Crack The Code

January 11, 2004

Yea, but are they placing a cache while up there ?

They did place a cache of sorts. It's a DVD of names collected from those who submitted them. My name is one of the approx 3.6 milion included on that DVD, and each one of us have the certificate to prove it.

Here is a picture of that DVD taken by the Rover after it landed on Mars.

4.4k · January 11, 2004

YES THE SILICON GLASS CD DISC IS SUPPOSE TO LAST ABOUT 500 YEARS.

January 11, 2004

Yea, but are they placing a cache while up there ?

They did place a cache of sorts. It's a DVD of names collected from those who submitted them. My name is one of the approx 3.6 milion included on that DVD, and each one of us have the certificate to prove it.

Here is a picture of that DVD taken by the Rover after it landed on Mars.

I see the website about the dvd says "children can also decode the message".

What are you telling me children can decode this message but all the adults here aren't up to the challenge?

4.4k · January 11, 2004

THE KIDS THEY HAVE AT THE NASA WEB SITE EXPLAIN THING I STILL CAN NOT FATHOM YET.

I GET NASA TV AND WATCH IT ALL THE TIME WHEW.......THE KIDS TODAY?????????

I STILL HAVEN'T GOT A CLUE EITHER AND I THOUGHT I WAS A LITTLE BIT SMART.

4.4k · January 11, 2004

Encryption

Some one smarter than me figure this out.

January 11, 2004

Encryption

Some one smarter than me figure this out.

Um, a simple application of what they talk about early on, the "alphabet encryption", is what is used to to encrypt the clues on cache pages. Encryption of this sort is decipherable by trial and error, observing repetitious sequences, and practice. The crypto-quotes in most newspapers illustrate this.

The rest of the article is simply demonstrating that advanced encryption is limited only by your imagination. Its all like algebra; you are using a value, such as 'x', to represent something else. Rather than a simple 'x' however, you can use color, shape, etc. The decryption is the hard part. the key, what 'x' represents, is solved by people and computers smarter than I.

many times in history, interception of crucial code documents could be the urning point in battles or whole wars. That was why spys killed themselves rather than be captured.

Since the Lego code is for children, its probably an abstract code, more visual than numerical or alphabetical. I haven't looked at it yet myself though.

January 11, 2004

here is the clue

Clue No. 1, January 10, 2004:

[snip]

The clue you quoted has one period and two commas within it, plus a period at the end. The lengths of the phrases are 297, 78, 96, and 339 dashes and bars (i.e., not counting the punctuation). The only common factor of those numbers is 3, which isn't enough to specify very many letters (only 8), so apparently the sequences that make up the letters (and space) are variable lengths. No?

... doesn't mean I've figured it out though. The next step is to figure out the frequency different sequences. Most common is 'e', etc. I haven't started doing that.

January 12, 2004

ok...ask your kids for help doin this

4.4k · January 12, 2004

I DID, HE IS, AND HE IS STUMPED TOO.

I HAVE NEVER BEEN GOOD AT CODE THATS WHY I STILL DO NOT HAVE A HAM LICENCE.................MORSE CODE..--..--.. ...-.----...--_ _--_ :unsure: _

January 12, 2004

I DID, HE IS, AND HE IS STUMPED TOO.
I HAVE NEVER BEEN GOOD AT CODE THATS WHY I STILL DO NOT HAVE A HAM LICENCE.................MORSE CODE..--..--.. ...-.----...--_ _--_ _

The good news is that you do not need to learn Morse Code anymore to get a Ham ticket. You can get a Tech ticket with no code and get on VHF & UHF.

January 12, 2004

I did the frequency breakdown using blocks of dashes and bars of varying length. Have some candidates for 't' (the most common letter in written English). A couple more weeks of this and I'll have it figured out and ready to be after that virtual planetocache.

Caching on other planets would be planetocaching, or aerocaching on Mars, since it's not on earth (geo).

