Dinah Autoresponse

This text was received after someone dropped an email to the dinah@projectsyzygy.com address (from the Marketing Weekly ad):

On 5 Mar 2004, at 00:29, xxxx wrote:

I don't think I have anything more to add, except for the requisite shout-outs to the immersive fiction community all over the web and around the world (you know who you are). Anyone reading this should know that it's going to get a lot harder and a lot more fun. You ain't seen nothing yet.

One last thing - it all begins with AADAA...

xxxx

On 5 Mar 2004, at 00:13, xxxx wrote:

What a cool idea. I love it. All we'd need to do is sanitise our email exchange by removing reference to things like xxxx and then put it online somewhere. This could be the last email of our exchange we publish.

Unless of course you follow this one with a witty reply that our hard-core cryptographer friends would enjoy ;)

xxxx

On 4 Mar 2004, at 23:58, xxxx wrote:

Actually, yeah, I think you are probably right. As long as the puzzle isn't *ridiculously* easy, then people aren't going to think worse of it (especially if you put 'Easy wasn't it?' as a more difficult one!). Simple substitution is a nice way to go.

Now I'm wondering what sort of code to use for the 'easy wasn't it' thing...

It occurred to me this evening that a nice reward for ultra-hardcore cryptographers would be to see this exchange of emails - it wouldn't actually reveal anything at all about xxxx, and they'd probably appreciate the thought that's gone into the ad puzzle. Perhaps we could encrypt a key in the ad that would unlock these emails on the web somewhere. Or maybe not. Just another random idea

xxxx

On 4 Mar 2004, at 23:48, xxxx wrote:

Fair point. I've been thinking about this a lot this evening. It's a tricky balance we're trying to strike.

The code at the moment is laughably easy to crack but that's the point. I think 99% of people reading the ad will feel pretty pleased with themselves for cracking a Caesar shift or simple substitution cipher. The image I have is of people stumbling across our ad while flicking through a stack of job ads in a coffee shop. They'll be intrigued by it but unless they have a hook to start solving it quickly I think they'll give up and probably won't give it another thought.

Alternatively if they immediately see a way in and manage to solve it on the back of a napkin within five or ten minutes then I think they'd be very likely to check out the site and more importantly mention it to other people.

In hindsight a simple substitution cipher probably makes more sense than a Caesar shift - particularly if we leave the web address format as it is. This provides the easy way in to give the average person a foothold of four letters.

It'll be a different matter when the game is live and people are xxxx but in this instance I think a Vigenere cipher would require too much effort for the average person. Obviously we wouldn't want to recruit anyone for the full-time team who'd struggle to decode a Vigenere cipher but this is a great opportunity to get a lot of people chatting about the concept and the site itself.

If the puzzle is too complex then we lose all that and the fact we gain an average of higher quality submissions probably doesn't offset it.

You're right in that we don't want to look like lightweight puzzle designers so a way around this might be to hide a much more complex code in the background that acknowledges the very important but tiny minority of ultra smart folks. Perhaps something as simple as "Easy wasn't it?"

Any thoughts??

Cheers

xxxx

On 4 Mar 2004, at 18:38, xxxx wrote:

Hi all,

I think the text of the ad is perfect, but I have some comments on other aspects.

Firstly, I think a Caesar shift is too easy - I mean, even I could figure that one out! If people are interested in the ad, then they'll be willing to put at least a few minutes work into it - and if they're not interested in the ad, it won't be because the cryptosystem is too hard, it'll be because it just looks like gibberish. So I don't feel there's anything wrong with knocking it up a notch and using, say, a simple substitution cipher. These are easily broken using frequency analysis or brute force, but it's a step up from Caesar.

Another possibility is using a Vigenere Cipher, which is essentially a Caesar cipher done twice, using a keyword to determine the shift. It's much more difficult to brute force without the keyword and very very difficult for short texts, which obviously this one is, so we should make the keyword available. A possible scenario would be to encode the majority of the text in a Vigenere Cipher (which is immune to frequency analysis) and encode the keyword (written in Braille or morse code or baudot) with a simple substitution cipher or something similar.

Whichever system is used, it would be a mistake to write out the web address in the usual 'http://www....com' format, simply because it'd be very recognisable and thus provide an easy shortcut to crack the puzzle (and that would be no fun for anyone). To be totally safe, I would write it out as 'visit projectsyzygy dot com' so there isn't any strange punctuation to give the

game away. 
   

So - if you went for the Vigenere route, here is how I would do it (and obviously there are many other ways, many of which are undoubtedly better):

1. In a corner or on the border of the ad, the phrase 'You're always a day away' is written in morse or braille or baudot. Optionally, it is encoded via a simple substitution cipher, or maybe just a Caesar shift.

2. This phrase is obviously from the song 'Tomorrow' in the movie 'Annie'. Thus the keyword is 'Tomorrow' - it's not hard to figure out.

3. From there, if you recognise that the main text is encoded in Vigenere, it is trivial to decode it using the keyword.

You could always highlight some of the letters in the text and use them as a keyword for a future puzzle on the web - we wouldn't even need to decide on them beforehand, we could just design the future puzzle around them.

My reasoning for making the puzzle a bit harder and more circuituous is because it involves the 'player' a little more and thus will give them a bit more satisfaction on completion and also convince them that we are not lightweights when it comes to cryptography. Furthermore, if anyone did want to write a story about it, it's more interesting this way.

Of course, it is entirely possible that making the puzzle harder will put people off, which is clearly not the goal. However, it will be cracked by *someone* in short order, and the answer and instructions will then be put on the web for all to see.

Success!

xxxx

On 4 Mar 2004, at 16:32, xxxx wrote:

Here's a first stab at text for the ad that will be going into the press over next week or so. I'm planning to put it into Marketing Week and then play it by ear after that.

If anyone has any suggestions or improvements then give me a shout asap since we're hoping to get this finished by midday on Monday. Might be nice to hide a deeper clue in there somewhere as well. Any suggestions? Perhaps we could very subtly highlight some of the letters (tiny dot above or below) to spell out a new message. Or we could partially hide the 'I can see you' Braille text somewhere within the design around the edge of the text? Not very imaginative though!

I currently think that the best plan would be for the first sentence to be unencrypted to hook people's interest and then encode the rest of the text via a caesar shift (including the web address obviously!) With a bit of luck it should get picked up and commented on by the mainstream press.

Cheers

xxxx