[PUZZLE] 11-5-06 "Tip of the Iceburg"

[covedweller]

so wait. who is "he?" I thought the brother was only supposed to pass the message to its intended recipient?

[gtrichar]

Before, I was thinking that OpAphid wasn't really very connected to Bree/Daniel, but the video on the SD card was Daniel's, and he was being tracked by the Order, so maybe this "he" refers to Daniel.

In the video, near the end, it shows a security camera that probably got a good look at Daniel tresspassing. That could be when they started tracking him.

[rachelalexis]

so wait. who is "he?" I thought the brother was only supposed to pass the message to its intended recipient?

What was the video found with the drop? Didn't it have to do with Daniel being followed? That could be a part of it. Sorry if I'm way off, 3:30 is not a time to do serious logical thinking.

[covedweller]

I wasn't expecting that. cool! that makes sense actually.

wasn't Tachyon's first Craigslist post tonight about her notes? I'm assuming about the Book of Law/Thelema.

the second Tachyon Craigslist post tonight was about the message she needed passed along. so it's the video and the card.

what was the key to decoding the message?

[gtrichar]

What was the video found with the drop?

It was a copy of Daniel's "Where are they going?" video. Bree responded with "Daniel Crossed the Line", and OpAphid responded with "They Attack Cassie! Is Daniel next? He crossed the line."

...which sounds like a threat.

[covedweller]

well. i mean, he DID cross the line.

sounds like we need the lyric squad and bible squad on the rest of this though. lots of new Tachyon insight. what were the two redirect names? the 13-27 and canaan?

[rachelalexis]

What was the video found with the drop?

It was a copy of Daniel's "Where are they going?" video. Bree responded with "Daniel Crossed the Line", and OpAphid responded with "They Attack Cassie! Is Daniel next? He crossed the line."

...which sounds like a threat.

Thanks for linking it back around to Op. I probably wouldn't have made that connection! Too much going on, it's the whole forest for the trees thing.

[covedweller]

I know what you mean. my personal light bulb moment came with an audible "DUH!" as I remembered what site and forum I was on in the first place!

all this Tachyon madness had distracted me from the overlap aspect!

[deagol]

So after a few hours of sleep I thought I'd put all my thoughts together.

First of all, good job everyone, I only did the easy part. And no matter how much she complains, it's obvious Op was begging us to finish this right away. She even helped there at the end, I mean she practically spelled it out. She called attention to the GPS thing yesterday, and today pulled the 3 letter key completely out of the blue (all we knew was KEYIS3)

A recap (for Amanita hehe):

Tachyon updates her profile: cmFzaGktMTMtMjcucmVkaXJlY3RtZS 5uZXQ=
which decodes base64 --> ascii: rashi-13-27.redirectme.net
which redirects to: http://merced.craigslist.org/x/mis/230355115.html

A few decoding hints in this page:
- Image description (when you roll over it): LOCKLOOSER=LOOK CLOSER. img src=84656772897978 (dec --> ascii) is TACHYON, same as before

- DEGGAB/ELBUOD reversed is DOUBLE BAGGED a hint that there's double encoding. This will be evident in a bit. Font colors on DEGGAB/ELBUOD is 4c5543 4b5923 (hex --> ascii) = LUCKY#

The rest of the html source code includes a lot of unused font color tags. Cleaning it up:

562050 424859 514127 47204a 4e5647 205342 45204c 42482e 205542 435220
4c4248 205442 472047 555220 434e50 584e54 522e0d 0a0d0a 514220 5a4c20
414247 524620 5a4e58 522046 524146 523f20 475542 465220 504241 415250
475642 414620 4e4552 204755 522047 564320 425320 475552 205650 524f52
45542e 204755 525952 5a4e20 564620 312042 53203f 0d0a0d 0a4552 3a205a
524646 4e5452 203220 434e46 46204e 594241 542e20 455251 564552 504720 504e41 4e4e41

hex --> ascii reveals:
V PBHYQA'G JNVG SBE LBH. UBCR LBH TBG GUR CNPXNTR. QB ZL ABGRF ZNXR FRAFR? GUBFR PBAARPGVBAF NER GUR GVC BS GUR VPRORET. GURYRZN VF 1 BS ? ER: ZRFFNTR 2 CNFF NYBAT. ERQVERPG PNANNA

This is good! It confirms we are in the right path because it's not random, they're all capital letters. (If you take random hex numbers and try hex --> ascii it would be stuff like Sftt¼hÜöÕÛ¦uåóÝ)

So this is clearly a cipher (you know, like in the newspaper puzzles where each letter represents a different letter from the alphabet).

A well known and easy cipher is to swap the first half of the alphabet with the second half, like this:

ABCDEFGHIJKLM
NOPQRSTUVWXYZ

so A=N, B=O, C=P, etc.

This is known as ROT13 because it's equivalent to shifting each letter 13 places (remember LUCKY#).

