Old Town Maine Postcard

admin — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 01:35:17 +0000

Its being auctioned ..or was .. on eBay..just thought you Old Towners would like to try to figure out what the #&*# it was??

Kim Jong-il’s Coffin Next to Václav Havel’s Coffin

admin — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 13:21:36 +0000

Just an observation (Photo on left by Reuters)

Answer to the CanYouCrackIt.Co.UK Puzzle

admin — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 18:18:49 +0000

Where’s John Tiltman when you need him? Tiltman, a British soldier who fought in World War II and found his calling through code breaking, helped to win the war. Unfortunately, he wasn’t around to help with this puzzle. The following is the answer to part one of the puzzle above found on the Canyoucrackit.co.uk website. The can you crack it answer is being sought after by amateur sleuths, hobbyists and hackers around the world. Apparently in an effort to drum up some talent, the British Government has posted a puzzle online to solve – with whomever solving it being offered a job perhaps. Unfortunately (insert condescending and bored yawn here), I’m an American and am not allowed to work for the Brits.

Perhaps you have an interested in becoming a codebreaker or have an interest in codebreaking in general.
This puzzle reminds of when the FBI a few months ago sent out copies of these scans of a cryptic letter asking the publics help in solving a 20 or so year old murder. The last I heard, nobody had been able to solve it (yet…perhaps one of you?)

Regardless, you can see part 1 of a 3 part quiz here http://www.canyoucrackit.co.uk/15b436de1f9107f3778aad525e5d0b20.js or it is copied below.

//————————————————————————————————–

// stage 2 of 3

// challenge:

// reveal the solution within VM.mem

// disclaimer:

// tested in ie 9, firefox 6, chrome 14 and v8 shell (http://code.google.com/apis/v8/build.html),

// other javascript implementations may or may not work.

//————————————————————————————————–

var VM = {

cpu: {

ip: 0×00,

r0: 0×00,

r1: 0×00,

r2: 0×00,

r3: 0×00,

cs: 0×00,

ds: 0×10,

fl: 0×00,

firmware: [0xd2ab1f05, 0xda13f110]

mem: [

0x31, 0x04, 0x33, 0xaa, 0x40, 0x02, 0x80, 0x03, 0x52, 0x00, 0x72, 0x01, 0x73, 0x01, 0xb2, 0x50,

0x30, 0x14, 0xc0, 0x01, 0x80, 0x00, 0x10, 0x10, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00,

0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00,

0x98, 0xab, 0xd9, 0xa1, 0x9f, 0xa7, 0x83, 0x83, 0xf2, 0xb1, 0x34, 0xb6, 0xe4, 0xb7, 0xca, 0xb8,

0xc9, 0xb8, 0x0e, 0xbd, 0x7d, 0x0f, 0xc0, 0xf1, 0xd9, 0x03, 0xc5, 0x3a, 0xc6, 0xc7, 0xc8, 0xc9,

0xca, 0xcb, 0xcc, 0xcd, 0xce, 0xcf, 0xd0, 0xd1, 0xd2, 0xd3, 0xd4, 0xd5, 0xd6, 0xd7, 0xd8, 0xd9,

0xda, 0xdb, 0xa9, 0xcd, 0xdf, 0xdf, 0xe0, 0xe1, 0xe2, 0xe3, 0xe4, 0xe5, 0xe6, 0xe7, 0xe8, 0xe9,

0x26, 0xeb, 0xec, 0xed, 0xee, 0xef, 0xf0, 0xf1, 0xf2, 0xf3, 0xf4, 0xf5, 0xf6, 0xf7, 0xf8, 0xf9,

0x7d, 0x1f, 0x15, 0x60, 0x4d, 0x4d, 0x52, 0x7d, 0x0e, 0x27, 0x6d, 0x10, 0x6d, 0x5a, 0x06, 0x56,

0x47, 0x14, 0x42, 0x0e, 0xb6, 0xb2, 0xb2, 0xe6, 0xeb, 0xb4, 0x83, 0x8e, 0xd7, 0xe5, 0xd4, 0xd9,

0xc3, 0xf0, 0x80, 0x95, 0xf1, 0x82, 0x82, 0x9a, 0xbd, 0x95, 0xa4, 0x8d, 0x9a, 0x2b, 0x30, 0x69,

0x4a, 0x69, 0x65, 0x55, 0x1c, 0x7b, 0x69, 0x1c, 0x6e, 0x04, 0x74, 0x35, 0x21, 0x26, 0x2f, 0x60,

0x03, 0x4e, 0x37, 0x1e, 0x33, 0x54, 0x39, 0xe6, 0xba, 0xb4, 0xa2, 0xad, 0xa4, 0xc5, 0x95, 0xc8,

0xc1, 0xe4, 0x8a, 0xec, 0xe7, 0x92, 0x8b, 0xe8, 0x81, 0xf0, 0xad, 0x98, 0xa4, 0xd0, 0xc0, 0x8d,

0xac, 0x22, 0x52, 0x65, 0x7e, 0x27, 0x2b, 0x5a, 0x12, 0x61, 0x0a, 0x01, 0x7a, 0x6b, 0x1d, 0x67,

0x75, 0x70, 0x6c, 0x1b, 0x11, 0x25, 0x25, 0x70, 0x7f, 0x7e, 0x67, 0x63, 0x30, 0x3c, 0x6d, 0x6a,

0x01, 0x51, 0x59, 0x5f, 0x56, 0x13, 0x10, 0x43, 0x19, 0x18, 0xe5, 0xe0, 0xbe, 0xbf, 0xbd, 0xe9,

