In the hours before Abaddon 04, a series of pages from a manual was leaked and contained information crucial to the upcoming XM-influenced events.
The first page was released at 15:00 UTC with the subsequent pages releasing in one hour increments.
Page 1
Page 2
Page 3
Page 5
Page 4
The last page was released at 20:00 UTC and contained the following text:
1. Up to fourteen segments may be required when using a Z divider. (b-ez) 2. A trip to the patent office may be needed, as well as trips back and forth to base. (4965) 3. Processor and firmware are provided, although only initial instructions are needed. (8080) 4. If you spell "ohms" backwards, you get "mhos". (0.00) 5. Some resistors have no parallel. (190) 6. Capacitors are typically round, while resistors are typically rectangular cylinders. 7. Colors may mean different things, based on their position. (6.58k) 8. Consider hexadecimal values for too long may lead to floating away. (42da) 9. To display an A on a 16 element display requires 8 lit bits. (19007) 10. From an initial position of 0, A leading B, is a positive thing, but B leading A is negative. 11. A trip to base may result in characters a bit shorter than usual. (01 b0) 12. Remember that our corporate parent, Wa Bu N, is represented as .-. .. -- -- -.-.. (ヱ) 13. Please take care when removing pages from this manual. Chads can be left on or off. 14. Cryptographic pads should only be used one time, but different pads may be used sequentially. (OTPU) 15. Once all pairs are dotted, they should dash into the smallest size display (OH PS)
Thanks to Jessen Yu (@jestr), Aza Rine (@az32612), and 井伊狐狸 (@EcoliW3110) for contributing solutions to the puzzles.
All puzzles are in the volatile passcode format:
[a-z]{8}[0-9]keyword[0-9]
1. b-ez
b-ezabefgGkzbcefkmza-fzacdGhzbchkzbcefhkzbcefgGzajmza-dGzabefgGkza-dflzdefzabcefgGzbcefkmzacdfgG
Delimiting the string at ‘z’:
b-e abefgGk bcefkm a-f acdGh bchk bcefhk bcefgG ajm a-dG abefgGk a-dil def abcefgG bcefkm acdfgG
The hint mentions fourteen segments, which would imply a 14-segment display.
The dashes mean the all the segments in between the two letters, inclusive.
bcde abefgGk bcefkm abcdef acdGh bchk bcefhk bcefgG ajm abcdG abefgGk abcdil def abcefgG bcefkm acdfgG
JRWOSVNH73RDLAW5
2. 4965
4965628/jhqx+3zxp7ll2ixxu
The hint mentions patent office and trips back and forth to base.
4965628 refers to the US patent for Photographic Film with patent image multi-field bar code and eye-readable symbols assigned to Kodak, also known as DX encoding
Converting the remainder of the string to a binary string from Base-64:
111111 100011 100001 101010 110001 111110 110111 110011 110001 101001 111011 100101 100101 110110 100010 110001 110001 101110
The binary string needs to be inverted
000000 011100 011110 010101 001110 000001 001000 001100 001110 010110 000100 011010 011010 001001 011101 001110 001110 010001
Interpreting each of those codes as a 1st row DX contact:
000000 5000/38° 011100 40/17° 011110 32/16° 010101 100/21° 001110 64/19° 000001 3200/36° 001000 1250/32° 001100 80/20° 001110 64/19° 010110 125/22° 000100 320/26° 011010 500/28° 011010 500/28° 001001 800/30° 011101 25/15° 001110 64/19° 001110 64/19° 010001 1600/33°
Taking the degree values and converting it into binary values:
100110 010001 010000 010101 010011 100100 100000 010100 010011 010110 011010 011100 011100 011110 001111 010011 010011 100001
And finally, converting the binary string into a Base-64 string:
mRQVTkgUTWaccePTTh =~ mrqvtkgu2accept3
3. 8080
8080f4d3f3fbc5844000d3d3f3eb01fbf9f9d300fbfb84f38402fb
The hint mentions processor, and 8080 is an Intel processor.
Each hex pair refers to an instruction:
F4: CP D3: OUT F3: DI FB: EI C5: PUSH 84: ADD 40: MOV 00: NOP D3: OUT D3: OUT F3: DI EB: XCHG 01: LXI FB: EI F9: SPHL F9: SPHL D3: OUT 00: NOP FB: EI FB: EI 84: ADD F3: DI 84: ADD 02: STAX FB: EI
Removing all except the first letter of all instructions:
CODEPAMNOODXLESSONEEADASE CODE PAMNOOD X LESS ONE E ADA SE
X LESS ONE: W
E: 5
SE: 7
PAMNOODW5ADA7
4. 0.00
0.0083333333 0.0097087378 0.0090909090 0.0081967213 0.0084745762 0.0088495575 0.0097087378 0.0090909090 0.0178571428 0.0103092783 0.0100000000 0.0084745762 0.0103092783 0.0090909090 0.0101010101 0.0099009900
For each value, take the reciprocal
1 / 0.0083333333 ~ 120 1 / 0.0097087378 ~ 103 1 / 0.0090909090 ~ 110 1 / 0.0081967213 ~ 122 1 / 0.0084745762 ~ 118 1 / 0.0088495575 ~ 113 1 / 0.0097087378 ~ 103 1 / 0.0090909090 ~ 110 1 / 0.0178571428 ~ 56 1 / 0.0103092783 ~ 97 1 / 0.0100000000 = 100 1 / 0.0084745762 ~ 118 1 / 0.0103092783 ~ 97 1 / 0.0090909090 ~ 110 1 / 0.0101010101 ~ 99 1 / 0.0099009900 ~ 101
The last value is not in the tables, but a note next to the table suggests “[inserting] a 0.02S resistor to disable channel noise correction entirely.”
