The barcode spits out 23 characters. Are they ALL used for the solution, or are some a combination of random garbage and/or red herrings? Is each letter only used ONCE? How much of the barcode's output is part of a unique solution, and how much is (once we've obtained the said keyword) guesswork and trial-and-error? I'm terribly good at number/symbol puzzles (Sudoku, Kakuro, Masyu, etc) but my brain hateses word puzzles (crosswords, cryptograms), and I kind of top out at weekday newspaper Jumble puzzles.
And regardless of the above "hints", those of us still floundering still don't know what the rules are.
I'm struck by the irony of the number of ways of getting to the right numbers (either by chance or otherwise) and thus the right number of random letters. This was fun :)
I literally used a google'd "code 128 alphabet" that listed the binary code for each alphabetic character, and zoomed in on a horizontal and vertical slice of the image separately. I had to deduce which half was first and which was second; which colours meant 0/1 for each half; which end of each half was its starting end.
The hardest part of that decoding process was visually determining which blocks were 3 bits wide and which were 4 bits wide. But, it's what I had to do with an utter inability to perform the required image manipulation to convert the imagery to b&w, invert colours, paste each half together, etc.
PS. THERE ARE NO ANAGRAMS. What kind of word-based puzzlemaster doesn't use anagrams? Haven't they ever tried to solve an Escape Room puzzle book? Have they no memory of Carroll?
Next question. Niantic apparently lurves to hide passcodes in Media too, with some of the most obtuse steganographic obfuscation to boot. Heck, they hide encoded passcodes in html comments on web page of news releases, and so forth.
Is there any hidden passcode in THIS media, or can I just call it a day while muttering to myself?
It's easier if you use an image viewer that can enlarge the image and place a grid on top of it (GNU image manipulation program is one such - there may be others).
(although personally I wrote a script to extract one line of pixels and translate it into a list of 1s and 0s :-p)
It was. It took me way longer than it should have to crack this. Turned out I decoded all the needed characters, but I had written one different than the others, so I missed it when I gathered my findings, hence they keyword was one character too short and gave no meaning. The devil is in the details. :)
Thanks for your participation in the Dreamer 1 decoding challenge.
We’ve been watching the leaderboard and are aware that some of you have solved the challenge and entered the correct passcode but aren’t appearing there. It appears as if this is specific to any Agents who entered the passcode via Intel Map.
The team is aware of this issue and looking into resolving it ASAP.
In the meantime, we’re investigating options to address the leaderboard issue for any affected agents. I’ll provide updates on this discussion thread as they become available.
Are you saying that agents who entered via the intel map are NOT on the leaderboard? I entered via the intel map and was listed there. No trouble here.
It spits out more than 23 characters if that helps.
EDIT: To clarify, the barcode decodes to more than 23 numbers, but now I realize you probably meant the numbers decode to 23 characters so what @SerMochi said.
I spent way too much time with a one bit error in the middle of the bar code. I checked it over and over and made the same error over and over. Once I had the characters in front of me, it fell into place pretty quickly.
Comments
The barcode spits out 23 characters. Are they ALL used for the solution, or are some a combination of random garbage and/or red herrings? Is each letter only used ONCE? How much of the barcode's output is part of a unique solution, and how much is (once we've obtained the said keyword) guesswork and trial-and-error? I'm terribly good at number/symbol puzzles (Sudoku, Kakuro, Masyu, etc) but my brain hateses word puzzles (crosswords, cryptograms), and I kind of top out at weekday newspaper Jumble puzzles.
And regardless of the above "hints", those of us still floundering still don't know what the rules are.
I'm struck by the irony of the number of ways of getting to the right numbers (either by chance or otherwise) and thus the right number of random letters. This was fun :)
I can't find any barcode scanner that can read it. Which one are y'all using?
I am so confused. This is my first time trying to solve one of these things and I have no clue. I feel like I am trying to interpret Chinese.
no barcode scanner will work "out of the box" on the image.
the barcode is split into two halves, vertical and horizontal.
you have to guess which half is first, which direction to read in, and which colors are "black" and which are "white".
hint: it is "Code 128", and has valid start, stop, and checksum markers.
