Happy Cryptmas

Posted on by phil Posted in cryptography, fun stuff — 1 Comment ↓

The Cyber Security Challenge UK recently launched a new cyber challenge for the Xmas holiday. The challenge takes the form of an image containing a lot of random-looking text with a Christmas tree in the middle. I’m still not sure how to go about tackling this thing, but as a starting point I thought it would at least be useful to have this text in a more accessible form.

So here you go:

)JGvV4&pSvyJLiv lOOsOvGuHpY6SJ$X)>0^(iZozitXlVo|(PwnsmgsTm_sPux&X)pqh
NXiZnrQhSUPNUkxUXU xyXXm($QpnkmJ Gy(Jk$Tg%&O(nQxjG_wxzu^k$YQI$Z>mPvK_
YnqI V<%zxl|ruo|_s6&prqTVtU<<$ _/\_ szsvZwJuScioSHUX lhu^Hw|qvXTy<lTy
|rj(KMH^qw PPtjt _vqT%r XuvxN| >  < ShmUT$iLx<wYvQZkiVNvrRJWHT%TzNP$t
SN_6wzWO&MxL|)|pmqktqlq)K(<NGZ /` `. U1uswy<nZwwJyKtMU t&UpKwXp<6UH|J
vi%ysWzKgYwsw>LmoX7pURmgouS) .' ' o \ jsh3LyVQLPjs(IslgpNakMXw<UIRkjo
>P^KTOnM(LKRrH^&spwkmQ|vSj ( ()x  @ '. <m O)$q|KVPxvMG<QWT>(v|_PJHnnY
PW_zZMIPRhKPq<GNu%MsinGIxo .-'  *_.-'-; HJHXZH(XvQ&>xOmG|nmL&I>HXNGLS
TzwIw%2%ZTsWIKPrM%$K>(0Q .'   Q    ()  `-. Uww<_h4JiXopYgwriPqv6umNZM
G|h7m%)zjyMxVT>(J&vxY%i / @     o .x  *   ) yKlK%m2qHsV^r>>YyYNpULkTI
^I)^GVTR<3HX%l)KxMtnzuq `-...-""-    '-~'` Xu<0TsjO<Zz(rGj( RIy$<TGO|
Yzsn&7hSKV>QG%v(tLnqqi _.'`  Q *   k   @`-. o%QplS($tnzVTY%|I&lO3tis%
x3GGNGjIty)ozWVvQ_yo .'    o   . r   * k  '-. kGM<S7XyvZuH^UJXgroluYT
Zpnkh2RSv^kUIGtv)%| / @     .___.~-'  v  ()  `\ SH%ZGoW0vj(Ts^SH^zKSi
>o%Mm_vOyrput5GVmz (    ()    s    Q'.__Q   *.' )xGKuKI^<x%SRITQHljLi
J)Yk jT)zV@hK rj$hL '-.g' `--._  @         ``-. Swo)jiTNSJ5x<hxtkLOkS
(|kzLR&>Gx<IxikiH _.-'   @      __.-'~'-.  @  `-. mKsJ K^tquwV<i%Mx&Z
KsRm5N^o>ky_tg) .'    Z 2  ..-' z     o       m  `) 4QYoS%|rQo lI<chg
3RWVQsSIgu$ZVq /   .-a-._          * n  _.~-.*__.' 2nG^))wW>HQW0ivH>H
$O6UJ8oWpUuRQW '._   X   (7)  '-.____.-'Q   & . '-. rVO4PixQQhU$^yWHP
sx7xwQkPkYgW4QoKU ;--' Q   *         *     o*   @ '-. SW7ixIVMozxn>0z
vpJn(r3Lrzxmzx .-' *   '.___ ..~ - .      %   ()   a '. IPWI<&uR%SxUk
2jYyl%lim$O&O / @    o    f  *       _.''~.._()__.--'`-. P2TlQq_o>pyj
IyQvfHu(NY^q '-.___6   .        jp     w     *     J Q '. oyL7LHGQz6q
OjN>LUfTxpz) .':.  `'    .''~..__6__.--'`-.    _.~-.*__.' oUpSgiOiifg
(^2gH |psJQ /.  ':.z  .      g    @   e    $    ((-\/-)) ppoKTi6gmvKv
hmLZ|7JSIv ; ':.k ':.     :  ___\|/___   %   |----||----| wL6HGWG lhJ
wcviQst&v  |2q ':.   `   `   |   |   |f\--\/-|    ||    | QRPGNR_i6RN
lPyUe>pov<l \:.w ':(     r   |-5-|-6-| |  || | O<R||O<R | mGHUnt zLWX
uSU 4P^wgHUO '::.m_  ' - n   |___|___| |__||_|____~~____| HWNrLXUjsOd
Gjl|_xnZJ&N|nq%w4kN|YOvlSUyOToRixq(npN<a>SU) Xyrl$ZrjQYuXR^o|(mnnOPyr
YkIk3Kn^g(hvPyOIQ<vsPkoLLj$IRO|NoVmt% xtqxw$kspmhNiiknX2ylzL HX&kU%HX

By the way, you’ll notice that the text in the actual image is mostly coloured green in the region of the tree, and black/grey elsewhere, although there are several other colours dotted here and there. I’m hoping this information isn’t too important.

UPDATE: I just discovered an interesting tweet from the puzzle’s creator Senad Zukic (@CyberInquisitor)

I think I know which bit is slightly off, too :-)

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So long, Ceefax

Posted on by phil Posted in fun stuff, graphics — No Comments ↓

Ceefax is now officially dead :-(

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A Trip to the Moon

Posted on by phil Posted in graphics — No Comments ↓

This is my last-minute entry to the Movie Moments competition at the Blender Guru website (which closes in literally a matter of minutes). Wish I had a bit more time to spend on this, but never mind…

In case you’re wondering, it’s a recreation of a scene from A Trip to the Moon by Georges Méliès.

