Friday, November 24, 2017

enigmatic puzzle - Locate the hacker: Part 2


This is a continuation of Locate the hacker. Be sure to read through part 1 and the accepted answer first so you can get an idea of how to solve this. There are no tricks here. There’s no breaking of the “fourth wall”, no corrupt partners, no hacking of emails or falsified information.


Note: Reading through part 1 is not required to solve this puzzle.





You arrive at the address in Indiana and find an abandoned warehouse. There's no way he could have known you were coming! But alas, Mr. Jones is nowhere to be found. The warehouse is rather small and you wonder why he chose this location.


You look around but there's not much to see. There’s a small empty desk by the far wall. The only thing on the desk is a thermometer and a notebook. The thermometer reads 43 degrees C.


You open the notebook to find only one page filled with text.


Contents:



I know I can’t run,
No end ’til it’s done,
But why not play,
Before I pay?
HEX4

It’s not for Private P,
More for a never ending,
Sorry it’s missing 80D,
It’s a kind of wet bending.
61 70 70 65 6e 64 0d 0a
F T2 R F2
F T2 F2 TFT
F T2 FT F2 T
F T2 F T3 F
HEX4

56 Monument damns the square. 2000 prostitutes. 92 kills 43 from 1862.
HEX4
89 a plane falls down,
170 total with 18 crown,
Where I rest lays a clue,
Not part one but two,
Drop the trailers to find,
And add the arrow if you don’t mind



This guy is losing his mind. None of this makes sense. What’s that about prostitutes? Right as you finish reading the notebook you receive an email from your partner.



While on your flight here, your team picked up a transmission on a message board by someone under the pseudonym DrBit. Could it be him? Only three messages were written by this user. The user login time is exactly the same as the first message post time.


Transcript:



DrBit [23:22:10]: http://www.globalclassroom.org/minus80.html
DrBit [23:51:38]: 5642 doesn’t sink prepend_temp
DrBit [00:23:14]: 8328 doesn’t sink



Find Mr. Jones. You're looking for an exact address.


Hint:




Figure out the transcript first. Remember Mr. Jones’ M.O. from part one.



Hint 2:



The answer is not a U.S. address.



Hint 3:



false, true, repeat




Hint 4:



Pay very close attention to the timestamps




Answer




Notebook


It’s not for Private P,
More for a never ending,
Sorry it’s missing 80D,

It’s a kind of wet bending.



P(ASCII) = 80(Decimal)
The clue from the transcript (Waterloo) doesn't quite get us all the letters that this piece of the puzzle does -- it is missing the letter P. This tries to make up for that by providing the clues loop (never ending) and, by extension, waterloop (wet bending).



F T2 R F2
F T2 F2 TFT
F T2 FT F2 T
F T2 F T3 F




-- I did figure this one out, but realize now that ericm301 did it first --

This is binary notation, F = false = 0, T = true = 1, and R = repeat (from beginning). When properly written, you get 01101100 01100101 01101001 01101110, which translates to lein.



56 Monument damns the square. 2000 prostitutes. 92 kills 43 from 1862.



Theme: Amsterdam, Netherlands

The WWII memorial "National Monument" was opened in Amsterdam's Dam Square in 1956 and is the site of a Remembrance of the Dead ceremony held every May 4. [source]

Although it has been habitually tolerated for many years, in the year 2000, prostitution (specifically, operation of brothels) was officially legalized in Amsterdam. [source]

A cargo plane (El Al Flight 1862) crashed into an Amsterdam neighborhood in 1992, killing 43 people (all 4 aboard and 39 on the ground) according to the official record. [source]



89 a plane falls down,
170 total with 18 crown,
Where I rest lays a clue,
Not part one but two,

Drop the trailers to find,
And add the arrow if you don’t mind



-- Credit to LeppyR64 for pinpointing the event --

In 1989, international passenger airliner UTA Flight 772 (a DC-10) exploded in midair, killing all 170 people (from 18 different countries) onboard. [source]

The UTA 772 Memorial is located at 16°51′53.748″N 11°57′13.362″E, about 10 km away from the crash site. My understanding of the language is still not quite matching the intent... The endgame here is 1011 PG, so working backwards from the conclusion, "where I lie" may refer to the distance, and "second part" may refer to the longitude. Dropping the trailers (decimals) gets us 1011, but I'm still lost on the arrow.



Transcript


DrBit [23:22:10]: http://www.globalclassroom.org/minus80.html
DrBit [23:51:38]: 5642 doesn’t sink prepend_temp
DrBit [00:23:14]: 8328 doesn’t sink




We've been told to pay close attention to the timestamps. The amount of time between the first and second is 29 minutes and 28 seconds. Time between second and third is 31 minutes and 36 seconds.

By following the "instructions" given in the chat log, we find ourselves at 43°29'28.5642", -80°31'36.8328", presumably in the Manulife Financial building located in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.





We are looking for DrBit at Waterlooplein! Also known as Waterloo Square.




(left on the record since it is interesting)



56 Monument damns the square.

- The Stalin monument in Budapest's City Park was famously torn down during the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 (possibly erected within the entrance area known as Heroes' Square). [source]
- There is also now a "Memorial to the 1956 Hungarian Revolution and War of Independence" which juts into "the Square of Silence". [source]

2000 prostitutes
It is estimated that, on average, 2000 prostitutes engage in 'window' prostitution every day in the Netherlands. (Women stand in front of a window which prospective clients must knock on to gain entry) [source]

89 a plane falls down, (file under close but no cigar)
Despite the deaths of 111 people onboard, the United Airlines Flight 232 crash of 1989 has been held as a prime example of successful emergency handling by a flight crew due to the number of lives saved (185 survived) and ability to land without proper controls. [source]

170 total with 18 crown, (file under close but no cigar)
- There are 172 total Nobel Laureates for the Prize in Chemistry, which Donald J. Cram, Jean-Marie Lehn, and Charles J. Pedersen were awarded in 1987 [source] for their synthesis of the 18-Crown-6 compound (C12H24O6), which is used in the lab as a phase transfer catalyst. [source]
- The 11th generation of the Toyota Crown was known as the S170 model. [source]
- The Neoplan Jumbocruiser measures 18m in length and holds the Guinness World Record for largest bus with a 170-passenger capacity. [source]

My best guess is that the language means to ignore the latitude, take the longitude, drop the numbers after the decimal, and include the direction, so 11E, but having read up on Amsterdam postal codes, they consist of 4 digits and two letters, so not sure where to go from here, though 11 as a start is legit for the Amsterdam area. [source]

Netherlands postal code finder tool!

$-80°F = -62.\overline{2}°C$, $-76°F = -60°C$, $43°C = 109.4°F$ Using the degrees in the format given, using the coordinates -80°29'28"S, 43°31'36"E puts us in the middle of Antarctica!



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