2014/11/13 1 the Muskoka Chair
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2014/11/13 PUZZLE CACHES THE MUSKOKA CHAIR We want to find out: What are the final coordinates? They could be hidden in MANY ways: Ciphers and codes Hidden within images (steganography) Math, science, or logic puzzles Hidden text or HTML tags on the cache page The list goes on! Coordinates could be in number or text form So what should you look for? PUZZLE SOLVING WORKSHOP We’ll give you some general puzzle solving tips. by andreanel & koroleva GENERAL PUZZLE TIPS GENERAL PUZZLE TIPS You could be required to solve only some or all of the final coordinates: Hints may be hidden in the title, in images on the N AB CD.EFG W HI JK.LMO (14 or sometimes 15 digits) cache page, or in the text description. N 44 CD.EFG W 79 JK.LMO (10 digits) N 44 55.EFG W 79 22.LMO (6 digits) e.g. http://coord.info/GC2RMF0 - “The Acidity of Iodine” Acidity = pH scale, symbol for iodine = I; = “PHI” Check to see if the number of puzzle “unknowns” (images, lines, words, etc.) matches one of the above patterns. Chances Solving the puzzle involves finding certain digits of phi are, each unknown represents a digit in the coordinates. e.g.: Don’t hesitate to GOOGLE the title, hints, or even parts of the puzzle! Check if the CO has added a “Related Web Page” Watch for repetition! In this type of puzzle you can deduce Don’t forget the possibility of other coordinate what most of the numbers are, knowing N 44 and W 79. systems such as decimal degrees, D/M/S and UTM GENERAL PUZZLE TIPS HTML SOURCE CODE It doesn’t hurt to check out these few things to start: Right-click the cache page and choose “View Source” to see the HTML code of the page HTML source code of the cache page In certain browsers such as Firefox and Opera, you Ctrl+A to find hidden text (also visible in the source code) can right-click an item and choose “Inspect Element” EXIF data of images in the background and description Image file format and where the file is hosted Use Ctrl+F to find “UserSuppliedContent” to skip Run any cipher text through a cryptogram solver right to the cache description Check for a “Field Puzzle” attribute “<!--” indicates a hidden tag – this info is not seen Check the CO’s name under ‘a cache by…’ – it can be modified anywhere but in the source code Even try the posted coordinates in the geochecker White text, “alt” text, colour hex codes, etc. can all be viewed in the HTML source code, so checking it can There are also LOTS of online puzzle solving tools out there! We will share these with you as we go. give you a wealth of info. 1 2014/11/13 CIPHERS AND CODES SUBSTITUTION CIPHERS Ciphers and codes usually encode text information. In a monoalphabetic substitution, one letter or symbol stands for another letter, and only that letter. There are two main types of ciphers Substitution ciphers – where one letter replaces another Examples: Transposition ciphers – letters of the message are rearranged ROT-13 and other Caesar ciphers ROT-47 – like ROT-13 but includes all the ASCII symbols There are also ciphers Braille that hide information Morse Code in seemingly normal Pigpen text (for example, the Symbol fonts (e.g. Wingdings) first letter of each word Bifid (uses a 5x5 Polybius square and numbers) spells out a message); Baconian cipher These ciphers are the easiest to crack. SUBSTITUTION CIPHERS SUBSTITUTION CIPHERS Look for word patterns: Google search “flower font” and you may find it “THREE” has two “E”s at the end. The word “FTDQQ” could If you can’t find the font, substitute each unique represent “THREE”. symbol with any letter to get a text cryptogram: “COORDINATES” and “DEGREES” are other word patterns that are easyyp to pick out. Example: = COORDINATES BDC IQQWHEPFBCA FWC PQWBD ZQWBV ZQXW HCSWCCA ZEZBV ZETC HQB QPC BKQ BDWCC How would you solve this? GEPXBCA KCAB ACTCPBV PEPC HCSWCCA BKCPBV BKQ HQB PEPC CESDB ACTCP GEPXBCA Then use a cryptogram solver: http://quipqiup.com/ SUBSTITUTION CIPHERS TRANSPOSITION CIPHERS In a polyalphabetic substitution, a letter can encode or be You can usually recognize a transposition cipher due to the encoded by multiple other letters. letter frequency being the same as in normal text. The most common example is the Vigenere cipher In other words, you will see lots of E’s, T’s and vowels in the You cannot rely on word patterns for these ciphers. encoded text – since it is just “scrambled” text. Examples: Rail fence cipher Columnar transposition cipher Anagrams Some ciphers, including most Vigeneres, need a key word or phrase to decode the