I literally used a google'd "code 128 alphabet" that listed the binary code for each alphabetic character, and zoomed in on a horizontal and vertical slice of the image separately. I had to deduce which half was first and which was second; which colours meant 0/1 for each half; which end of each half was its starting end.
The hardest part of that decoding process was visually determining which blocks were 3 bits wide and which were 4 bits wide. But, it's what I had to do with an utter inability to perform the required image manipulation to convert the imagery to b&w, invert colours, paste each half together, etc.
PS. THERE ARE NO ANAGRAMS. What kind of word-based puzzlemaster doesn't use anagrams? Haven't they ever tried to solve an Escape Room puzzle book? Have they no memory of Carroll?
Next question. Niantic apparently lurves to hide passcodes in Media too, with some of the most obtuse steganographic obfuscation to boot. Heck, they hide encoded passcodes in html comments on web page of news releases, and so forth.
Is there any hidden passcode in THIS media, or can I just call it a day while muttering to myself?
Still asking myself why I worked this problem for hours only to be awarded a media.
I solved it yesterday at around 2019-12-10 03:08 and received the media, but not showing up as a solver.
It's easier if you use an image viewer that can enlarge the image and place a grid on top of it (GNU image manipulation program is one such - there may be others).
(although personally I wrote a script to extract one line of pixels and translate it into a list of 1s and 0s :-p)
The annograms I ran gave me results to some of the final components, but that was thinking too much!
They're all used. Use the sequence posted as a guide and try parsing out what you have.
If the last character you are referring to is '>' then that's the checksum and is not part of the actual code.
It was. It took me way longer than it should have to crack this. Turned out I decoded all the needed characters, but I had written one different than the others, so I missed it when I gathered my findings, hence they keyword was one character too short and gave no meaning. The devil is in the details. :)
Easier? Maybe. I have an iphone, don't own a computer, and have a work machine I can't install anything onto. Go me!
Hi Agents,
Thanks for your participation in the Dreamer 1 decoding challenge.
We’ve been watching the leaderboard and are aware that some of you have solved the challenge and entered the correct passcode but aren’t appearing there. It appears as if this is specific to any Agents who entered the passcode via Intel Map.
The team is aware of this issue and looking into resolving it ASAP.
In the meantime, we’re investigating options to address the leaderboard issue for any affected agents. I’ll provide updates on this discussion thread as they become available.
Thanks for your understanding!
Are you saying that agents who entered via the intel map are NOT on the leaderboard? I entered via the intel map and was listed there. No trouble here.
Given how many iPhone users there are, "oops!" Silly Apple.
In the short term at least, it defers showcasing my personal embarrassing slowness.
Same. I entered via Intel Map and my name showed up.
where there's a will, there's a way! ;-)
It spits out more than 23 characters if that helps.EDIT: To clarify, the barcode decodes to more than 23 numbers, but now I realize you probably meant the numbers decode to 23 characters so what @SerMochi said.
That's debatable, depending on definition, spec, and how you decode it.
It spits out 23 alphanumerical characters between (as previously mentioned) the start, checksum and stop characters.
That. Do the manual method
I used this one for iPhone https://apps.apple.com/us/app/qr-code-reader/id1200318119
This one for Android https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.manateeworks.barcodescanners
I'm not sure if it's because I'm using my cell phone or if I'm just straight up dumb, but I can't get any combination of that barcode to work.
I tried to translate the barcodes manually, and I just felt stupid as hell the whole time.
Congrats to anyone who figured this nonsense out.
I spent way too much time with a one bit error in the middle of the bar code. I checked it over and over and made the same error over and over. Once I had the characters in front of me, it fell into place pretty quickly.
Easiest method is to generate a barcode yourself, and compare visually for transcription errors.
Try and locate a decoding support group for your faction. There are people out there that work in teams. Much easier for beginners.
None of this is helpful to people who have no idea what any of y'all are talking about or don't have the opportunity to spend hours on the internet.
I wasted 6 hours following this post, downloading apps, manipulating images and I'm nowhere near figuring this out.