0xf0, 0xf1, 0xf9, 0xfa, 0xab, 0x8f, 0xc1, 0xdf, 0xcf, 0x8d, 0xf8, 0xe7, 0xe2, 0xe9, 0x93, 0x8e,

0xec, 0xf5, 0xc8, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00,

0x37, 0x7a, 0x07, 0x11, 0x1f, 0x1d, 0x68, 0x25, 0x32, 0x77, 0x1e, 0x62, 0x23, 0x5b, 0x47, 0x55,

0x53, 0x30, 0x11, 0x42, 0xf6, 0xf1, 0xb1, 0xe6, 0xc3, 0xcc, 0xf8, 0xc5, 0xe4, 0xcc, 0xc0, 0xd3,

0x85, 0xfd, 0x9a, 0xe3, 0xe6, 0x81, 0xb5, 0xbb, 0xd7, 0xcd, 0x87, 0xa3, 0xd3, 0x6b, 0x36, 0x6f,

0x6f, 0x66, 0x55, 0x30, 0x16, 0x45, 0x5e, 0x09, 0x74, 0x5c, 0x3f, 0x29, 0x2b, 0x66, 0x3d, 0x0d,

0x02, 0x30, 0x28, 0x35, 0x15, 0x09, 0x15, 0xdd, 0xec, 0xb8, 0xe2, 0xfb, 0xd8, 0xcb, 0xd8, 0xd1,

0x8b, 0xd5, 0x82, 0xd9, 0x9a, 0xf1, 0x92, 0xab, 0xe8, 0xa6, 0xd6, 0xd0, 0x8c, 0xaa, 0xd2, 0x94,

0xcf, 0x45, 0x46, 0x67, 0x20, 0x7d, 0x44, 0x14, 0x6b, 0x45, 0x6d, 0x54, 0x03, 0x17, 0x60, 0x62,

0x55, 0x5a, 0x4a, 0x66, 0x61, 0x11, 0x57, 0x68, 0x75, 0x05, 0x62, 0x36, 0x7d, 0x02, 0x10, 0x4b,

0x08, 0x22, 0x42, 0x32, 0xba, 0xe2, 0xb9, 0xe2, 0xd6, 0xb9, 0xff, 0xc3, 0xe9, 0x8a, 0x8f, 0xc1,

0x8f, 0xe1, 0xb8, 0xa4, 0x96, 0xf1, 0x8f, 0x81, 0xb1, 0x8d, 0x89, 0xcc, 0xd4, 0x78, 0x76, 0x61,

0x72, 0x3e, 0x37, 0x23, 0x56, 0x73, 0x71, 0x79, 0x63, 0x7c, 0x08, 0x11, 0x20, 0x69, 0x7a, 0x14,

0x68, 0x05, 0x21, 0x1e, 0x32, 0x27, 0x59, 0xb7, 0xcf, 0xab, 0xdd, 0xd5, 0xcc, 0x97, 0x93, 0xf2,

0xe7, 0xc0, 0xeb, 0xff, 0xe9, 0xa3, 0xbf, 0xa1, 0xab, 0x8b, 0xbb, 0x9e, 0x9e, 0x8c, 0xa0, 0xc1,

0x9b, 0x5a, 0x2f, 0x2f, 0x4e, 0x4e, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00,

0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00,

0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00

exec: function()

{

// virtual machine architecture

// ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

// segmented memory model with 16-byte segment size (notation seg:offset)

// 4 general-purpose registers (r0-r3)

// 2 segment registers (cs, ds equiv. to r4, r5)

// 1 flags register (fl)

// instruction encoding

// ++++++++++++++++++++

// byte 1 byte 2 (optional)

// bits [ 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 ] [ 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 ]

// opcode – - –

// mod –

// operand1 – - – -

// operand2 – - – - – - – -

// operand1 is always a register index

// operand2 is optional, depending upon the instruction set specified below

// the value of mod alters the meaning of any operand2

// 0: operand2 = reg ix

// 1: operand2 = fixed immediate value or target segment (depending on instruction)

// instruction set

// +++++++++++++++

// Notes:

// * r1, r2 => operand 1 is register 1, operand 2 is register 2

// * movr r1, r2 => move contents of register r2 into register r1

// opcode | instruction | operands (mod 0) | operands (mod 1)

// ——-+————-+——————+—————–

// 0×00 | jmp | r1 | r2:r1

// 0×01 | movr | r1, r2 | rx, imm

// 0×02 | movm | r1, [ds:r2] | [ds:r1], r2

// 0×03 | add | r1, r2 | r1, imm

// 0×04 | xor | r1, r2 | r1, imm

// 0×05 | cmp | r1, r2 | r1, imm

// 0×06 | jmpe | r1 | r2:r1

// 0×07 | hlt | N/A | N/A

// flags

// +++++

// cmp r1, r2 instruction results in:

// r1 == r2 => fl = 0

// r1 < r2 => fl = 0xff

// r1 > r2 => fl = 1

// jmpe r1

// => if (fl == 0) jmp r1

// else nop

throw “VM.exec not yet implemented”;

}

};

//————————————————————————————————–

try

{

VM.exec();

}

catch(e)

{

alert(‘\nError: ‘ + e + ‘\n’);

}

//————————————————————————————————–

I've got neat stuff!

Old Town Maine Postcard

Kim Jong-il’s Coffin Next to Václav Havel’s Coffin

Answer to the CanYouCrackIt.Co.UK Puzzle