message Grille ciphers A one-time pad uses a block of text as the key The title, hints, description, or images may give you clues to the key word(s) 2 2014/11/13 CODES AND CIPHERS - TOOLS BASE CONVERSIONS & ENCODING http://rumkin.com/tools/cipher/ -great, Both text and numbers can be encoded in different comprehensive website that lets you encode and base systems (counting systems) decode messages Commonly used bases: “Geocaching Code Book” - PDF file compiling many Base-2 (Binary) – 0,1 Base-10 (Decimal) – 0-9 common andld less common co des an d c ip hers Base-16 (Hexadecimal) – 0-9, A-F Cryptogram solver – http://www.quipqiup.com Base-20 is used by the Mayan number system Anagram solver - http://wordsmith.org/anagram/ Base-32 – A-Z, 2-7 Base-64 – A-Z, a-z, 0-9, + 2 other symbols Geocaching Toolbox - Check if the symbols you are looking at match one of http://www.geocachingtoolbox.com/ these bases If there is “=” at the end - usually base-64 BASE CONVERSIONS & ENCODING BASE CONVERSIONS & ENCODING Sometimes the 0’s and 1’s of binary may actually One of our go-to sites: represent something else. For example: https://paulschou.com/tools/xlate/ Converts to/from text, binary, octal, decimal, 0 could be dot and 1 could be dash – giving you Morse code hexadecimal, base-32, base-64 and ASCII-85 0 could be black and 1 could be white – creating an image of You view the source code of a cache page and see coordinates or a barcode like a QR code this: 0 could be A and 1 could be B – giving you a Bacon cipher <font color=“#48454c,#4c4f20,#46454c,#4c4f57”> <font color=“#204745,#4f4341,#434845,#525321”> What do you do? BASE CONVERSIONS - TOOLS IMAGES Binary (& common bases) Translator - An image can be used to https://paulschou.com/tools/xlate/ hide another image, text, or Does not convert binary to text if there are special symbols other useful information Try another translator if nothing is coming up This is often referred to as Base CtfB2tB36Converter from Base 2 to Base 36 - sthteganography http://www.unitconversion.org/unit_converter/nu 2 clues that tell you the mbers.html image may hold some Google “Hex to Text”, “Binary to Text” for specific important information: applications Image is hosted on the cache owner’s personal site Image is in PNG format 3 2014/11/13 IMAGES IMAGES When you upload a picture to the geocaching.com server, Therefore, if the image is a PNG file, chances are the server compresses the file. This could result in a loss something important is hidden inside it. of information, slight changes in colour or a reduction in However, you can still hide information within JPG image quality. Not good news for a puzzle hider! files or images stored on the geocaching.com server: PNG files do not lose quality, unlike JPG files. This Within the image’s EXIF data makes them perfect for the following situations: By opening the image in Hiding another image or text within them using steganography Notepad and adding text When it is important to keep the exact colours, such as when the coordinates are hidden within colours in the picture Images that require manipulation in a photo PNG files support transparent backgrounds – they can be used to hide a white image on a white background for example editor program They can be changed to ZIP archive files with other files within them Others? IMAGES – EXIF DATA IMAGES - STEGANOGRAPHY This is data embedded in image files such as date Steganography – a general term meaning “hiding taken, camera model, shutter speed, thumbnail, etc. something within something else” “Comments” field may contain hints or even the solution Programs can be used to hide an image, text, or even a “GPS Coordinates” field – if the photo was taken at the cache site with the camera’sGPSon s GPS on file within another image. Thumbnail image is usually a small version of the original Use online decoders to solve these - You may have to use image, however, this can be modified the same decoder that the hider used to create the image. Save the image, right-click, view “Properties” – or use our preferred method & run it through this site: Stereograms (“Magic Eye” puzzles) – use online solver http://regex.info/exif.cgi - Jeffrey’s Exif Viewer Try opening the image with Notepad and scroll to the end Try opening the image with WinZIP or WinRAR IMAGES - COLOURS IMAGES - COLOURS Computers see colours as a mixture of Red, Green, Since hexadecimal can be used to encode text and and Blue. A colour is defined by the amount of each numerical information, we know we can hide the that it has, on a decimal scale of 0 to 255.