The attack of the machines is imminent!
The central A.I. has sent out encrypted comms to awaken its minions.

Our code-breakers were able to intercept and crack the code. To receive the real communication, you have to take the ID, and invert its bits, as given by the 1s in the following key:

00100010 00110100 00101110 00111011 01001100 00000110 00100001 01001101 00011010 01111000 00101110

Once you've absorbed the real message, head over to your briefing - we'll hand you the key to the armory.

Good luck, soldier!

PS: Lvl2+. The following countries are excluded, as the title is not available there and can't be gifted: AM AZ BY KZ KG MD RU TJ TM UZ

PPS: If you solved the GA and landed on a deleted GA, re-download the text file (make sure to properly reload, so it does not come from your browser cache). I've replaced the text file to reveal the properly set up GA. Sorry about that, I forgot to check for region restrictions when setting up the original GA. If you're one of the people who have already entered the deleted GA - just solve the text file again to get to the new GA.

1 year ago*

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Left or Right?

View Results
Left!
Right!
Both, of course!
That's disgusting!
Potato!

Does this converter work or am I using it wrong?
https://www.rapidtables.com/convert/number/binary-to-ascii.html

1 year ago
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Read some of the hints that Tomas has already given to find the answer to that.

I would start here: https://www.steamgifts.com/go/comment/Emt0XBf

1 year ago
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It works, but all it does is converting.

1 year ago
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I believe this has ended, so can you help me understand how the last part was meant to be solved. I got to the text file, but I wasn't able to figure out what to do with it.

1 year ago
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The trick was to view the file at 199 x 83 and read off the GA id from the key, most easily accomplished somewhat like this https://i.imgur.com/rxxKNkx.mp4

1 year ago
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I never even considered going back to that page after I finished it. I saw your hint to someone about proving that you weren't a robot and I didn't really understand what that meant, but I thought you might be talking about the first step with the binary numbers. I ended up converting the text file to binary and trying to find a bit flipping tool online that would allow me to apply the key you provided to the entire binary text, but that obviously didn't work.

1 year ago
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Hey AllTracTurbo, I wouldn't feel bad about it - the clue might have been more prominent. On the other hand, it's the one seemingly random disconnected thing that happened just before you got the file...
It usually helps to look at everything and scout for clues when stuck. Especially if the puzzle seems minimalistic. Large leaps of faith are usually not needed. It's either a 'standard routine' you might try, or there was a hint somewhere. It's hard to keep the mind from 'wandering' to possibilities not supported by any clues though. I know. I've been overthinking puzzles all my life ;)

Applying the decryption key to the entire file is a neat idea. I might use it in the future :)

1 year ago
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I even couldn't get past the first part. do you have a chance to explain it to me?

1 year ago
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Sure plexus:

  • take the id of the linked video: Emidxpkyk6o
  • convert the ascii to binary: 01000101 01101101 01101001 01100100 01111000 01110000 01101011 01111001 01101011 00110110 01101111
  • look at the 'key': 00100010 00110100 00101110 00111011 01001100 00000110 00100001 01001101 00011010 01111000 00101110
  • flip bits of the ID where the key shows a 1 and you get: 01100111 01011001 01000111 01011111 00110100 01110110 01001010 00110100 01110001 01001110 01000001
  • convert that back to ascii: gYG_4vJ4qNA and watch the real message
  • the answers to the quiz are in the lyrics: biology is superficial, intelligence is artificial, and simple multiplication
1 year ago
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That was purely genius. This was my first puzzle and even if I couldn't solve it, it was still fun. thank you :)

1 year ago
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And here I thought "why are there only some random letters in what otherwise appears like special and puctuation characters?" I used a character remover tool, that's how I ended up with the 43 letters. Seriously, why were they scattered around there? The soution doesn't even take them into consideration. Just a red herring?

Also, why I didn't get back to the 83x199 is because the answer is the byte size of the text file. I thought that was it ^^

1 year ago
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The characters are there so you solve the puzzle and look at the ascii art. If no scattered characters were there, you could just not solve the puzzle and do your 'character remover' approach. That was not the point of the puzzle though.

The 83x199 gives you a grid to view the file as. The fact that the file size matches is the clue to lay out the characters in a grid like this. One char is a byte, as you have been reminded in the ascii -> binary exercise you did in part 1.

1 year ago
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Oof, I'll admit, I would never have figured that out. The way there was still fun though, you make very creative puzzles!

1 year ago
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