#i kind of envisioned her as a dystopian alice?

[eggs-machiavellian]

Hiii song #35

Stop the analysing

Of everything you've read

No more making nice with us

We don't want in your head

Song #35 on my Most Played: Sick to Death of Alice-ness by the original off-Broadway cast of Alice By Heart

CC:

skinblend @narsimssistic, skin details @ladysimmer94 and @faaeishccpreviews, eyes @evazetta, eyeshadow @crypticsim, eyeliner angissi, lashes @giuliettasims, dress and cage @oydis, headdress @christopher067, nails @redheadsims-cc

(couldn't find who the hair is by even though I downloaded it just yesterday! the file says N-A alice hair if that helps.)

[csmith-illustrations]

Selecting a Track

As stated at the beginning of the module I will be working to design a seven-inch album cover for one of the seven pieces of music provided. To get a vague idea at to what I could potentially explore I have discussed my initial reaction to each track, going over elements I could and forming my own narrative along with potential cover ideas.

Track 1 - "World Leader Pretend” by R.E.M

Has a very repetitive tune    getting 1990’s vibes from this track

Upon listening to it my first impression towards the narrative was that this about person is alone and is struggling with the consequences of mistake he’s made as stated by the first line of lyrics reading “I sit at my table and wage war on myself” but as the song progresses you get the sense that he is determined to go back and correct them.  He continues to mention the barrier/wall that is preventing him from progressing, and he wants to break through it alone, as highlighted by the lyrics “This is my mistake, let me make it good, I raised the wall, and I will be the one to knock it down”

Cover idea: a man facing a wall with a sledgehammer resting on his shoulder, showing that he is going to knock the wall down.

 Track 2 - "Like Eating Glass” by Bloc Party

I wasn’t fond of the lyrics, I didn’t think they made much sense and personally I didn’t think they flowed very well.

First impressions for the narrative is someone grieving from a breakup which I fathom from the lyrics “And it hurts all the time when you don't return my calls, and you haven't got the time to remember how it was” further more the use of repetition with the words “Like eating glass” and “It's so cold in this house” could be a reflection of what they are feeling internally now that they are alone without the warming touch of their partner?

 Track 3 - “Identity” by X Ray Spex

The lyrics flow nicely and there is a lot of repetition which makes it kind of catchy, this also provides a clear idea as to what the narrative/message could be, which I read as being about the issues with self-identity and the labels we are given. If this is the case then the use of the lyrics “When you look in the mirror do you smash it quick, do you take the glass and slash your wrists” leads me to think that this person hates them self, however this doesn’t match up with the positive and upbeat rhythm.

Cover idea: broken mirror fragments with different people reflected in each one, showing how it could be anyone who is struggling with who they are.

 Track 4 - "Planet Hunter” by Wolf Alice

There is something uplifting but also a little tragic about the tune which I like, it’s the closest thing from the list that I would see myself listening to. The lyrics “a brave deviator?” suggests this this about someone who is alone and searching for a place to belong. I get a dystopian cyberpunk vibe from it which is more of a theme I’m into.

Cover idea: a wanted sign but with a picture of a planet as appose to a person, playing of the title “Planet Hunter”

 Track 5 - “The Magic” by Joan As Police Woman

I enjoyed the rhythm of this song, think there’s something uplifting and motivational about it. I’m struggling to identify the narrative but throughout I noted some emphasis on this person’s mentality, specifically with the lyrics “release me from my maze I am makin myself” which to me suggests that this person is losing touch with who they once were. However, with that said the lyrics that stood out to me the most where “the shadow inside of me Is begging for direction to illicit city”. Now since illicit also means forbidden/illegal it could be that this person is living a double life, maybe the temptation and rush of being unlawful is too much to resist, and they are slowly losing themselves in a metaphorical maze, thus hoping for magic to set her free?

Perhaps there is a split personality thing going on with the shadow being a dark reflection of them?

The song also questions “am I a Leviathan?” which is usually associated with an aquatic sea monster although it also refers to anything that is incredibly large or powerful, again this builds on the idea that temptation to be bad is to great.

Cover idea: someone looking awkward and uncomfortable standing against a wall with there shadow projecting across it, the shadow could then be altered to reflect the rebel inside of them. To emphasise the magic element I could do a hooded lady holding a crystal ball (all seeing eye)

 Track 6 - “Trash” by Suede

I’m not sure why but the rhythm reminded me of Christmas music, which isn’t a bad thing, but this clearly isn’t seasonal music. This has some fun-loving element to it which makes me think of a young group of friends who are making the most of life and trying to enjoy every moment. With this in mind I get a bohemian/hippie vibe from it, painting the image of traveling, free spirited people.

 Track 7 - “Love and Death” by Ebo Taylor

The beat to this song feels tranquil and relaxing, and makes me envision traveling abroad to a beach resort, I’m definitely getting an Hawaiian island vibe with the image of someone laying on the beech under the moon light next to a fire.

[neptunecreek]

EFF's DEF CON 27 T-Shirt Puzzle

At Hacker Summer Camp 2019, EFF unveiled our 10th-annual limited edition member shirt—available only during the three-day event, and inspired by the DEF CON theme of Technology’s Promise: “a break from the dystopian imagery into a major-key, blue-sky thoughtscape, full of color and light...a future where we have tamed some of the more intractable problems that plague us in the present, where technology supports and inspires instead of controlling and surveilling.” We took cues from the DEF CON 27 Theme Guide, an illustrated ePub detailing thought exercises, media that inspired the theme, and color/style breakdowns. The theme was heavily influenced by the French comic artist Moebius’ piece entitled Alice, a piece that envisions “a future where tech lives up to our highest hopes.”

