The Furious Angels
FA Discussion => General => Topic started by: Anonymous on December 10, 2005, 02:12:03 pm
-
Ok Ath3na has told me she was doing the challenge, but I guess she ran into some problems here are her pms she sent me:
PM1:
Dear Tbone, Orien, and the Furious Angels,
Let me clear something up: I did not write any scripts or use any computer algorithms to solve the riddles, ie “no brute force.”
To tell you the truth, once I got up to “access denied” with my path and I heard you guys were trying to make it more challenging for new potentials, I thought your idea of thinking outside the box was the hope that a potential would be persistent enough to begin a new iteration of the path. I took it once you had solved all the possible paths, your complete set of would allow you to proceed. [Say p_1, p_2, …, p_n are type Bools with value 0 if that path is not complete, and value 1 if the path is complete. If p_1 = = p_2 = = … = = p_n = = 1, then goto next step past the inevitable access denied that end each path.]
This seemed like the path, especially after seeing a forum post that seemed to suggest that starting again and continuing on the path was the way to go.
I decided to try to contact the angel this past week, I think I made an forum account last week finally, and since and click those your hieroglyphs in the next day or so to eventually arrive at the announcement with attachment.
The next steps didn’t take too long
Icon of Angel - > ZMF login, created an account.
Used Orien for Worm right off the bat.
The positive and negative charge of their current.
Battery (tried Coppertop too I think)
HTH: Aaron Burr was a modern Caesar.
Hamilton by word association, verbal Rorschach ink blot test. Ironically, even though I knew about the famous duel, I only tried this after mis-discovering the Ceasar Cypher and that Aaron Burr was a fan and a victim (Spanish espionage) of cryptography. http://all.net/books/ip/Chap2-1.html
Coincidence? I think so.
I tend to think of SERAPH as sentient security so it wasn’t a stretch to venture from “I protect that which matters most”: “I protect those who see beyond their own choices.”
PM2:
Concerning Username/password: I quickly reasoned from a forum post about username saying “You only know a couple of FA names” that Orien was the only option.
Actually made a post about this riddle but deleted it (I think within the hour) after I scoured Hampton Green, and inevitably ran into the sign: Sentinel – watching over everyone and everything
57686974655061776e74616b6573526564517565656e2e
Split into two digit hexadecimal numbers and interpret as ASCII chars (case sensitive). The letters only appearing in the even digits gave it away.
http://www.walthowe.com/navnet/faq/ascitabl.html
There was one about tomorrow too, but google gave me the answer to this charming calendar favorite.
(same with the one about nothing I think from a different path, though)
Key to Pandora’s box: curiosity was my first guess of course, but relating it allegorically to the matrix, and thanks to ket’s hints of the blue pill reminded me of Slumberil. I knew it had something to do with returning to consciousness or waking up. I admired the Metacortex or Slumberil ARGs (although they ended before I knew they existed) and a straight forward google turned up:
http://www.matrix-explained.com/php/post-59069.html&sid=c16a2ddb3f6a416a99992850b6201361
User name: Pandora
Password: w4k3up
If I missed a riddle I’m a.) surprised I didn’t make a copy of it and it’s answer b.) probably didn’t dwell on that riddle for more than a couple minutes.
When I reached the dead end (access denied), I tried two approaches and posted them bluepill forums for luck and reassurance. When it was clear these two paths weren’t the answer I sat on my hands and got banned later that night.
Well thats it I have no clue what happened lol.
-
hmm i dont understand what is going on but i did come up with the slumberil question at least the one about what the pass was :)
-
Something she did set off our security. I received an email with a possible security breach with her IP address all over it. The assumption I went to is that she was trying more aggressive means at getting the answers to the challenge, so I banned her three challenge accounts and put her IP on the deny list. Hmmm...
-
Ahhhhh ok well just thought Id bring it to your attention.
-
hax
-
So is she banned from the challenge now? because she is too good at getting through our page challenge code? or did I miss something?
-
She sent me a tell ingame that she would never use any programs to get through our challenge. I cant vouche for her because I have barely talked to her. Does anyone here know her well enough to be ok?
-
So is she banned from the challenge now? because she is too good at getting through our page challenge code? or did I miss something?
No, she got banned because she was hacking the system.
What I don't understand is how she knew we thought she used, "any scripts or use any computer algorithms to solve the riddles." lol ... Ummmm yeah no one said anything like that to her ... *cough*haxor*cough*
Even if we believed her, she isn't suppose to have more than one account on the challenge at a time anyway. So that right there is good enough reason to ban her.
Wait a second ............ did you say she's female? Give her an interview!!!!!!! :p
-
So, according to her PM to Orien, she thought the complexity of the path was to create multiple accounts and complete the riddles in all of them?
Doesn't sound like an entirely crazy theory, but at the same time it doesn't seem entirely reasonable, either.
-
regardless... manic's sig pwns...
-
If this were any other game, I'd say that hacking the challenge is categorically wrong. But this is the Matrix we're talking about, so I can understand where the distinction between the simulated hacking of our challenge and real-world hacking can be blurred.
Do I think it was wrong to ban her from the challenge? No. Play by our rules or don't play. But I understand her angle.
-
regardless... manic's sig pwns...
I disagree. Sephiroth pwns much harder. :)
-
I agree its wierd that she knew T thought she was trying to hack the system, though does the ban message say something along the lines of using an external program to find the answers or anything like that? Sounds to me like she's explaining why she shouldnt be banned, she said she wasn't hacking and she only made multiple accounts because thats what she thought she was supposed to do. So it sounds like the ban message says you have been banned, you were either hacking or you made multiple accounts or something like that and she explained herself in hopes of becomming unbanned by proving her innocence in both areas..........
I hope that extremely long run-on is understandable.
Its not every day T gets an email saying there is a breach of security by a potential, so if whatever she was doing raised concern, I think you should ban her other accounts (in case she did hack to get that far) tell her to make a new one and notify you with the name of it, and just moniter that account for anything out of the ordinary- such as getting to the access denied in a day :p.
My understanding of this sort of thing is limited though so im probably just being a newb and posting about something completely different xD
(forgive the typos, too lazy to re-read)
-
I agree with WM... we should ban her other accounts and tell her to start anew... apparently she is thinking way tooo much... for the challenge... normally not a problem... odd... but...
-
I also agree with WM.
-
apparently she is thinking way tooo much... for the challenge...
Didn't ever think it was possible. :)
-
That's usually the problem, at least with the ones who really want to make it through the challenge, is that they start overthinking, especially in the later challenges.
-
Indeed I was banned from the challenge after forgetting my password (deleted the auto email from FA) and starting a new account. Luckily ket fixed things and here I am today. I am curious if Tbone got a security warning for me when I did this.