UPDATE: Didn’t win, but I made it to the final shortlist :-)

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Adam Buxton’s Counting Song

Posted on by phil Posted in fun stuff, music, youtube — No Comments ↓

This is just brilliant:

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An electric monk for OS X

Posted on by phil Posted in fun stuff, OS X, Screen savers — No Comments ↓

One of the characters in Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams is an electric monk, which is a robot built for the sole purpose of believing in things so its owner doesn’t have to.

Well, now you can have your very own electric monk in the form of this screen saver that regurgitates proofs of God’s existence on your computer when you’re not there. Simply install it on your Macintosh (OS X 10.6 or later) and leave it running. Then stop worrying about whether or not God exists.

Now you can save your soul and your screen at the same time. And it’s totally free! Here’s a snapshot:

Many thanks to the Godless Geeks for supplying the list of proofs. All 666 of them.

Edit: It seems that some browsers are flagging .dmg (disk image) files as “potentially harmful”. If you’re concerned, you can download the files individually via the buttons shown below. Just make sure the “666-proofs.qtz” file ends up in your screen saver directory.

 

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How many Bond films can you name in 5 minutes?

Posted on by phil Posted in fun stuff — 3 Comments ↓

I only got round to watching A Quantum Of Solace last week. However, there is apparently a new Bond movie coming out later this year.

How many of the other Bond films can you remember? Have a go at this online quiz and see how you get on:

Quiz: How many Bond films can you name in 5 minutes?

 

 

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Optical illusion

Posted on by phil Posted in fun stuff, graphics, illusions — 1 Comment ↓

Here’s an optical illusion I just made. Keep your eyes on the black dot in the middle. (Click for a bigger image.)

Did you see the rotating spokes in the white circles around the outside?

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Singing banana code challenge 2012

Posted on by phil Posted in cryptography, OS X — 15 Comments ↓

Last month the ever-cheerful James Grime (a.k.a. “singingbanana”) of the Enigma Project launched a competition where people were invited to decipher an encrypted message. The prize was a signed copy of The Code Book by Simon Singh (which is an excellent read, by the way).

The encrypted ciphertext was as follows:

VA BT LS EG OT XK PB BH CI FV GA YC QG BP UW IH QD OE DI HL CQ
YC QG BP EI LZ GA GB IZ PS AZ DQ NI CY UY EA AI UA BF BV OV QA
ZS DP QD PG QM PS WL QY DH BD TL VZ PL LW AH GZ BP IM NI KP DZ
QU DH FP CI FV RT SB BP BV XO BE BQ PG KO GE IK KO NA OS DG DG
DA OX PO GE LZ GA OP FL WU PU UT WF BV IC HF EQ SP NA UX DC BV

No information was provided about the type of code being used, except to say that it was a “classic code from history”. However, a crib was available. (A crib is piece of text that is known to be contained somewhere in the original plaintext.) The crib consisted of the phrase “extra large French fries”.

Stop here if you’d like to have a go at cracking this code by yourself. I’ll explain how I did it after the fold.

Read more ›

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Where are the MP3 files in my iPod?

Posted on by phil Posted in OS X — 1 Comment ↓

To cut a long story short — I want to get my MP3 files out of the iPod (5th generation) and on to the hard drive on my laptop. This can be done by re-syncing the iPod, but I’m only taking a brief break from the desktop system and I don’t want the hassle of syncing back again in a couple of weeks.

For some reason, Apple has made it slightly difficult to access my MP3 files by making the directories containing the music invisible. So they don’t appear in the Finder at all.

However, they do show up in the command line terminal. If you want to get your MP3 files out, just connect the iPod to your Mac and open up a Terminal window (click the Spotlight icon and type in “Terminal”; it should be the top hit. If not, look under Utilities in your Applications folder).

At the Unix prompt, type in the following:

cd ~; mkdir mp3-files-from-ipod

This will create a new folder called “mp3-files-from-ipod” in your home directory. Now you need to navigate into your iPod’s file system. Enter the following to list the volumes attached to your computer:

cd /Volumes; ls

Your iPod’s name should be in there somewhere. Let’s suppose it’s “Your iPod” for the sake of argument. Copy it to the clipboard, and then paste it into this command (replacing “Your iPod” with the text you copied):

cd "/Volumes/Your iPod/iPod_Control/Music/"

From here you can enter the following command to find all the MP3 files on your iPod and copy them to the folder you created earlier:

find . -type f -name '*.mp3' |xargs -n1 -I x cp x ~/mp3-files-from-ipod/

The filenames will be garbage, but iTunes should still be able to identify them from the metadata tags stored inside these files. So now you can drag all the files to iTunes and it will file them away for you. Sorted.

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Rendering ocean waves in 3D

Posted on by phil Posted in graphics — 1 Comment ↓

There’s an old post on the Gamasutra website that describes a Fourier-based algorithm for generating wind-driven waves in deep water. I wrote a little program to generate water displacement maps based on this algorithm and tried it out in Blender. Here’s the result:

Pretty realistic, huh?

It ought to be reasonably simple to implement this algorithm as a texture shader right inside Blender itself. But I still have a lot to learn about how to work the front end of Blender before I start messing around with Python scripts.

In the meantime, you can download the data I used to make the animation shown above. Once unpacked, you should find a set of 256 PNG files that can be imported as a displacement map or bump map in Blender (or any half-decent 3D software for that matter). The images should tile perfectly, and can be looped on the time axis too.

If you find them useful, a link back here would be appreciated.

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