The Tracking Game: Operation Orbital Element

dangeRuss

https://tracking-game.reaktor.com/

Seems pretty cool. I thought a lot of people on here might be interested.

I tried for a few days, but couldn't get the first clue. Wanted to see what other people on here thought.

Kian

@dangeRuss Not at a PC so I can't code it, but the first mission gives a chunk of Base 64 encoded data, and is asking for a string of 16 bytes with no repeating characters, so it's just a matter of searching for the first (possibly only) such string after decoding. The algorithm is a bit annoying to describe on mobile, but it's easy enough.

kazitor

@dangeRuss That oneboxed image is so big I saw it in greyscale for a split second.

Tsaukpaetra

@Kian said in The Tracking Game: Operation Orbital Element:

no repeating characters

I'm having trouble with this, it's pretty vague... Does it mean no duplicate characters, or no two characters repeated in a row?

My attempt with the first assumption:

Spoiler: https://dotnetfiddle.net/9MvlYQ

I assume it is wrong...

Edit: This fiddle now contains the solution, don't click if you want to solve yourself.

MZH

@Tsaukpaetra The unique bytes are in the encoded transmission, not the original message.

Tsaukpaetra

@MZH said in The Tracking Game: Operation Orbital Element:

@Tsaukpaetra The unique bytes are in the encoded transmission, not the original message.

Right, I'm working off the decoded bytes.

Edit: Apparently there's some kind of online collab mode for this site. https://dotnetfiddle.net/9MvlYQ#&togetherjs=BusIltSTJE

Tsaukpaetra

@Tsaukpaetra said in The Tracking Game: Operation Orbital Element:

Right, I'm working off the decoded bytes.

Yeah, working off the original string un-decoded, literally every section qualifies for the "each character is unique" check...

Kian

@Tsaukpaetra said in The Tracking Game: Operation Orbital Element:

I'm having trouble with this, it's pretty vague...

I'd go with the interpretation that 16 unique values have to be in a row somewhere in the message. And relax the interpretation if I can't find that.

kazitor

Okay, having a look myself now. The message isn't even padded properly, it looks like @Tsaukpaetra had to omit the last "P"

Tsaukpaetra

@kazitor said in The Tracking Game: Operation Orbital Element:

had to omit the last "P"

It's presumably a stream that would continue onwards and was cut off abruptly.

Tsaukpaetra

@Tsaukpaetra said in The Tracking Game: Operation Orbital Element:

This fiddle now contains the solution,

I do not appreciate the vagueness of their given information. Much left up to interpretation, and you can see the different permutations attempted in order to piece it together in the commented-out portions.

Anyways, on to the next task I suppose....

kazitor

@Tsaukpaetra said in The Tracking Game: Operation Orbital Element:

@kazitor said in The Tracking Game: Operation Orbital Element:

had to omit the last "P"

It's presumably a stream that would continue onwards and was cut off abruptly.

Which is why it ends with "TRANSMIT SUCCESSFUL."

Tsaukpaetra

@kazitor said in The Tracking Game: Operation Orbital Element:

@Tsaukpaetra said in The Tracking Game: Operation Orbital Element:

@kazitor said in The Tracking Game: Operation Orbital Element:

had to omit the last "P"

It's presumably a stream that would continue onwards and was cut off abruptly.

Which is why it ends with "TRANSMIT SUCCESSFUL."

Presumably they know that the signal was within the received portion.

Tsaukpaetra

@Tsaukpaetra said in The Tracking Game: Operation Orbital Element:

the next task

Ugh, I need to flatten 3nf structured data now.

Who finds this fun???!?

kazitor

You know why it's so vague? It says "exactly 16 bytes long", but the digits in a base64 stream don't represent bytes. No wonder it's not obvious.

Anyway, python solution since we're apparently showing off our skillz

from base64 import b64decode

def is_unique(string):
    for i,c in enumerate(string):
        if c in string[i+1:]:
            return False
    return True

msg = '[copy-paste it here]'
for i in range(len(msg)-16):
    part = msg[i:i+16]
    if is_unique(part):
        print(b64decode(part))

Edit: marginally optimised!

from base64 import b64decode

msg = '[copy-paste it here]'

def is_unique(string):
    for i,c in enumerate(string):
        if c in string[i+1:]:
            return False
    return True

part = msg[:16]
i = 16

while i < len(msg):
    index = part.rfind(msg[i]) + 1
    if index == 0:
        index = 1

    part = part[index:] + msg[i : i+index]
    i += index

    if is_unique(part):
        print('found {} at {}–{}'.format(part, i-16, i-1))
        print('decoded:', b64decode(part).decode())
        # break here if you're certain there are no others

kazitor

@Tsaukpaetra said in The Tracking Game: Operation Orbital Element:

Who finds this fun???!?

It's a puzzle, and you get to use your favourite tools and existing setup.

If it weren't so unhelpfully vague, the puzzles were a little more challenging, and I had more time to devote to it, it might not be so bad.

Tsaukpaetra

@kazitor said in The Tracking Game: Operation Orbital Element:

you get to use your favourite tools and existing setup.

Fine, Excel 2003 it is!

Edit: Something tells me I've munged a little too hard on the data...

Edit Edit: Yeah, I think I did something wrong. Have a copy of my data:

trackinggame.xls

I would like to take a moment again and note how obscure and incomprehensible the instructions are. What is the nature of the input they're expecting? A date? A number?

I've done the analysis in another way (arriving at a slightly more specific number) but it didn't like that one either.

Wankers.

kazitor

@Tsaukpaetra I didn't even try that one because, in my mind, a bunch of bytes expressed in binary without any sort of format specification classifies quite definitively under "unhelpfully vague". Glad you knew enough to make something of it…

Like, what's the scenario here? "You took a bunch of measurements but accidentally expanded the bytes into ASCII and have no clue what format it was originally"?

