Lanyard Puzzle

[bbuerhaus]

Anyone made any interesting observations about the lanyard yet? I'm completely stumped on this.

[megatraun]

Same... Frequency analysis doesn't appear to correlate with much, and I haven't found any of the symbols elsewhere. Various runic languages have similarities, but some characters (e.g. the first in the first block of characters) don't seem to exist anywhere that I've seen so far. I did notice that each "word" is 11 characters, and there are four words (and "four" has come up in another part of the puzzle). I'm wondering if the characters are modified versions of something where the modifications are significant.

[LosT]

There will be hints and such the closer we get to con....

[b_hackin]

my attempt at making individual runes easier to visually locate if i helps! I think some strings might need to be flipped upside down; I don't know which would be the reference. Also, since it's on a strip of cloth, I'm still keeping in mind it might be a Scytale. This is Sparta! The runes that seem to need flipping might match top to bottom if it is. The message could be spelled in the "meeting" of runes top to bottom as the cloth winds. I just didn't want to cut up my lanyard yet.

edit: the Scytale could also line up with Fiddler on the Roof as an "ancient tradition"

edit2: has anyone tried running a black light or other lighting effects over the lanyard?

edit3: has anyone tried a strobe light effect on the runes?

[megatraun]

edit2: has anyone tried running a black light or other lighting effects over the lanyard?

Cool idea, but didn't see anything with a blacklight.

[xrqz]

> something where the modifications are significant.

Or perhaps insignificant? I've heard we should study that in depth as well.

[bluebel]

Dug into the 4 character strings in the insert. Obvious things, there were 8 strings per line plus 2 extra (if you ignore the very last string). I believe that equals the number of "rune" characters on the lanyard itself. Every letter in the English alphabet appears at least twice. Perhaps someone else can glean something from the attached .pdf!

Sorry for .pdf format, can't upload .xslx or .csv ....

Edit: Not convinced anymore than # runes = # 4 character strings, alas. It would've made for a nice lead. 😔

[Dark Tangent]

Can someone post a scan of the lanyard please? I'll include it on https://media.defcon.org/DEF CON 28/

[LosT]

Can someone post a scan of the lanyard please? I'll include it on https://media.defcon.org/DEF CON 28/

Sure. Here you go!

:)

[Gingerballz]

Hey team working off b_hackin's idea to color things, I made this today. Not counting the green spacer you get 8 different characters. Flipped in the middle you get 10.....
Thanks LosT for the scan!

[0xbadf00d]

What a delicious Puzzle - Great work on the color coding it really clarifies each of the Runes/Symbols.
A couple of thoughts/observations below

4 pairs of characters screams Hex encoded IP addresses to me but we only get 144 possible symbol/orientation possibilities.

Maybe something maybe nothing...Can't wait to find out :)

[Toasty Frogg]

I wonder if there is too much rotation in your first line? While a puzzle in trinary would be wild a set of 4 symbols that are either normal or rotated 90° seems more likely.

[blak_hal0]

So here's what we have come up with that is along the same idea as you have here.
The symbol in row 1 you have there, you can rotate it 4 ways and get 4 unique symbols, which are all on the lanyard. The character in row 3 you can rotate 4 ways, get 4 unique symbols, but only 2 are on the lanyard, the character in row 2 you can only get 2 unique symbols by rotating (the other 2 rotations just give you the same symbol). That gives you 10 unique symbols which fits nicely into a possible mapping of 0-9.

[SqrrlGrl]

Row 3 can rotate 4 directions, but only 3 are used on the lanyard. The two you have shown, and then a 180 degree rotation of the first (orange) one. Depending on how you decide to read it. (ie - do you read half and rotate it to start from the other side? if not, which side do you start from? still not sure on that...)

[Gingerballz]

Good eye! I didn't think about the aspect ratio stretch / squeezed ones as being the same character! This really is a rotation cipher

[LosT]

So how is everyone tonight?

Here's some music to work by....enjoy!

[0xbadf00d]

Thank you for the tunes 1057 - I am ruminating heavily on overlaying and XOR'ing the runes so only the parts not present in the other image remain:

Something like this:

Definitely a 3-pipe problem :)

Thanks for the awesome badge this year!

[74rku5]

Ok, I'm pretty sure I'm wrong, because I'm always wrong. But if we were to start assigning the runes to something arbitrary to make it more recognizable, say, the first eight characters of the alphabet, you'll get this:



a b * c d * e d * e b

e b * a b * f d * g g

a d * b b * b b * a d

h b * b g * h g * e b

If you assigned numbers, you'd get this:



1 2 * 3 4 * 5 4 * 5 2

5 2 * 6 2 *6 4 * 7 7

14* 2 2 * 2 2 * 14

8 2 * 2 7 * 87 * 5 2


let me know if this makes you think of anything, or if you recognize my surroundings as another rabbit hole.

Thanks.

[LosT]

Why maker it arbitrary? I like your thinking....sort of....

[PunkAB]

Turn that frown upside down, 74rku5.