1 / 0.02 = 50
120 103 110 122 118 113 103 110 56 97 100 118 97 110 99 101 50
Converting this from decimal to ASCII:
xgnzvqgn8advance2
5. 190
190 || 245 -- 150 || 283
155 || 290 -- 190 || 230
210 || 259 -- 190 || 230
230 || 230 -- 200 || 240
100 || 117 -- 150 || 275
170 || 255 -- 190 || 285
140 || 316 -- 175 || 289
110 || 106
The hint mentions resistors and parallel.
The formula to calculate the equivalent resistance is:
These values are resistors in parallel and to calculate the equivalent resistance:
190 || 245 = 107.0114943 ~ 107 150 || 283 = 98.0369515 ~ 98 155 || 290 = 101.011236 ~ 101 190 || 230 = 104.047619 ~ 104 210 || 259 = 115.9701493 ~ 116 190 || 230 = 104.047619 ~ 104 230 || 230 = 115 ~ 115 200 || 240 = 109.0909091 ~ 109 100 || 117 = 53.91705069 ~ 54 150 || 275 = 97.05882353 ~ 97 170 || 255 = 102 ~ 102 190 || 285 = 114 ~ 114 140 || 316 = 97.01754386 ~ 97 175 || 289 = 108.9978448 ~ 109 110 || 106 = 53.98148148 ~ 54
107 98 101 104 116 104 115 109 54 97 102 114 97 109 54
Converting this from decimal to ASCII:
kbehthsm6afram6
6. Resistors/Capacitors
The first page has an image of a breadboards with resistors and capacitors on it:
• ••-• - •-- ••• ••- --•- •- -•••• •- --• •- •• -• ••---
Converting this from morse code gives:
eftwsuqa6again2
7. 6.58k
6.58kΩ ± 0.25% 7790MΩ ± 1% 6660MΩ ± 0.05% 7660MΩ ± 0.25% 85.6MΩ ± 0.1% 1690MΩ ± 0.05% 8.47kΩ ± 0.05% 2690MΩ ± 0.05%
Interpreting these as resistors and converting them into their colour equivalents:
658 16 779 71 666 78 766 76 856 96 571 69 788 48 269 68
Pairing the numbers up:
65 81 67 79 71 66 67 87 66 76 85 69 65 71 69 78 84 82 69 68
Converting the numbers from decimal to ASCII:
AQCOGBCWBLUEAGENTRED BLUE: 6 RED: 5 AQCOGBCW6AGENT5
8. 42da
42da3a5e42e4364642d434bc42f03df44254635442d831aa42e435c342c6199a
The hint mentions hexadecimal, long, floats, so converting hexadecimal values to IEEE 754 floating point values:
42da3a5e 109.113998 42e43646 114.106003 42d434bc 106.102997 42f03df4 120.121002 42546354 53.097000 42d831aa 108.097000 42e435c3 114.105003 42c6199a 99.050003
Rounding each number to 3 decimal places:
109.114 114.106 106.103 120.121 53.097 108.097 114.105 99.050
109 114 114 106 106 103 120 121 53 097 108 097 114 105 99 050
Converting decimal to ASCII values:
mrrjjgxy5alaric2
9. 19007
S/N: 19007.21504.9420.9228.9228.763 PKI: 243.9159.959.975.240.1011.46080 PIN: 975.9420.18495.1011.9159.1019
The hint mentions 16 element displays. Each value is less than 2^16 = 65536, so converting each number into a 16-bit binary value:
0100101000111111 0101010000000000 0010010011001100 0010010000001100 0010010000001100 0000001011111011 0000000011110011 0010001111000111 0000001110111111 0000001111001111 0000000011110000 0000001111110011 1011010000000000 0000001111001111 0010010011001100 0100100000111111 0000001111110011 0010001111000111 0000001111111011
Converting the 1’s into lit segments of a sixteen segment display:
BYNVVGCR9ALEXANDER6
10. A/B
No known solution.