BTW: There are two coordinate systems approved for use (by the International Astronomical Union) on Mars: planetographic and planetocentric. Planetocentric is also called aerocentric for Mars (because of the Greek: Ares?). Latitude in planetocentric comes from the angle between a point on the surface through the center of the planet to the equator. Planetographic is based on the local perpendicular to the surface and the equator (vertex not usually at the center). USGS and others have switched to using planetocentric. For both longitude 0.0 is at a crater named Airy-0.

January 12, 2004

I believe 'E' is the most common letter.

January 12, 2004

e is the most common language in the English Language, how many aliens know english? Shoot there are plenty of americans that don't know english. Why we put things up in space in an actual language thinking some alien bieng would understand it is beyond me. You would need to include something like the Rosetta stone where it takes a language they know and equates it to our language. Only seen 2 shows that do something along these lines. The movie Contact where they used numbers, and Stargate where they used the chemical compositions.

January 12, 2004

Yes, that was a slip. I have some candidates for 't' because "the" is the most common WORD, and begins with 't'.

Word freq, in decreasing order:

the, of, and, a, in, to, is, etc

Letter freq:

e, t, a, o, i, n, s, h, etc

January 12, 2004

Why is this picture:

It's from HERE

different from this diagram:

Edited January 12, 2004 by martmann

January 12, 2004

the first was a prototype.

January 12, 2004

since its a lego thing, I'm guessing you should arrange Legos in some sequence corresponding to the dashes, but not sure yet what the correlation is.

Anybody else thinking along these lines ?

2.1k · January 12, 2004

You need 5 positions to count to 26 in binary (11010).

If leading 0's are dropped, any letter could be from 1 to 5 in length.

You *would* need an 0 when denoting a space between words.

There are too many of each symbol in a row to substitute for spacing between words solely...hmm.

The frequency of each symbol in a row could be simply needed to denote a decimal number. IOW, the beginning of the longer textual clue could be:

14145112, etc.

The symbols may mean nothing more to each other than being the letter separation points.

There are likely no other punctuation (apostrophes, etc) than what was given in the longer text.

Whoever said that kids could probably solve it needs to provide a link to that...because on the clue page it says "BE WARNED! The Spirit DVD code is very sophisticated and difficult to crack. Do not be discouraged if you find you cannot solve it in your first few tries. Keep checking with us for new clues every two days, and in the end - you too may solve the Secret Mars Code!"

There is another clue to be released today.

I don't have time to make a decrypter right now.

This is a link to what I'm thinking may be the key:

Linky Link

Edited January 12, 2004 by ju66l3r

1.1k · January 12, 2004

Did anyone else notice that the "Extended text" released in the hint used lower case L instead of 1?

January 12, 2004

"Clue no. 2, January 12, 2004:

The text in clue No. 1 is from Carl Sagan's Pale Blue Dot."

It might be:

"Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves."

... then again, maybe not.

Edited January 12, 2004 by brad.32

2.1k · January 12, 2004

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate.

I betcha.

January 12, 2004

Solved it :unsure:

January 13, 2004

brad.32... please check your email

C2C2C

January 13, 2004

well what is it?

January 13, 2004

It's ...

a secret

Contact me if you want a hint.

January 13, 2004

one last "Bump"

1.1k · January 14, 2004

Finally figured it out. :bad:

1.1k · January 14, 2004

Clue no. 3, January 14, 2004:

The message is encoded twice. Each letter is represented by a number, and each number is represented by vertical lines (l) and dashes (-).

January 15, 2004

is it in binary code and if so wich one?

1.1k · January 15, 2004

I tried binary and never made sense of it. Could be but I don't believe so. I took the long way around and actually decoded straight from -l- to letters. It can be done.

Come on people! Jr. High students all over the country are WHIPPING OUR A**!!!!

January 15, 2004

I took the long way around and actually decoded straight from -l- to letters. It can be done.

That's how I did it as well (with some hints from brad32).. I still don't get the numbers part.. :lol:

The actual Mars Code decrypted is really simple.. You could probably guess the message..

1.1k · January 15, 2004

The actual Mars Code decrypted is really simple.. You could probably guess the message..

I was irritated with myself for not guessing it before I decoded it. Who new it was only 4 words. :lol:

5.3k · January 15, 2004

Who new it was only 4 words.

