https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/api.php?action=feedcontributions&user=173.245.54.8&feedformat=atomexplain xkcd - User contributions [en]2024-03-28T13:13:09ZUser contributionsMediaWiki 1.30.0https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1187:_Aspect_Ratio&diff=1094071187: Aspect Ratio2016-01-18T02:45:20Z<p>173.245.54.8: /* Transcript */</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 1187<br />
| date = March 18, 2013<br />
| title = Aspect Ratio<br />
| image = aspect ratio.png<br />
| titletext = I'm always disappointed when 'Anamorphic Widescreen' doesn't refer to a widescreen Animorphs movie.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
Aspect ratio is the relationship between the width and height of the image (and in this case, a video) and is denoted in a ratio of <width>:<height> - usually either in lowest common denominator, or with a decimal width to a height of "1". Up until the 1990s, all televisions and most computer monitors (CRT tube and LCD) were in the standard 4:3 aspect ratio, called "fullscreen" (meaning the width is 4/3 or 1.33... times the height). When HDTV was developed, the standard for television screens changed to 16:9 (width being 16/9 or 1.77... times the height), called "widescreen" (although widescreen can also refer to a number of even wider ratios used in feature films). Computer monitors are now available in widescreen ratios, though fullscreen remains common as well.<br />
<br />
Letterboxing is a process whereby an image which does not fully fill a screen is expanded to fill the screen by the addition of further material (mattes). Usually this is done with the addition of black bars in the empty space. One example of why this was necessary was widescreen films on VHS cassette. VHS could only record and play back 4:3 images. Thus, in order to display a widescreen film, the rest of the VHS's 4:3 image had to be filled with horizontal black bars at the top and bottom of the image. Those bars were part of the video information recorded on the cassette.<br />
<br />
When DVDs were introduced, many DVDs also had letterbox bars on the DVD's full screen image. With the increased popularity of widescreen televisions, DVD players were improved to offer {{w|anamorphic widescreen}}, in which the full widescreen image is horizontally rescaled (shrunk) into a 4:3 size, which the player then was able to display stretched horizontally back to the proper widescreen aspect.<br />
<br />
With the advent of Blu-ray, video is generally encoded in whatever its proper aspect ratio is intended to be, and the player itself is left to appropriately matte the image.<br />
<br />
The problem with letterboxed video (such as a 16:9 video letterboxed for 4:3) is that if one tries to watch the video on a 16:9 widescreen, where the image ''should'' fill the whole screen, instead the 4:3 letterboxed image fills part of the screen with further vertical mattes on the left and right of the image, thus producing an image much smaller than it needs to be, with mattes on all four sides. Some TVs or media players can zoom to help resolve the issue, although the video resolution usually suffers. By encoding only the video itself and allowing the player to do the matting, the video can be seen as large as possible on any given screen.<br />
<br />
''{{w|Animorphs}}'' is a late-90's to early-00's young adult book series about shape-shifting teens who turn into animals to fight body-snatching aliens. Sony held the rights to create a film, but never made use of them, beyond creating URLs for a proposed movie on December 11, 2012.<br />
<br />
In this comic, Randall appears to be complaining about the issue of widescreen videos which have been rescaled to 4:3 by adding mattes to the top and bottom and uploaded on sites like YouTube. He is probably annoyed by the fact that on his widescreen monitor, TV or mobile device, the video (as noted above) does not fill the screen because of the letterboxing. In some cases, uploaders also take video and rescale it to the point where the image is improperly compressed horizontally or vertically, even without letterboxing. This is more akin to the car crushing Randall depicts in the comic.<br />
<br />
A note is that, if someone managed to "expand" the car, the car would not be "un-crushed" and probably even weakened even more, referencing the bigger damage done when letterboxed video is attempted to be "expanded" to its original ratio, distorting the video quality.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:[A car is crushed in a large black clamp.]<br />
:Whenever someone uploads a letterboxed 16:9 video rescaled to 4:3, I do this to their car.<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
