# It is an enigma . **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 2, 2009, 7:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-is-an-enigma/498466 "2009-06-02T07:05:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![hdc\_bst](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/9f8e36/32.png) [@hdc\_bst](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hdc_bst)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2009, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-is-an-enigma/498466/141 "2009-06-12T15:53:24Z")
What a fun thread to follow! I don’t have the time to follow up on these ideas myself, but I have two thoughts related to the current puzzle: 1. Each image in the equation contains numbers. I suspect that a number contained within the image is the correct value to plug into the equation, and that the 8 digit file name is a key to selecting the correct number from the image. The file name may refer to a particular pixel either as (R,I) coordinates, or as an index for a column major / row major ordering. 2. _CHEATING_ Password protected .zip files are weakly protected. There are any number of downloadable password recovery programs that can be used to decrypt the file… ---
**Author:** ![kjckjc](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e36b37/32.png) [@kjckjc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kjckjc)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2009, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-is-an-enigma/498466/142 "2009-06-12T16:13:53Z")
> [@hdc\_bst](#): > > 1. _CHEATING_ Password protected .zip files are weakly protected. There are any number of downloadable password recovery programs that can be used to decrypt the file… My initial thought too. 🙂 But then I looked at one and found that if a brute force is needed then it gets much harder. There are 11 letters in the anagram used so far. If it is another variation the anagram, one site’s password strength estimator says it will take 270 years to crack an 11 char. password. And I want to know sooner. ---
**Author:** ![troub](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troub/32/14802_2.png) [@troub](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/troub)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2009, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-is-an-enigma/498466/143 "2009-06-12T16:14:15Z")
> [@hdc\_bst](#): > > 1. Each image in the equation contains numbers. I suspect that a number contained within the image is the correct value to plug into the equation, and that the 8 digit file name is a key to selecting the correct number from the image. The file name may refer to a particular pixel either as (R,I) coordinates, or as an index for a column major / row major ordering. This is a good idea. Since each image is an image of numbers, maybe the filename is a hint to the coordinates of the actual number that goes into the equation. The numbers of the filenames are just too big and awkward, as nearly everything else in this puzzle has been relatively elegant. It may be important that all of the images are the same size, a square of 768x768. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2009, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-is-an-enigma/498466/144 "2009-06-12T17:05:52Z")
> [@Nobody\_Special](#): > > I’ve been lurking on this thread for a while but didn’t bother trying to solve any of the puzzles because I figured, if the others on the board haven’t had success, what chance did I have. Leason learned: don’t underestimate yourself. > > In Microsoft Word, I pasted the properly punctuated text in Times New Roman and shrunk the margins until the message filled 11 lines. (One for each letter of “it’s an egnigma.”) > > Taking the first letter of each line produced the anagram “inane stigma.” Go ahead and send an e-mail to [inanestigma@gmail.com](mailto:inanestigma@gmail.com). Whoa. Great job. Excellent contributions from everyone all around. What a group effort this has been. I don’t have any immediate ideas for the next puzzle. It does seem that the zip files opens up to a .mov file, judging by peeking at the bytes with a hex editor. You can also see all the image filenames going directly to [http://www.simianagent.com/images/](http://www.simianagent.com/images/) ---
**Author:** ![ClintPhoenix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b9bd4f/32.png) [@ClintPhoenix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ClintPhoenix)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2009, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-is-an-enigma/498466/145 "2009-06-12T17:17:01Z")
Nice work **Nobody Special**! I preface these comments by saying that I am not a math genius. Some ideas I had about the numbers all over the place 1. Each is a series that you need to identify the pattern in to find the subsequent digit, perhaps all of the series lead to the same number, so all of the variables would be the same constant. 2. Since there are so many number strings, perhaps they are a clue to lead us towards some single constant, such as an irrational number. My thought was that each of these number strings might be contained in pi or e or something, to get us to try one of those constants. I found a tool that lets you look for strings contained in the first 200 million digits of pi, and unsurprisingly, some of the strings are included, but not all. I checked project gutenberg’s first million digits of e, and couldn’t find any matches, but I didn’t take out line breaks and I didn’t check many strings. On the whole, I like the idea of using constants that have digits listed at project gutenberg, since that fits in with the previous ciphers, but I think I may be going down the wrong path. As for actually solving the equation, I leave that to math prodigies. ---
**Author:** ![kjckjc](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e36b37/32.png) [@kjckjc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kjckjc)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2009, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-is-an-enigma/498466/146 "2009-06-12T17:20:47Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > It does seem that the zip files opens up to a .mov file, Two .mov files: ._www.__**.com.mov 70 bytes www.**_\_.com.mov 7.86 MB ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2009, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-is-an-enigma/498466/147 "2009-06-12T17:23:27Z")
Other data: From left to right, here are the image filenames and their “alternate text” properties (what shows if the image does not load): Image: mailboxes Flickr title: 29580037 Local (thumbnail) filename: 79764719.jpg Alternate text: 13002966 Image: painted numbers Flickr title: 83955266 Local filename: 56426502.jpg Alternate text: 89387894 Image: kids numbers and names Flickr title: 00606004 Local filename: 98867990.jpg Alternate text: 51871595 Image: plastic boxes with numbers Flickr title: 96536514 Local filename: 96536514.jpg Alternate text: 62372751 Image: bingo chips Flickr title: 54801196 Local filename: 25317803.jpg Alternate text: 94906981 And the text portions of the equation all have different thumbnail names and alternate texts, as well. I don’t have time at the moment to pick all those out. The only interesting this I see is that the plastic boxes with numbers have the same thumbnail name as the title of the flickr page they link to. ---