This reminds of the sort of "challenge" I hate, where the solution comes not by thinking it through, but by guessing as many different possibilities as you can until you make something of it.

Tsaukpaetra

@kazitor said in The Tracking Game: Operation Orbital Element:

a bunch of bytes expressed in binary

Typically means someone is trying to be funny and it's just ASCII text.

My big problem is the problem definition:

How am I to "report them [dangerous anomalies] to the pipeline engineers"? Is it a number? A date? A sentence telling them "Hey, pipe #3B91 looks like it was fucked with, maybe you should check it out?" Who the fuck knows?

Assholes are bad at making puzzles...

Tsaukpaetra

@kazitor said in The Tracking Game: Operation Orbital Element:

This reminds of the sort of "challenge" I hate, where the solution comes not by thinking it through, but by guessing as many different possibilities as you can until you make something of it.

Yeah, reminds me of when we started just picking the locks in the escape room because the clues were total shit.

MrL

@Tsaukpaetra said in The Tracking Game: Operation Orbital Element:

@kazitor said in The Tracking Game: Operation Orbital Element:

This reminds of the sort of "challenge" I hate, where the solution comes not by thinking it through, but by guessing as many different possibilities as you can until you make something of it.

Yeah, reminds me of when we started just picking the locks in the escape room because the clues were total shit.

You two would get an aneurysm on some challenge sites I do.

Tsaukpaetra

@MrL said in The Tracking Game: Operation Orbital Element:

@Tsaukpaetra said in The Tracking Game: Operation Orbital Element:

@kazitor said in The Tracking Game: Operation Orbital Element:

This reminds of the sort of "challenge" I hate, where the solution comes not by thinking it through, but by guessing as many different possibilities as you can until you make something of it.

Yeah, reminds me of when we started just picking the locks in the escape room because the clues were total shit.

You two would get an aneurysm on some challenge sites I do.

Probably not...

Kian

@Tsaukpaetra said in The Tracking Game: Operation Orbital Element:

@kazitor said in The Tracking Game: Operation Orbital Element:

a bunch of bytes expressed in binary

Typically means someone is trying to be funny and it's just ASCII text.

My big problem is the problem definition:

How am I to "report them [dangerous anomalies] to the pipeline engineers"? Is it a number? A date? A sentence telling them "Hey, pipe #3B91 looks like it was fucked with, maybe you should check it out?" Who the fuck knows?

Assholes are bad at making puzzles...

You're taking the framing story too seriously. Part of the challenge is discarding the noise and focusing on what the actual thing asked is.

sockpuppet7

@dangeRuss said in The Tracking Game: Operation Orbital Element:

You'll need coding skill, nerves of steel, and a satellite.

Oh, crap, can't play it, I don't have a satellite

boomzilla

@Tsaukpaetra said in The Tracking Game: Operation Orbital Element:

I do not appreciate the vagueness of their given information. Much left up to interpretation,

This sounds too much like real life work to be a fun game to me.

kazitor

@boomzilla said, jeffing it to the "Games" category

boomzilla

@kazitor yes, most of the stuff you guys talk about in here doesn't sound like fun to me.

Tsaukpaetra

@Kian said in The Tracking Game: Operation Orbital Element:

what the actual thing asked is.

That's what I'm asking: what is being asked?

Kian

@Tsaukpaetra Ok, now that I'm actually trying to solve the first one, I understand what you mean. The only way to deliver the result is a text entry box. So my first interpretation of finding 16 unique bytes doesn't work, as its hard to know in what format exactly to deliver them. If I'm supposed to input numbers, how do I split them? How do I format them? etc.

So, I guess the entry box itself is a clue. And the fact that it's supposed to be a location can be a clue too. But yes, there's a fair bit of trial and error in breaking up the message in different ways and trying to find the solution. Which I still haven't. The box itself says "type password", so it could even be expecting gibberish, since there are not many constraints for what a password can look like.

Tsaukpaetra

@Kian said in The Tracking Game: Operation Orbital Element:

The box itself says "type password", so it could even be expecting gibberish, since there are not many constraints for what a password can look like.

Right. In the second challenge (and presuming each one thereafter) it uses the same form, so no hints there. It's whatever, and I've lost interest.

kazitor

@Kian what they ask you to do is actually completely wrong. Even though it says you're looking for 16 unique bytes, the answer comes from 16 unique base64 digits. Then you decode that, even though it's not aligned with the start of the stream.

kinggreedy

@Tsaukpaetra In the timestamp, you have timestamp ID, convert timestamp ID HEX TO DEC and you get the password. Input the password and you are done

Tsaukpaetra

@kinggreedy said in The Tracking Game: Operation Orbital Element:

you are done

Thanks for the assist, but I abandoned the challenge.

asad asdd

Anyone has any tips for formatting the password in question 3? I think my values are right, but just cant figure out how to convert them to a password

mariois

@asad-asdd i am in the same boat. i have the ids of the places not sure what to do with it. don't now if you realized but the ids are hex colors? no luck for me either

JBert

This forum's Google ranking is just too high for its own good.

Is it because of the following prize currently offered on the game's page that we've become this game's support forum?

By solving the puzzle, you have a chance to win a ticket to soldout Disobey 2020. Five winners will be randomly selected from all solvers in the beginning of January.

asad asdd

@mariois Yeah I noticed it, but actually never thought about it any deeper I have tired to form all kinds of passwords from the readingID:s, but no luck there... Getting a bit frustrated

asad asdd

@JBert Dont care about the price, just hate the fact im not able to solve the last one

mariois

@asad-asdd ok i found the solution. forget about the region ID, look at what reading Id the change in 1000 happened for that region. then all the char form a String. if you need more tips letme know