10,000 Ada Treasure Hunt started with Episode 39, sponsored by TCE

Does anyone have the link for the Bip list (makes up 12 words) for Daedalus?

Here you are:

1 Like

Man, I don’t think I am going to crack this. I got polybius charts all over the place, nothing is lining up. I am having nightmares of the numbers 25 and 26 fighting over yours truly.

4 Likes

Ok so the 10,001 Coins are sitting there just mocking me. I have a limited amount of time to work on this so here go a couple hints for you guys.; and if I help you solve it maybe you can throw me a few coins.
#1 the big word is steganography. The art of hiding a secret file in video, sound or pics, etc.sometimes the files are encrypted so you need a password…
#2 slowed down the video to play at 1/4 speed got the wallet address put it in Seiza or cardanoexplorer to see them.
#3 This is the 1rst steganography I found. its in the audio file 1rst 12 seconds of video 39.
I downloaded audacity recorded the audio as it live streamed. Then selected to view the audio under Spectrum. It revealed the pic I posted before, did not find anything else in the audio for video 39.
I have tried a few other things to check for, and have a few ideas, but limited on time.
Anyone else want to share??

2 Likes

I can tell you guys right now that unless we join as a group no single person is going to solve this without putting in a LOT of time. I am on what I would call step 5 or 6 and I am hitting a brick wall. I don’t want to just throw everything out there (I probably will at some point if I can’t get passed this barrier I am at right now), but I will tell you guys that the information needed to get to the next step is found in the image posted above. That’s all that is needed. Just stare at the image until it makes sense.

2 Likes

I am going to say something else. At some point in the puzzle you will gain access to a zip file. This zip file is password protected. Using an invalid password will not unlock the file, but when you enter what I believe LovingCardano and myself identified as the correct password it will attempt to decompress and throw an error saying that the image in the zip file has bad data. I believe the zip file is not what it appears to be at this point or was zipped in a way that is uncommon. If anyone has experience dealing with files like this, I’d love to talk! :slight_smile:

BadData

2 Likes

Gain access to a zip file? I didn’t stand a chance winning this competition then. I have watched episode 39 so many times now.

Looks like I am on the complete wrong tracks. Especially watching it on my mobile

1 Like

We all suffer from the same problem. I’m not gonna lie, after I pulled out the image from the audio I didn’t know what it was either. I was staring at the image and my daughter walked up behind me and said “that’s instagram”. I obviously wasn’t hip enough to catch the hint.

The second step of the puzzle starts here: instagram.com/keypuzzle/

As Wayne said above, you were not going to find the image that pointed to instagram account without running the strange audio in the beginning of the YouTube video through a spectrum analyzer.

3 Likes

I am leading, but the hash gets complicated

1 Like

Man complicated seems relative to me :). I got the zip file open in a hex editor with the pkzip2 design specification up on another monitor. I’ve learned more about zip files in the last 24 hours than I have my entire life. The things I have tried throughout this puzzle are too embarrassing to even publicly share.

1 Like

Joel hey I saw your message. I definitely like to chat with you about this puzzle ?? I new and learning and can and will help anyway I can?? Let me know sir? Also what is your discord Chanel? Thanks

1 Like

Locking up channel for now.

2 Likes

One day in the future I hope you start a company and the backstory begins…“He solved a puzzle on a forum and used the $2.4M from his 10,000 :ada: to launch his most ambitious project ever.”

1 Like

I’ve been stuck for a few days so I’ll dump what I have so far.

After going to the ‘key puzzle’ instagram page:

Part 1:

Import GPG key 0BCD7834 from the bio
Note email address 000.yours.truly@gmail.com associated with key
Numbers in instagram posts are A1Z26 cipher

0 0 0 11 18 12 18 10 16 20 8 4 24 5 23 13 8 20 11 18 3 22 17 19 18 8 1 5 4 5 19 14 13 16 21 26
decodes to krlrjpthdxewmhtkrcvqsrhaedesnmpuz

email 000.yours.truly@gmail.com with krlrjpthdxewmhtkrcvqsrhaedesnmpuz as the subject

Receive automated reply:

[[‘A’,‘B’,‘C’,‘D’,‘E’],[‘F’,‘G’,‘H’,‘I’,‘K’],[‘L’,‘M’,‘N’,‘O’,‘P’],[‘Q’,‘R’,‘S’,‘T’,‘U’],[‘V’,‘W’,‘X’,‘Y’,‘Z’]]

GKSTU TMPSY - https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WIzgBf6Gn1UBDt-VaqfACGCipXNzyn1C/view?usp=sharing

Part 2:

The array is a playfair cipher
GKSTU TMPSY decodes to FIRSTSLOTX

Download file.zip from the link
Use block ID from first block as password to unlock the zip file
f0f7892b5c333cffc4b3c4344de48af4cc63f55e44936196f365a9ef2244134f

Part 3:

Waste an hour or so looking at the image for any sort of steganographic secrets

Open the image in a hex editor and find at the end:

secret code warfare…I, II, III.H, I, R, O.3, 5, 6, 9.hugub dkjdy opdyz syulf w

I was thinking “hugub dkjdy opdyz syulf w” is the cipher text, and the rest is hints for decoding it.
3, 5, 6, 9 could be the key matrix to a hill cipher, I II III maybe represents a caesar cipher?
My guess is it’s been encoded with a few different ciphers and needs to be decoded in the right order.
I’ve tried a few things but haven’t been able to figure this out yet.

2 Likes

I was using the First Slot Id of the 10th Epoch. I realized X may or may not have been part of the puzzle because of the cipher being used, but the fact that the Id I was using was accepted as the password would have left me stuck forever. Good job!

it looks like enigma code. But I cannot find plugboard pairs here and I don’t know what are 0 and 9 numbers for.

The picture is a hint.

1 Like

what kind of hint? Are there these pairs which I mentioned? I said, that the code which Steve read from this picture under notepad looks like enigma coding especially with I II III and “warfare” phrase which look like a hint to enigma from ww2. Also in the episode 39 they mentioned Alan Turing who helped with breaking the enigma if I remember it correctly.

You are on the right track. <- You will laugh at that when you get it.

1 Like

I’m not sure, if I understand what the funny thing is in this :slight_smile: I have already seen that picture and have also read this text from the file’s bottom. Maybe you are playing with the word track, because there are railroad tracks on the picture, but its not my sense of humor. xD