Puzzle is just a picture

[+Gill & Tony]

I am looking at a puzzle cache, which I will not name for obvious reasons. The short description is blank. The long description is an image, no text. The image is not a hyperlink. The published coordinates end in .000 and .000

 

I'm looking for general ideas on how to start solving this.

 

I have so far tried

 

1. highlighting the description, but no white on white text exists.

 

2. Searching the page source, but there are no embedded comments.

 

3. I've looked at the image size in the page source and used the dimensions (both 3-digit numbers) as the last part of the coordinates - in both cases

 

4. I've looked at the image URL, but that doesn't seem to contain anything likely to be coordinates

 

5. I've copied and pasted the URL and seen the original image and that doesn't have any extra information

 

6. The image doesn't contain any EXIF data.

 

So, I've now run out of ideas. Anyone else have some suggestions?

 

Thanks

 

Tony

Edited November 9, 2016 by Gill & Tony

[+lee737]

Have you tried opening it in a photo editor and racking levels/curves adjustment around, you might find some near black text in a black area of the photo....

[+niraD]

Check for animation or layers?

 

Check for the puzzle elsewhere?

 

Open the image file in a text editor?

 

Use TinEye to find the original source of the image?

 

Find another puzzler at an event and brainstorm together?

[+kunarion]

Anyone else have some suggestions?

Zoom in on the image and scroll around. Maybe there are super tiny numbers or text clues just a couple of pixels high.

 

I'm gonna make one someday, where the picture is an actual place locally (maybe at the posted coords), with some important numbers or clues removed. You'd need to go find out what's missing, in order to solve it. Oh yeah. I'm gonna do that, you just wait.

 

What is the difficulty rating? I know of one cache with just a photo, that went unsolved for a long time. None of the usual things worked. I never found out what the solution was.

Edited November 9, 2016 by kunarion

[+Viajero Perdido]

Sometimes it helps, with a puzzle like that, to look at the few things on the page that the CO actually has any control over. Find all of them, be thorough. Subtract all the things that are part of Groundspeak's standard cache page, and - in the case of a puzzle like that - you've only got a very few things left to work with. And you know it's gotta be in there somewhere!

 

That may help. Good luck.

 

PS: https://coord.info/GC2WNT6

 

PPS: images can hide all sorts of things. Especially JPGs; look up the format and you'll find all sorts of cool stuff. Some puzzlers take advantage of cool stuff like that. [whistles]

Edited November 9, 2016 by Viajero Perdido

[+Gill & Tony]

The cache is D4.0, with more than 30 finds. The hit to miss ratio on the geochecker is slightly better than 1:2, so about 1 in 3 attempts have been successful. My two so far are among the fails. I'm guessing that this means that, once you see it, the answer is obvious.

 

Nothing stands out when opening in Wordpad - I'm assuming that embedded text would have to be near the top or bottom (header or footer data in the image file) with the actual image data taking up the middle.

 

Photoshop doesn't give me anything - there are no dead black (or white) areas in the picture, so levels and curves don't show anything and I've scanned it visually at 200% size and nothing stands out. It is a well-known image and I've compared the one on the page with the original and, to the naked eye, they are identical.

 

I'll bounce this one off my son and see if he can come up with anything.

 

Thanks for the ideas - they will help with another puzzle sometime soon, I'm sure

 

Tony

[+Mudfrog]

Could it be using something like Steganography? Or is that the same as EXIF data?

Edited November 10, 2016 by Mudfrog

[+NYPaddleCacher]

Could it be using something like Steganography? Or is that the same as EXIF data?

 

Stenanography isn't really the same as EXIF data. EXIF data is metadata associated with the image that is plainly viewable with a photo editor. There are some stenanography tools that can *sometimes* detect strings but there are several types of steganography.

 

A file that has a .jpg extension isn't necessarily just an image. There is a way to create a zip file (and still be seen as an image) that could contain almost anything. Changing the file extension and attempt to "unzip" it will tell you if that's the case.

 

There is a linux command line tool (and there are windows versions that can be down loaded) called "strings" that will print strings in binary data. Occasionally I've had luck using that.

 

 

[+Viajero Perdido]

But yes, it could use steganography, or EXIF data (different things). I've seen both used in puzzles.

