles and codes too but don't have a hope in hell of solving it but like yourself I do try to learn from them, this one in particular has taught me so much about code breaking and algorithms etc etc.
Click to expand...
If it's anything like FD's usual fare, it's actually not very complex.... the hard bit is just working out what the key is and, well, how to turn it.

Unfortunately, there's no right way out here for FD here. If the puzzle is too easy, FD get complained at for making it too easy and the event "being over too quickly", usually followed by levelling of "insider assistance" accusations.

As soon as it stops being too quick, it starts being "too hard", though I argue it's a false veil of complexity; on a difficulty scale of 1 to 10, as soon as the puzzle presents itself as anything beyond a difficulty of 1, people apply what I'll clumsily call "difficulty 10" techniques. These are usually inappropriate solution attempts, but they create a high level of "noise". Even posts like my own back here create inadvertent noise... it looks complex because "my god it's full of numbers", but that's just because it's wrong... I only put it there to show that .
EDIT: Dammit, so I was actually right, I just had the matrix rotation wrong :/

These puzzles are peppered through elite's history with people over-complicating the solution all over the joint. Some of these things can be helpful, but they're entirely unnecessary. Things like frequency analysis of the cipher text help learn some things about it, but are entirely unnecessary to actually solving it.

So, awesome that you're learning something, but don't lose heart that it's out of your ability!

EDIT: If you're wondering and still keen to learn, this is what I did in my post. The process is just multiplying two things together in excel; my matrix maths left me a long time ago.
 
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AlSki

AlSki
Jmanis said:
These puzzles are peppered through elite's history with people over-complicating the solution all over the joint. Some of these things can be helpful, but they're entirely unnecessary. Things like frequency analysis of the cipher text help learn some things about it, but are entirely unnecessary to actually solving it.
Click to expand...
^ This.
I have no idea what you could possibly mean about over-complicating the solution, as today I've only written a few hundred lines of code to try stuff out.
Oh. Oops.

Code: 
   var chars = input.Split("-").ToInt();
            //Maybe its UTF-7
            //var binary = chars.ToBinary().Join();
            //var result = binary.Batch(7).ToInt().Add(31);

            //Or divisible by31
            //var result = chars.ModAndCarry(31).Add(65);

            //Or an offset from31
            //.RollingOffset(7, 31);

            // What do we do with those traffic reports
            //var result = chars.Zip(trafficSwapped.KeepRepeating())
            //    //.Where(x => x.Second == 3 && x.First % x.Second != 0)
            //    .Where(x => x.Second == 3 || x.Second == 1)
            //    .Select(x => x.First);//  x.Second);

            // Is it this way round?
            //var result = chars
            //    .MakeTable(7, 4)
            //    .FromColumn(7, trafficSwapped.KeepRepeating());

            var result = chars
                .MakeTable(4, 7)
                .FromColumn(4, traffic.KeepRepeating());

            //var result = chars;

            //Highlight non-printable chars
            var analysis = new Analysis(result, new Hypothesis(ConsoleColor.Red, x => !x.Value.IsAscii()));
            //Break into blocks
            analysis.Print(8);
1636928314433.png
 

Ian Doncaster

Ian Doncaster
KnifeTail said:
Eventhough there is a duplicated ship traffic report, there are exactly 3* 7*8 numbers in the cipher text, which would correspond to 3 times the traffic reports with the duplicate
Click to expand...
Though you can also get 3*7*8 numbers without the duplicate traffic report if you also include the T-7 column.
 

Esteban

E
Jaden Capek said:
If you're interested in Marlinist storylines, I'm in a Marlinist player squadron who's recruiting.

As for the cipher, has anyone checked out Mudhrid for anything new yet?
Click to expand...
I was in the Mudhrid System approx one hour ago. I scanned all land-able bodies (DSS) and looked around the system after a FSS. I've not visited this system before so I can't tell if there's anything that wasn't there before,* but I didn't find anything notable.

I did not land on bodies to visit all the installations.

* not sure how anyone who travels around could tell unless they have an incredible memory or they make really detailed notes.
 

Victor Dangerstar

Victor Dangerstar
Raziel Talner said:
View attachment 275130
So that more people can scratch their brains at it as well.
The message in septet overlaid with the ship log. Colour coded for numeric value of ship log (0,1,2,3).
It provides the following sequences:

0's:
61 76 113 96 117 103 91 117 141 134 108 90 115 102 91 104 96 79 91 150 114 83 94 81 147 162 150 98 99 74 125 123 98 91 75 95 89 97 151 105 64 89 96 116 127 103 51 47 88 61 112 147 134 114 90 111 84 151 113 73 106 97 123 104 90

1's:
126 99 74 41 103 69 98 76 92 99 78 83 115 80 105 114 93 123 108 131 108 82 111 109 129 155 98 131 152 144 128 123 90 52 124 153 121 80 113 153 84 104 129 117 105 126 118 75

2's:
67 71 81 55 104 84 90 79 95 57 83 132 106 147 163 138 128 140 129 59 55 107 124 71 135 149 152 155 81 59 94 51 98 112 111 109 87 131 131 130 123 99 83 78 49

3's:
51 114 102 115 29 112 87 89 129 144
Click to expand...
Hey Rez try flipping the logs clockwise or counterclockwise so they're overlaid by log number instead of ship type.
 
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