Shirt Design

EFF’s shirt design is an homage to Moebius, including artwork of a user in a digital future where the downsides of technology have been overcome. She's got a flying machine that is so efficient that it doesn't require her attention; she's got a vintage laptop from the early 21st century that still works thanks to the interoperability of her systems; she can communicate freely, using archaic Morse code, thanks to strong encryption on all of her devices; and of course, she has the ability to change her hair color at will.

As in previous years, we’ve included a secret puzzle built into the design of our exclusive member shirt as a special thanks for the clever, curious EFFers who support our work. Read on for a breakdown of the puzzle design and a walkthrough of the puzzle elements. Or, try to solve it yourself! The puzzle can be found at https://www.eff.org/shr/ and will be available through September 30th. After the 30th, the puzzle can be found on the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine.

Puzzle Design

We established a technological utopia in our shirt design, and used only one rule to create a fantasy world map of this future: draw like Moebius. With this rule in mind, we wondered - what was under the clouds in the shirt design? Where would this user park her flying machine? We gathered reference materials to inspire us, and studied Le Monde d'Edena to capture Moebius’ distinct architectural and landscape style. We wanted the fantasy map to draw players into the world, where they would get lost in the tiny paths and buildings of this utopian civilization, eventually finding doors and hidden passages to the elements of the puzzle.

Printable version of EFF's DEF CON 27 puzzle map

Puzzle Walkthrough

Players access the puzzle via the morse code URL on the screen of the intrepid user in our shirt design (. ..-. ..-. .-.-.- --- .-. --. -..-. ... .... .-.). After arriving on the website, mousing over the map reveals glowing links in four different locations. The tower holds the final goal, which can only be deciphered after solving the other three puzzles. We decided to make progression through the puzzle non-linear this year in order to facilitate collaboration, and to give solvers time to do other DEF CON activities in between working on the EFF puzzle.

Knitting

The “first” puzzle can be found by hovering over the entrance to the palace. The page displays a knitting pattern in chart form. Knitting was chosen as a theme due to the history of women using knit fabrics for “steganography”—to hold concealed messages in times of war, particularly World War I. We also wanted to highlight skill sets not often represented in the cybersecurity space—someone familiar with knitting can immediately recognize something wrong with this pattern. There are entire rows of open circles, the symbol for a “yarn over” (skipping a stitch to create a hole), which doesn’t make sense. Inspecting the pattern reveals a hint, however: “the yarn overs are blanks”. Here are some examples of common patterns—you can compare to see the difference.

If you aren’t familiar with knitting, searching “yarn over” and identifying the symbol is the first step to solving this puzzle. The next is recognizing that the page title “SOS” is hinting at more morse code. Looking at the image, there are three different kinds of rows: all knits (blank squares), all purls (filled circles), and all yarn overs. We already know that the yarn overs are blanks from the hint, so that means trying the pattern in two ways: one with the knits as dots, and one as dashes. The correct method is converting knits to dots, which gives the morse code string “.-- .- -. -.. . .-.” which translates to “wander”.

“ASCII” Art

The next puzzle’s page is a throwback to an older Internet era, and is located at the docks tunnel. The page contains (mostly) ASCII art, like the following header that was used in EFF’s EFFector mailings (if you haven’t signed up to receive them, you can do so here):

There are a few different ways to identify where the puzzle is on this page: noticing that the whitespace is off in some of the images, such as the computer, or by taking a closer look at the characters in the pieces themselves. Looking at the character codes, the non-ASCII character U+2800, a braille space, can be found in place of a standard ASCII space 32. A hint in the page reads: “the distribution doesn’t matter”— clueing the solver into the idea that the order of the braille spaces within the art doesn’t hold the solution. Using a script to count the occurrences of U+2800 in each art piece gives the following: ”99 101 112 104 97 108 111 112 111 100”, which are ASCII codepoints for “cephalopod”.

If you’re curious, check out the script used to encode the braille. You can count the characters with the following line of ruby, where the text is a single piece of art:

`text.count("\u2800").chr`

Syzygy

The third puzzle, found in the entrance to the temple, consists of this image:

The first hint towards solving this puzzle is in the URL: “5y2y6y” is “leetcode” for “syzygy”, which is a phenomenon where many celestial bodies (at least three) are collinear in the same gravitational system. The image, keeping with the theme of exploration, shows an imagined system of planets. The answer to the puzzle comes from the first number of rotation steps where the planets will all align under the arrow. There are a number of ways to find this number. The number is small enough that you can write a program to brute force the answer. Or, since the periods of the planets are relatively prime, you can use the Chinese remainder theorem. The first full syzygy of this planetary setup is at step 74800, or leetcode for “taboo”.

Final Puzzle

The last puzzle, located at the top of the tower, simply displays:

Inspecting the page gives the hint “O(ne) T(rue) P(airing)”, a reference to the one time pad cipher, a relatively old message encryption technique that is difficult to crack as long as the key is random, as long or longer than the plaintext, never reused, and kept secret. A tool like this one can be used to decrypt the text, or the adventurous can read about one time pads and try their hand at translating it themselves. The key to this one time pad is “wandercephalopodtaboo”, a combination of the answers from the three other puzzles. Using this key to decrypt the ciphertext translates it from “oerbslutpjenclprr” to  “seeyouspacecowboy”, marking the completion of the puzzle!

Winners

The winners of this year’s puzzle are @aaronsteimle,  @_pseudoku, and @0xCryptoK! Their team members also solved our 2013, 2015, 2017, and 2018 DEF CON shirt puzzles.

Thank you to everyone who came by the booth to say hello, donated, and played through our puzzle! Creating this interactive art for our supporters is one of the highlights of our year, and we could not do it without you. If you’d like to support our work, consider becoming a member—and don’t forget to stop by the booth next year.

Until next time: “See you, space cowboy.”

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