 

This tool: http://regex.info/exif.cgi is very useful for the latter.

 

No easy answer for the former. Those are five-star puzzles.

[+The A-Team]

Watch for the type of image file. For example, I once solved a puzzle where the image looked static, but was actually an animated GIF where numbers would gradually fade in and out - very faintly and very slowly - in non-obvious areas of the image. If you weren't looking really carefully, you could easily miss that this was happening. I actually stumbled upon this after opening the image in the EXIF tool linked to by Viajero Perdido, which has been useful in many scenarios.

[+Gill & Tony]

Many thanks for all the ideas. I'll try them out one by one and report back with progress.

 

Tony

[+jellis]

Did you try saving the image to the desktop and opening it and check the image properties?

[+Mn-treker]

Look for an individual pixel that may contain all the data.

There was one like that in my area once. Check the most center pixel.

Just because the coords end in .000 does not mean you need to find only six numbers.

You may need to find the whole coords. N45 23.000 W093 52.000

Just might be N45 21.568 W093 51.689.

[+bflentje]

Look for an individual pixel that may contain all the data.

There was one like that in my area once. Check the most center pixel.

 

Which evil local cacher did this???????

[+thebruce0]

Look for an individual pixel that may contain all the data.

There was one like that in my area once. Check the most center pixel.

 

Which evil local cacher did this???????

 

That's actually brilliant. As 24-bit, you've got room for 3 numbers (R G and between 0 and 255. If you can make the coordinates work in those bounds, you could completely mask the answer, requiring the user to use the correct pixel and understand how to interpret the colour love it!

[+Mn-treker]

Look for an individual pixel that may contain all the data.

There was one like that in my area once. Check the most center pixel.

 

Which evil local cacher did this???????

TheCachin8tor

Edited November 18, 2016 by Mn-treker

[+rosebud55112]

Thanks, guys, but I don't think you're supposed to be discussing specific cache solutions here.

[+TerraViators]

It's okay to discuss puzzle solutions as long as you don't point to caches requiring that solution.

[+rosebud55112]

At the time of my post, before the post ahead of mine was edited, it mentioned the specific cache. Thankfully, that has been fixed.

[+FunnyNose]

This is my cache so I can give away the answers. Mystery at Lincoln Park

 

There are 2 pictures on the page, if you look at the size in kilobytes of the pictures it will give you the last 5 digits of the coordinates.

[+Viajero Perdido]

Or check the width and height of the image; if they're not round numbers, that may be a tip off. Last three digits of coords maybe.

 

Or maybe it's something in the background image instead.

 

And did you know JPGs often contain JPGs? You can have fun with that. Think Russian dolls...

[+Mn-treker]

I made a puzzle with only pictures once.

Multiple choice. The data was hidden in the link to the picture. That cache is now archived due to animal activity at the site.

Animal kept muggling it, then ATV drove over and crushed it. The FTF crew drove through a blinding blizzard for 15 miles to get it.

[+The Jester]

I've seen a cache with a one pixel border that coded the info - I don't remember if it was morse, binary or UPC scan, but all could be encoded there.

[+Gill & Tony]

Thanks to all who answered. I've had to gove this one away because I have started my holiday now and have deleted all unsolved puzzles from the database.

 

Mind you, all the advice will be helpful when I tackle the next one.

 

Cheers

 

Tony

[+cala3]

On 11/9/2016 at 3:40 PM, Viajero Perdido said:

Sometimes it helps, with a puzzle like that, to look at the few things on the page that the CO actually has any control over. Find all of them, be thorough. Subtract all the things that are part of Groundspeak's standard cache page, and - in the case of a puzzle like that - you've only got a very few things left to work with. And you know it's gotta be in there somewhere!

 

That may help. Good luck.

 

PS: https://coord.info/GC2WNT6

 

PPS: images can hide all sorts of things. Especially JPGs; look up the format and you'll find all sorts of cool stuff. Some puzzlers take advantage of cool stuff like that. [whistles]

What was the trick with this one?  I looked at all the things I could think of with the ? and still nothing.  I don’t live in the area, I’m jus trying to get a handle on these puzzles. 

[+Viajero Perdido]

There was an intentional mistake in one of the few things under my control.