"Take me to your leader" is 5 words...

Edited January 15, 2004 by Stunod

January 15, 2004

I still don't get the numbers part..

If you consider it binary (- 0 and l 1) then the message can be written as a series of octal, for example, numbers:

5161763054367051141063141

Edited January 15, 2004 by brad.32

2.5k · January 16, 2004

What's the chances of some Martian mathematician speaking English?

January 16, 2004

Ah, c'mon, every Martian I've ever met failed math.

On the flip side, if we found these symbols on Mars, even though we don't speak Martian, we'd still try to decode them.

January 16, 2004

I cannot wait until the day that schools get all the money they need while nasa has to hold a bake sale to raise its money

January 16, 2004

Figured it out....Thanx for all the assistance....And thanx for not coming right out and telling me.

1.1k · January 17, 2004

For anyone still interested a new clue was released.

Clue No. 1, January 10, 2004:

A longer text using the same code would read:

-llll-llll-----l-ll-lll-l-l-l-ll--l---lll-------ll---llll----l----ll-l-l-llll--l---lll-l-ll-ll-----llll-ll-l--lll-ll-l-llll--l---ll---lll--l----ll----ll--ll--l---l-l-lll----l-l-ll---------lll--l-l-llll-----lll-l-l-lll-ll-lll---lll--l-l-l-ll---ll-ll--llllll-l---ll---lll-ll----ll-l---l-l--l-llll--l.---ll---lll--l-----llll-llll------lll-lll-lllll-ll-ll-llll--ll---lll----l-ll--,---ll---lll--l-----l-ll-l-lll-l-l---ll----ll--llll---llll---l-llll----l-lllll----ll--l---lllllll,---ll----ll--ll--ll----l---ll---llll---ll--l--ll---ll--llll---lll--l-ll-------ll----ll--ll-l-ll-------ll--ll--lll-l-ll-ll-l---l-l--lll---lll-l-lll-l-l---ll-ll--lll-l-----l---l-l-l-l---lll-l--------lll-l-llll--ll-l--lll--ll--ll----l---ll-----ll---lll-l-l-llll-----l---ll-llllll---l-l-l-l---lll-l-------llll-llll--lll--lll-l-ll-llll-----llll.

Clue no. 2, January 12, 2004:

The text in clue No. 1 is from Carl Sagan's Pale Blue Dot.

Clue no. 3, January 14, 2004:

The message is encoded twice. Each letter is represented by a number, and each number is represented by vertical lines (l) and dashes (-).

Clue no. 4, January 16, 2004:

Each number, representing a letter, is composed on one, two, or three digits.

Read about it here.

January 18, 2004

I know the code! It says, " Don't eat the yellow snow" :lol:

January 19, 2004

the message is ='yabba_dabba_yabba_dabba_daa_a_yab_a_dab_a_yab_a_bad_a_dab_a_bad_yabba_dabba_daa'

Edited January 19, 2004 by Kitch

1.2k · January 19, 2004

I cannot wait until the day that schools get all the money they need while nasa has to hold a bake sale to raise its money

Maybe NASA should get Coke or Pepsi to sponsour them and tehy can't put pop machines in the halls

January 19, 2004

$60 Bazillion just to send pictures to Earth confirming Mars has rocks... Now that's spending money wisely Let me weigh this one out. Tax cut or Crappy pictures of rocks that look like they come from Arizona anyway. Yep, I'll take the pics anyday. NOT.

Don't complain about NASA and space admin monies while holding your GPS in your hand. Or while looking at your PC. How do you think we get some of the technology we use everyday? It is a direct offshoot of the space program. And what isn't from space exploration is derived from defense spending. Ya gotta look at the big picture. The photos themselves may cost a lot, but the side benefits and new technologies make up the cost many times over.

January 19, 2004

I think its interesting seeing how excited the geeks are getting over some rocks.

Yeah, and how do they get off drinking champagne at work?

January 19, 2004

Any of you guys ever listen to a guy on the radio Art Bell?

It's all a load of crap. Art does the weekends now too. Some people will believe anything.

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