Apply this to the message and you get:
I COULDN'T WAIT FOR YOU. HOPE YOU GOT THE PACKAGE. DO MY NOTES MAKE SENSE? THOSE CONNECTIONS ARE THE TIP OF THE ICEBERG. THELEMA IS 1 OF ? RE: MESSAGE 2 PASS ALONG. REDIRECT CANAAN

There's some obscure clues about her notes and Thelema, but the last part is clear. You know the drill:

canaan.redirectme.net --> http://modesto.craigslist.org/x/mis/230363173.html

html source reveals:
img src="MESSAGE" alt="NTFKTVYIGQCGCWGC AGTVLNTQNPNKQWK CGTIGNXEOIAYCGZ AAQTLNTQPJKZHLUEL XPUQXFMHGSTGTT"

(I've added spaces to help with readability and navigation)

Below that is A/O, with color tags 4b4559 495333 (hex --> ascii) =KEYIS3

Here's where we got stuck for a couple of hours, but Op came to the rescue with her histrionics "I don't want anyone figuring out the 3 letter key!" (Thanks Ap!!)

And what was the other small thing that made her go all silly like that? The video filename from the drop GoodPurityStatus. Put both together and you have the key: GPS. (Edit: Thanks Minty, ladron121, and/or horcruxes!)

Now we just needed to decide on which cipher applied. Well, it turned out to be one called Vigenere that shifts each letter of the message a variable number based on the key. So, if the key is GPS,
G means shift the 1st letter of the message 6 places (A to G shift is 6)
P means shift the 2nd letter of the message by 15 (A to P shift is 15)
S means shift the 2nd letter of the message by 18 (A to S shift is 18)
and start again with G for the 4th letter, P for the 5th, etc.

In short, with a GPS key we would shift by 6, 15, 18, 6, 15, 18, 6, 15, and so on for each letter of our message. This results in:

HE NEEDS TO KNOW HOW LONG THEY HAVE BEEN ON TO HIM IT IS NOT LIKE THEY JUST STOP TRACKING SOMEONE

(I've places the spaces in the right places)

And there you have it! (Thanks prep him!)

Putting it all together:

I COULDN'T WAIT FOR YOU. HOPE YOU GOT THE PACKAGE. DO MY NOTES MAKE SENSE? THOSE CONNECTIONS ARE THE TIP OF THE ICEBERG. THELEMA IS 1 OF ? RE: MESSAGE 2 PASS ALONG. HE NEEDS TO KNOW HOW LONG THEY HAVE BEEN ON TO HIM IT IS NOT LIKE THEY JUST STOP TRACKING SOMEONE

It's almost too obvious that HE is Daniel, shown in the video with the file name GoodPurityStatus=GPS so that's how they're tracking him. But how, really? Did they plant a GPS device in him somehow? Maybe his cell phone? I don't know.

But the message to pass along is the Book of Law with those page references. Notice how here she says "RE: MESSAGE 2(TO) PASS ALONG" meaning "regarding THAT message, here's why I think it's important." It's clearly a warning for him to try to prevent Bree from doing the ceremony.

A few more details:

Tachyon's trip: LA (1st drop), Bakersfield (craiglist), Santa Nella (2nd drop), Merced (craiglist), Sonoma (craiglist). Clearly going north, or is she? I guess she could be posting in those craiglists from anywhere. But the 2 drops do point north.

Is she Jewish? rachav (rahab), rashi, canaan

Could she be a Mossad operative?


GOOD PURITY STATUS anagrams to OP TRUSTS YOU ID TAG

Remember the 1st drop video filename 544147.avi (hexto ascii) was TAG. In the original YT post of that video there was the odd tag Tachyon, and that's how we were supposed to find her (although someone found her much earlier). So now, this anagram suggests we identify a tag in Danielbeast's video "Where Are They Going?".

The tags are LG15 lonelygirl15 daniel danielbeast helper doctor bree. The one that stands out is 'doctor'. What could this mean? Daniel thought Bree had a doctor appointment. We also learned from her "How My Parents Met" video: "When my dad was 23 he got a fellowship to study medicine at the University of Oxford."

Ok that's all I got for now. Sorry for the long post and the bit of speculation at the end.

Good job everyone, and thanks again Op!

DEAGOL THE STOOR

[surrealisticpill]

awesome recap, deagol. thanks! now i know everything i missed last night.

[covedweller]

All cell phones sold from about 3 years ago onward have GPS built-in.

If OpAphid is connected, they could pull these records easily.

Was the message to pass along the first or second post? I was under the impression it was the second. But I think all of it could tie in.

Crazy.

[deagol]

Was the message to pass along the first or second post? I was under the impression it was the second. But I think all of it could tie in.

The way I see it is that the second craiglist post is a comment from Tachyon about the "message" she wants to pass along, which she left in the form of her notes about the Book of Law. In a way you could say the message is the whole enchilada: book, bookmark, video, her comments on this, the GPS reference, all of it makes a solid point about the importance of passing it along to the interested parties.

[covedweller]

but what about the Thelema is only 1 of ? part of it?

I don't think it would be an incomplete message she would want passed along. But a lot of that stuff ties in, for sure.

Maybe she just wanted Daniel to know they were still tracking him, especially now that Bree is with him. Like a "don't trust the phone" message.

When OpAphid is involved, no one can trust the phone!

Or maybe they just stuck something on his car?

[taiya]

Have we figured out what the book of law message is yet?

[Emmera]

You guys completely rock. This is so far over my head that I can't even smile and nod and pretend to know what's going on anymore.