This is my first time making one of these. Hopefully it's not too easy (or too difficult). Let me know what you think. If people enjoy this I will make more!
It is May 26th, 2016
After years on the run, government authorities were able to find the location of Joe Jones, a wanted hacker.
This morning at 0600, a SWAT team raided his location only to find an abandoned apartment. He must have escaped in time. Luckily, it is expected that Mr. Jones would leave some sort of clues for his wife, Kathy, to be able to locate him. You have been assigned detective on the case to find Joe Jones.
Here’s what you know about the suspect
Name: Joe Jones
Occupation: None
Aliases: Dr.Bit, JJ
DOB: May 3rd, 91
Wanted For: Unauthorised computer access with intent to commit other offenses.
Place of birth: Miami, Florida
Last Known Location: Homestead, Florida
Spouse's Name: Kathy Jones
Spouse's DOB: Jan. 4th, 92
Spouse's Occupation: Computer Engineer
As the SWAT team leaves, you walk into the apartment and begin searching for clues that may lead you to Joe. You notice that it looks like the suspect left in a hurry; there’s a computer that appears half unplugged; possibly in a failed attempt to take it with him. You figure that he probably didn't leave until he heard the police sirens heading his way.
Upon further investigation, you find a wallet stuck between the only bed and a wall. You suspect that it may have fallen there and, in his haste, Mr. Jones was unable to locate it before leaving.
You open the wallet and see his legitimate state ID. Inside is a picture of his wife at, what appears to be, her college graduation party. The timestamp on it says 08-15-04. On the back is a hand written note. It reads:
Statute 6 /\bs\S*et{1}/igm AVE
You file away the evidence and decide to search the computer. You plug it in and power it on. To your surprise, there’s no password on startup. “Some hacker”, you think. Once the system loads, a single terminal opens.
It looks like the suspect tried to delete his files before he left. Lucky for you, he must have been in too much of a hurry to try any sort of secure wipe. Or maybe he wanted his wife to see this.
You open up the .data folder on the desktop and discover two files. One image and one text file.
Image:
Textfile contents:
ikqr bmsp slhyp rdy netgsn kr rdy kepnmpr
This is all of the useful evidence you were able to find.
Where is the Mr. Jones?
Note: You're looking for an exact address.
Hint 1:
Pay close attention to every detail.
Hint 2: (if you want a challenge, don't see this)
The following is a possibly incomplete list of the tools you'll need: www.google.com, maps.google.com, an archive reader
Answer
The location is:
1999 Sunset Ave, Indianapolis, Indiana
Taking letter substitution, the Textfile contents can be deduced as:
ikqr bmsp slhyp rdy netgsn kr rdy kepnmpr_a_t _our under the pickup at the airport
The letters i, q, and b are never reused, so we'll have to guess the first two words. A likely choice is:
Last Four
giving:Last four under the pickup at the airport
As Micheal Johnson noticed, the picture of the symbols is actually hiding a RAR archive with a file in it containing coordinates to Labasa Airport, in Fiji.
According to the sign that Johnbot found, at this airport, this appears to refer to the number:
1999
Image:
The date on the back of the picture cannot POSSIBLY be the date of her graduation, so we can use it as a clue.
The portion with the regex (noticed by Micheal, and described more in-depth by Nzall) mentions Statutes.
If we look at Statute 815.04 (COMPUTER-RELATED CRIMES) of the Florida legal code, and look at subsection 6, specifically, we can use the regex to find the word:
Sunset
from
Subsections (3) and (4) are subject to the Open Government Sunset Review Act in accordance with s. 119.15, and shall stand repealed on October 2, 2019, unless reviewed and saved from repeal through reenactment by the Legislature.
If we take the number we found, above, and place it before the message on the back of the picture we're led to:
1999 Sunset Ave
The image, on the background of the desktop, recognized by @LeppyR64, is a logo for:
the Indianapolis Colts, an American Football team from Indianapolis, Indiana, leading us there.
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