**Author:** ![zut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zut/32/2875_2.png) [@zut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zut)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2009, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-is-an-enigma/498466/148 "2009-06-12T18:08:21Z")
I’m liking **hdc\_bst** ’s idea that the eight-digit numbers somehow resolve to coordinates on the image. I suggest the two numbers (the title and the alt text) are either some kind of x,y coordinate, or the two numbers are combined in some way to indicate an area. Musing: to have a completely unambuguous number, you’d like to have an integer. The only way to get an integer is if the number we’re taking a log of (the 89387894 number) is a power of 5. Note that the numerals for 5^1 (5), 5^2 (25), 5^3 (125), 5^4 (625), and 5^5 (3125) are all kind of nicely placed in the center of [the picture](http://www.flickr.com/photos/imagesintan/3510620730/). Any way to backsolve how to pluck out, say, 3125 from that picture? ---
**Author:** ![Here\_Come\_Dots](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/cc9497/32.png) [@Here\_Come\_Dots](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Here_Come_Dots)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2009, 11:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-is-an-enigma/498466/149 "2009-06-13T11:55:13Z")
What does [“Nina’s” user icon](http://www.flickr.com/people/imagesintan/) mean? So far, they have been integral to solving every one of the puzzles. ---
**Author:** ![troub](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troub/32/14802_2.png) [@troub](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/troub)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2009, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-is-an-enigma/498466/150 "2009-06-13T23:23:03Z")
I appears to be, I think, a generic Photoshop plugin icon. ---
**Author:** ![badlyburnttoast](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ad7895/32.png) [@badlyburnttoast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/badlyburnttoast)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2009, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-is-an-enigma/498466/151 "2009-06-14T03:13:02Z")
I got the password, but I cheated and cracked it. I’ll not list it here out of respect for those who wish to solve the puzzle the correct way, but if anyone wants to PM me I’ll let you know (it’s not terribly hard to crack on your own, anyway). Not that I can do anything with the next step, though :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Indian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c0e974/32.png) [@Indian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indian)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2009, 8:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-is-an-enigma/498466/152 "2009-06-14T08:07:46Z")
I am sure the collective wisdom of global army of dopers can crack this in a legit way .🙂 Is there any way to ask **Nina** for more clues ? ---
**Author:** ![Here\_Come\_Dots](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/cc9497/32.png) [@Here\_Come\_Dots](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Here_Come_Dots)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2009, 11:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-is-an-enigma/498466/153 "2009-06-14T11:57:36Z")
> [@badlyburnttoast](#): > > I got the password, but I cheated and cracked it. I’ll not list it here out of respect for those who wish to solve the puzzle the correct way, but if anyone wants to PM me I’ll let you know (it’s not terribly hard to crack on your own, anyway). I don’t want to cheat (yet), but I’m curious about the method you used to crack the password? ---
**Author:** ![Here\_Come\_Dots](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/cc9497/32.png) [@Here\_Come\_Dots](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Here_Come_Dots)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2009, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-is-an-enigma/498466/154 "2009-06-15T14:27:28Z")
I crumbled pretty quickly yesterday and asked **badlyburnttoast** for the password. For those who want to solve the math riddle the honest way (and I’m curious to understand how the formula could possibly produce the required password), I suggest this thread continue for that purpose. For us cheaters, I’m going to start a new thread, “[It’s an Enigma. Part II: After the Math Riddle](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=11244856),” devoted to deciphering the next puzzle, so we can proceed without ruining the surprise for those Dopers possessing more integrity and patience. ---
**Author:** ![zut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zut/32/2875_2.png) [@zut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zut)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2009, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-is-an-enigma/498466/155 "2009-06-15T17:29:39Z")
I doubt I’ll be working on this more, but my guess is that the eight-digit numbers translate somehow into co-ordinates. The “formula” web page is named Home (89585544), and there’s a hidden “Home” in the upper left corner, so presumably the upper-left of each picture is somehow represented by the coordinate 89585544. Then the coordinates are used to extract one or two numbers from each of the pictures. Finally, note the pixel size of each image is 768 X 768; 768 = 8 X 96 (an 8X8 square, IIRC, is the base compression unit in a jpeg file). Dunno if any of this is correct, but I’m just dropping it in for posterity. ---
**Author:** ![Ponderoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ponderoid/32/19221_2.png) [@Ponderoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ponderoid)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2009, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-is-an-enigma/498466/156 "2009-06-17T20:07:30Z")
There’s been a breakthrough in the [other thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=11244856). Those of you still trying to finesse the puzzle without using BFI have a deadline. Deadline spoiler: There’s a place to be on June 20th at 8pm. Location spoiler: In Manhattan. See the other thread for details. \*\*\* Ponder [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-is-an-enigma/498466.md?page=7)