Didactic Text 3

chriskag · Post by **chriskag** » Sun Oct 19, 2008 7:02 am

Hello again hackers.
There's been too long time i haven't figured something about this challenge.
Some hint would be well accepted.

I found the book about Lawnsonomy and a chapter is missing, but i can't find out what it has to do with the challenge!!!

I'm also stacked in Didactic Text Combo.
It has to do with capital letters, but i can not solve this one.
I found a cipher tools page, but none of them helped me.

Thanks for your hints.

gfoot · Post by **gfoot** » Sun Oct 19, 2008 12:01 pm

You're on the right track with Didactic Text Combo, but bear in mind the title - it's not just a hidden message.

For Didactic Text 3, it's hard to say much without giving it away, but as more general advice for all these challenges - keep looking very closely, and think of ways you could have hidden a message in the text if that's what you were trying to do. You often have to read between the lines, looking for anything odd about the text beyond simply what the words say. Don't get too hung up with the philosophy of Lawsonomy.

rmplpmpl · Post by **rmplpmpl** » Sat Nov 01, 2008 8:42 pm

Anyone who has solved the didactic text 3 and would be willing to discuss with me what I found out yet? Please use PN, because explaining my discoveries would give away too much - or make me a total dumbass, one or the other...

Pretty few have solved this, so it seems to be harder than it should, doesn't it?

Lysander · Post by **Lysander** » Sat Nov 08, 2008 3:04 pm

I have no idea how to solve this.
It could be EVERYTHING, there is no way to tell what it could be. It might be the number of sentences, commas, semicolons (I've checked that). It might be the number of words with 4,5 or x (choose something between 1 and 20) characters.
I've checked the beginning character in each line (both in the displayed text and the source code), it didn't yield anything.
I have discovered that there is a resemblance between the number of lines in the source code (as each line represents one sentence I can as well say the number of sentences) and the number of commas (one is 191, the other 192), but both values are not the solution.
I don't understand how 47 people could have solved that, apparently they are geniuses able to process amounts of data exceeding that of Roadrunner or else have a nice crystal ball sitting before their computer.

Theoretically, it could be the relative frequency of the word "Lawsonomy" against the frequency of the word "the" to the power of the number of times the word "Life" appears, encoded with a 100 byte long code. (That's what I would do, if I would want to hide something in this text.)
It is impossible to check all possibilities.
Couldn't one of the people who solved it give us some advice on how to tackle this problem?

MerickOWA · Post by **MerickOWA** » Sun Nov 09, 2008 1:56 am

I'm also trying to solve this problem. I hope this doesn't give away anything but i'll just share my thoughts I've had.

From what I've seen, I don't believe the message has to do with the frequency of particular words. This would be way too complicated. Imagine trying to send a message knowing what words you wanted to send. Trying to hide your message by turning your words into numbers and then trying to find text which had the EXACT number of words you were looking for without modifying the text significantly would be TOO complicated. It would also be extremely long to quote all the passages of text necessary to send such a message.

Also in comparing the differences between the original source and the given text, I've found the differences, but still am unable to determine how the differences indicate the hidden word.

gfoot · Post by **gfoot** » Sun Nov 09, 2008 12:54 pm

Lysander, again all I can say is that you're on the right track, though a lot of the things you're considering are more complicated than the actual solution. Really it's hard to give any specific hints without just telling you the answer! Bear in mind the challenge statement though, it's a pretty direct hint in itself.

snibril · Post by **snibril** » Sun Nov 09, 2008 3:12 pm

I also didn't know what I am looking for in this text, till I used an editor, vi

Broker · Post by **Broker** » Sun Nov 09, 2008 6:21 pm

@snibril: Thanks! Your hint moved me towards the right direction

Now i sleep better

rmplpmpl · Post by **rmplpmpl** » Sun Nov 09, 2008 8:53 pm

finally, I made it, too... i had the right track days ago but was too lazy (and considered my idea to be only a tiny chance). Nevertheless, nice hide-out for the signal.

Drifter · Post by **Drifter** » Sun Dec 21, 2008 3:09 am

This post has expired.
ponders if post edits is a signed or unsigned varible

Belriel · Post by **Belriel** » Sun Dec 21, 2008 1:17 pm

Is it on purpose that the last value has to be guessed? At least it was not properly codified.

jgmvxyyafqcn · Post by **jgmvxyyafqcn** » Fri Dec 26, 2008 5:29 pm

Could someone reveal the type of the answer? Word/Number/Approximate length? I think I am on the right track but my decoding efforts do not give me a right answer : / Thanks!

Belriel · Post by **Belriel** » Sat Dec 27, 2008 9:57 am

I would say you are not on the right track, because the answer is very clear when you found how to decode it.

jgmvxyyafqcn · Post by **jgmvxyyafqcn** » Mon Dec 29, 2008 8:42 pm

Ok, found it. I was on the right track, but failed to try the most obvious decoding method...

MerickOWA · Post by **MerickOWA** » Fri Jan 09, 2009 8:49 pm

Wow, i can't believe how long it took me to solve this problem ><. The VI hint was a good one, tho I still didn't understand it for a long time. Very very tricky.