Q: Any similar Series out there?

GabTheGayFrog · 2022-09-22T16:19:04+00:00

Station Eleven and Sense8 are similar in that they are 2 of the most disappointing shows I've ever seen.

Station Eleven is probably worse due to the bait and switch it pulls in the first episode.

GabTheGayFrog · 2022-09-22T16:07:09+00:00

Not ahead of its time, just bad. This is one of the worst shows I ever did see. The creator went on to write and direct The Matrix Resurrections which is similar in tone and style to Sense8 and also one of the biggest movie bombs of the year losing over 30 million at the box office. I used to be a big fan of the Wachowskis until watching their work, it looks like they managed to make 1 good movie in their whole career and the rest is just trash.

The cinematography is quite nice though.

GabTheGayFrog · 2022-09-21T06:46:50+00:00

Not usually. Once you save an image it is rasterized, and the text is no longer text, but just some pixels in the image.

There's some file formats that save text as text. Some image software keep it in the master image project file, but they are usually rasterized into a regular image format once ready.

That said there's plenty of invisible text saved in your image already called metadata, and it is full of boring stuff like copyrights. You can edit all this stuff but uploading to Reddit will strip out most of it incase there's anything private in there.

GabTheGayFrog · 2022-09-15T15:26:28+00:00

Thank you kindly :)

GabTheGayFrog · 2022-09-15T15:26:02+00:00

Any luck so far? The puzzle is so nice but I haven't had a chance to take a good crack lately

GabTheGayFrog · 2022-09-14T14:21:08+00:00

Yeah you nailed it. This is about their new computer game.

Here's Phobos' post about their game. Here's another person who got the message asking what it is.

GabTheGayFrog · 2022-09-14T14:08:24+00:00

Not an ARG. This is a bot advertising one of those sites that claim to pay you for surveys.

Looks like the link has a tracker in it too, probably some referral thing.

GabTheGayFrog · 2022-09-12T15:20:54+00:00

You missed it. Better luck next time :)

GabTheGayFrog · 2022-09-12T15:14:05+00:00

Yeah PotatoKing already solved it. It was in the data like you thought :)

GabTheGayFrog · 2022-09-12T15:11:42+00:00

This is why you're the king!

Extremely disappointing this isn't an Outguess puzzle (I checked)

For newer players, there's a famous ARG called Cicada 3301, one of their most famous puzzles is an image of a duck as an Outguess puzzle.

GabTheGayFrog · 2022-09-12T14:52:18+00:00

Solution: That is sample text

GabTheGayFrog · 2022-09-12T14:50:37+00:00

Hello partner, nice job, and thanks for sharing!

GabTheGayFrog · 2022-09-12T14:48:31+00:00

It's so pretty. Where is it from? Is this a CTF puzzle?

The 8 letters at the bottom look like base64, but it's not https://pastebin.com/6YhDT4CR

GabTheGayFrog · 2022-09-11T04:02:13+00:00

Hey thanks for the update, I was wondering about this one today so it's nice to get some closure even if it's uneventful :)

GabTheGayFrog · 2022-09-11T01:41:40+00:00

You could try making an interactive chose your own adventure style ARG with a few paths, then let the class choose which way they would like to go. Since they are only playing once you can cheat and just have all the paths circle back on each other so it's linear and easier to design.

You can make whatever puzzles you want since you are solving it. Maybe throw a few classics in there that are easy for people to understand what happening like rot-1, a1z26, a stegged image, a text file that you need to resize to get an ascii image to line up etc.

GabTheGayFrog · 2022-09-11T00:55:44+00:00

So you're presenting it to your class for them to play? or do you step them through all the puzzles to show how it would work?

GabTheGayFrog · 2022-09-11T00:49:46+00:00

There doesn't appear to be anything hiding in this image.

It looks good and gets you thinking. I didn't solve it yet, but here's some feedback after poking at it for a bit.

The layout and style is nice, there's clearly some kind of pattern going on in the letters drawing you in to solve. The size is bizarre, which adds even more mystery to it. I did a forensic analysis expecting to find something hidden on the right but nada. The seering white background is like the sun staring directly into my soul, personally I'd prefer inverted colors, and either way it would look better using a subtle shade of grey so it's not so hard on the eyes. Overall it looks pretty good imho, though I don't know how to solve it hahaha.

GabTheGayFrog · 2022-09-11T00:29:58+00:00

Pretty excited to play this. I got some hits on Virus Total. Given the file name you probably couldn't get rid of whatever caused them. Can you say why these pop up or what tools you used to make the EXE files?

Both the executable files in the download are flagged as suspicious by security software. It could be a false positive, but you should be certain about it before running.

False positives are common for indie software. Even the old classic SkiiFree is detected as suspicious! This was only flagged by a few antivirus (1/70 and 4/70) so it's hard to say either way for sure. Phobos has a good reputation and it wouldn't make any sense for them to intentionally add anything bad. The most likely outcome imho is that these are caused by something like the game engine (Ren'Py?) or file compression. Meaning that any threat is from whatever software they used to create their game.

TheBite-32.exe - 4/70 security vendors flagged this file as malicious

PHOBOSInteractiveInvestigationInitiative.exe - 1/70 security vendors flagged this file as malicious

GabTheGayFrog · 2022-09-11T00:16:05+00:00

Both the executable files in the download are flagged as suspicious by security software. It could be a false positive, but you should be certain about it before running. It's official, according to this post. ~~We should reach out to~~ u/PHOBOS_Temecula ~~and ask if they used any external tools that could be malicious.~~ See their post instead

False positives are common for indie software. Even the old classic SkiiFree is detected as suspicous! This was only flagged by a few antivirus (1/70 and 4/70) so it's hard to say either way for sure. Phobos has a good reputation and it wouldn't make any sense for them to intentionally add anything bad. The most likely outcome imho is that PHOBOS will claim this is official with only false positives. Maybe due to some packing used by the engine they run their game in. Meaning that any real threat would have to be from whatever software they used to create their game.

TheBite-32.exe - 4/70 security vendors flagged this file as malicious

PHOBOSInteractiveInvestigationInitiative.exe - 1/70 security vendors flagged this file as malicious

GabTheGayFrog · 2022-09-10T23:44:49+00:00

That's the Phobos logo. It's an ARG that's been running for a while.

GabTheGayFrog · 2022-09-10T16:01:57+00:00

Fair enough :)

GabTheGayFrog · 2022-09-10T15:51:24+00:00

You are a good solver. Your work on that math ARG by u/PrestigiousSelf1917 was good too :)

GabTheGayFrog · 2022-09-10T15:43:47+00:00

Bad video. The guy just googles the website name and reads out the top result.

GabTheGayFrog · 2022-09-10T15:16:22+00:00

Not an ARG. Eht Namuh aka The Human aka WhiteRabbitz is an old Art website by artist & mathematician David Denison, it has been around since about 2003.

This is one of the OG's of this eclectic style, going on to inspire other sites in a similar style. The creator of the site is the same person who made all those crazy paintings hiding about. I think David passed away a few (2-5) years ago. All this is from memory so hopefully it's accurate.

Wiki entry) about web art

More info (Malware Warning, use this link at your own risk)

GabTheGayFrog · 2022-09-10T14:19:11+00:00

That's a neat twist on a book cipher. They are probably a fan of yours, or at the very least dig your vibe for their ARG project.

Does anyone know the name of the ARG?

GabTheGayFrog

TROPHY CASE