11. 01 b0
01 b0 c4 81 a6 c5 81 a0 5f 01 b7 5f 01 b1 05 69 b7 06 01 b0 df 19 a6 c2 14 10 85 80 06 c6 01 b0 de 69 b0 c6 69 b7 9f 81 a0 43 79 f6 9b 75 e1 9a 6d e8 1a 6c 31 1f 00 10 84 6c 27 57
The hint mentions converting to bases, converting the hexadecimal string into a Base-64 string:
AbDEgabFgaBfAbdfAbEFabcGAbDfGabCFBCFgAbGAbDeabDGabefgaBDefabdeGabegabDEfABCEbCdX
Splitting the string at intervals of A to G:
AbDEg abFg aBf Abdf AbEF abcG AbDfG abCF BCFg AbG AbDe abDG abefg aBDef abdeG abeg abDEf ABCE bCd
Each string segment represents a 7-bit values represented by ABCDEFG, with the values in the string being 1 if they are present, 0 if they are not.
1101101 1100011 1100010 1101010 1100110 1110001 1101011 1110010 0110011 1100001 1101100 1101001 1100111 1101110 1101101 1100101 1101110 1110100 0111000
Converting from 7-bit binary to decimal:
109 99 98 106 102 113 107 114 51 97 108 105 103 110 109 101 110 116 56
Converting decimal to ASCII:
mcbjfqkr3alignment8
12. ヱ
ヱミモルンヒテツルヱソヰサユホノヌルフツフウユ
The hint mentions Wa Bu N, which is a reference to Wabun Code (Japanese Morse Code)
Converting from Katakana to Wabun Code:
ヱ •--•• ミ ••-•- モ -••-• ル -•--• ン •-•-• ヒ --••- テ •-•-- ツ •--• ル -•--• ヱ •--•• ソ ---• ヰ •-••- サ -•-•- ユ -••-- ホ -•• ノ ••-- ヌ •••• ル -•--• フ --•• ツ •--• フ --•• ウ ••- ユ -••--
Taking the longs as 1 and shorts as 0:
01100 00101 10010 10110 01010 11001 01011 0110 10110 01100 1110 01001 10101 10011 100 0011 0000 10110 1100 0110 1100 001 10011
Combining and grouped into blocks of 8
01100001 01100101 01100101 01100101 01101101 01100110 01110010 01101011 00111000 01100001 01101100 01101100 00110011
Converting from binary to decimal
97 101 101 101 109 102 114 107 56 97 108 108 51
And finally, decimal to ASCII:
aeeemfrk8all3
13. Page rip
On pages 2 and 3, the pages are ripped.
^__^_^_^ ^__^__^_ ^___^__^ ^__^^__^ ^__^^__^ ^__^____ ^____^_^ ^__^____ ^^___^^_ ^__^^^^_ ^__^__^_ ^__^____ ^__^___^ ^__^^___ ^___^_^_ ^___^^__ ^^__^___
Interpreting this as a binary string:
01101010 01101101 01110110 01100110 01100110 01101111 01111010 01101111 00111001 01100001 01101101 01101111 01101110 01100111 01110101 01110011 00110111
Converting from binary to decimal:
106 109 118 102 102 111 122 111 57 97 109 111 110 103 117 115 55
Converting from decimal to ASCII:
jmvffozo9amongus7
14. OTPU
1. OTPUNSKCERXFTUACUXTSRG 2. CGTBIHLHNBAXLGSAVQSRQN 3. MGZADHMIONMVQYKWWZOZDH 4. TMLQEDDVFPSNVSGQGOFSVV
The hint mentions cryptographic pads, which means using vigenere across these strings. The correct order (or transitive equivalent) to vigenere these pads is:
3 + 2 – 1 – 4
With the + being encrypt, and – being decrypt:
3 + 2: MGZADHMIONMVQYKWWZOZDH CGTBIHLHNBAXLGSAVQSRQN ====================== OMSBLOXPBOMSBECWRPGQTU 3 + 2 - 1: OMSBLOXPBOMSBECWRPGQTU OTPUNSKCERXFTUACUXTSRG ====================== ATDHYWNNXXPNIKCUXSNYCO 3 + 2 - 1 - 4: ATDHYWNNXXPNIKCUXSNYCO TMLQEDDVFPSNVSGQGOFSVV ====================== HHSRUTKSSIXANSWEREIGHT HHSRUTKS6ANSWER8
15. OH PS
OH PS SL FR HD WB GH BW XD SB OC OH OX JS VS PU OH LS
Each pair of letters represents a set of 7 Morse tones.
--- •••• •--• ••• ••• •-•• ••-• •-• •••• -•• •-- -••• --• •••• -••• •-- -••- -•• ••• -••• --- -•-• --- •••• --- -••- •--- ••• •••- ••• •--• ••- --- •••• •-•• •••
Interpreting these as segments of a seven-segment-display, with the segments lit for the short tones.
tEgZgFbJ4ArtiFACt6