I was wandering around in 4chan when suddenly I saw this: http://boards.4chan.org/sci/thread/7069421 Doing a quick Google Images search I've found this: https://archive.moe/sci/thread/7069421 https://warosu.org/sci/thread/7037274 https://warosu.org/sci/image/1eD4X_g-NcRa8llnBEbKmg It has 3301 on it which makes me think of Cicada 3301 but I've been unable to determine if it's for real or a fake. Right now I'm working on the Suspicious Origins mission and have my hands full. Is anyone willing to look into this?
I don’t know if this is "real or fake", but Num3rs was a TV show that went off the air in 2010. It does not appear to be making a return, so I don’t think it is a promo for it or some fan stunt for it, but that is still a possibility. For what it is worth, no new Cicada 3301 puzzle was released on Jan. 5 of this year as happened on that date the previous two years. All the images in these links are named either 1422510754150.png or 1423977764651.png. Those numbers are not prime and do not seem to have any other immediate significance to me. However 1033 and 3301 are both prime numbers (the 174th and 464th respectively). The image has something that looks like a bar code. I tried a few simple bar code scanners but found nothing meaningful. The bar code is is 41 px wide and 216 px long. If you want to recreate the bar code in a cleaner format, by my eye the pixel width of the alternating black (b) and white (w) sections of the bar code from top to bottom are as follows: 20b-1w-4b-1w-12b-2w-11b-2w-116b-2w-9b-2w-34b I don’t know that this signifies anything other than I have nothing better to do on a Sunday night. Edit: I was working with the in-post low res version of the image. My bad. The actual image is higher resolution (953 x 827), so the pixel numbers I gave will not match, but the proportions should be close. If this turns out to be something I'll try to get more precise measurements from the higher res image.
For future reference, when pulling images from 4chan you will need to download the images as they regularly purge inactive threads leading to 404 errors. Nevermind, I should read the whole post before commenting. Also, (Depending on how 4chan has changed since I used to visit it for wallpapers), the image names are server generated to avoid conflicts. Though the name of the image appears to be in the post itself. 3301.png
Analysis report from bcTester 4.9 : Spoiler: Analysis report Analysis started ========================================== search for linear barcodes... ----------------------------------------------------------- search with current settings... decreasing scandistance... vary lightmargin...10...15...20...25...30...35...40...45...50...55...60...65...70...75...80...85...90...95...100... ----------------------------------------------------------- search for Codablock... ----------------------------------------------------------- search for PDF 417... ----------------------------------------------------------- search for Datamatrix... ----------------------------------------------------------- search for Datamatrix (intensive search)... ----------------------------------------------------------- search for QR Code... ----------------------------------------------------------- Search for Aztec Code... ----------------------------------------------------------- search for linear barcodes... ----------------------------------------------------------- search with default settings... decreasing scandistance... search for light skewed barcodes... decrease minimum barcode length... vary lightmargin...10... ========================================== barcode found! value: 42 type: Interleaved 2/5 length: 2 ========================================== The analysis was ended successfully. 42, the answer....
I don’t think this is associated with Cicada 3301, but I don’t believe the final answer has been revealed yet. Spoiler Someone responded online (https://archive.moe/sci/thread/7069421): “7069421 Bump Please be real.” I used bcTester (great find rand(), btw). I could not find the number7069421 or 42, but I found several different barcodes using different application settings. Number – barcode format 9850230 – 2/5 Datalogic 57 – 2/5 Datalogic 34 – 2/5 Datalogic 19 – Interleaved 2/5 374 – IATA 2/5 18 – 2/5 Datalogic 69 – 2/5 Datalogic 92 - 2/5 Datalogic I don’t know that much about barcoding, so I was mainly just acting like a monkey with a stick and hitting different options. The output of “Analysis” in bcTester is very simple. It just reported that it found the number 19. Running “Recognize” revealed all the other numbers it also found and the locations in the image where it found them. If I play around with the brightness and contrast it finds a completely different set of bar codes. Sigh, of course this wouldn’t be easy. My best guess is that each line (or column) is a series of numbers encoded in some bar code format and that the 1033rd one is the answer. If so, I don’t know if all the light-gray pixels need to be darkened to make the image a complete series of encoded numbers or if just the dark pixels need to be used. This is still mildly interesting to me, so I’ll still continue to look into it, but I won’t be able to get back to it for a while.