[[Category:Animorphs]]</div>173.245.54.8https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1187:_Aspect_Ratio&diff=1094061187: Aspect Ratio2016-01-18T02:44:46Z<p>173.245.54.8: /* Transcript */</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 1187<br />
| date = March 18, 2013<br />
| title = Aspect Ratio<br />
| image = aspect ratio.png<br />
| titletext = I'm always disappointed when 'Anamorphic Widescreen' doesn't refer to a widescreen Animorphs movie.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
Aspect ratio is the relationship between the width and height of the image (and in this case, a video) and is denoted in a ratio of <width>:<height> - usually either in lowest common denominator, or with a decimal width to a height of "1". Up until the 1990s, all televisions and most computer monitors (CRT tube and LCD) were in the standard 4:3 aspect ratio, called "fullscreen" (meaning the width is 4/3 or 1.33... times the height). When HDTV was developed, the standard for television screens changed to 16:9 (width being 16/9 or 1.77... times the height), called "widescreen" (although widescreen can also refer to a number of even wider ratios used in feature films). Computer monitors are now available in widescreen ratios, though fullscreen remains common as well.<br />
<br />
Letterboxing is a process whereby an image which does not fully fill a screen is expanded to fill the screen by the addition of further material (mattes). Usually this is done with the addition of black bars in the empty space. One example of why this was necessary was widescreen films on VHS cassette. VHS could only record and play back 4:3 images. Thus, in order to display a widescreen film, the rest of the VHS's 4:3 image had to be filled with horizontal black bars at the top and bottom of the image. Those bars were part of the video information recorded on the cassette.<br />
<br />
When DVDs were introduced, many DVDs also had letterbox bars on the DVD's full screen image. With the increased popularity of widescreen televisions, DVD players were improved to offer {{w|anamorphic widescreen}}, in which the full widescreen image is horizontally rescaled (shrunk) into a 4:3 size, which the player then was able to display stretched horizontally back to the proper widescreen aspect.<br />
<br />
With the advent of Blu-ray, video is generally encoded in whatever its proper aspect ratio is intended to be, and the player itself is left to appropriately matte the image.<br />
<br />
The problem with letterboxed video (such as a 16:9 video letterboxed for 4:3) is that if one tries to watch the video on a 16:9 widescreen, where the image ''should'' fill the whole screen, instead the 4:3 letterboxed image fills part of the screen with further vertical mattes on the left and right of the image, thus producing an image much smaller than it needs to be, with mattes on all four sides. Some TVs or media players can zoom to help resolve the issue, although the video resolution usually suffers. By encoding only the video itself and allowing the player to do the matting, the video can be seen as large as possible on any given screen.<br />
<br />
''{{w|Animorphs}}'' is a late-90's to early-00's young adult book series about shape-shifting teens who turn into animals to fight body-snatching aliens. Sony held the rights to create a film, but never made use of them, beyond creating URLs for a proposed movie on December 11, 2012.<br />
<br />
In this comic, Randall appears to be complaining about the issue of widescreen videos which have been rescaled to 4:3 by adding mattes to the top and bottom and uploaded on sites like YouTube. He is probably annoyed by the fact that on his widescreen monitor, TV or mobile device, the video (as noted above) does not fill the screen because of the letterboxing. In some cases, uploaders also take video and rescale it to the point where the image is improperly compressed horizontally or vertically, even without letterboxing. This is more akin to the car crushing Randall depicts in the comic.<br />
<br />
A note is that, if someone managed to "expand" the car, the car would not be "un-crushed" and probably even weakened even more, referencing the bigger damage done when letterboxed video is attempted to be "expanded" to its original ratio, distorting the video quality.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:[A cat is crushed in a large black clamp.]<br />
:Whenever someone uploads a letterboxed 16:9 video rescaled to 4:3, I do this to their cat.<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
[[Category:Animorphs]]</div>173.245.54.8https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:590:_Papyrus&diff=108907Talk:590: Papyrus2016-01-08T21:24:54Z<p>173.245.54.8: </p>
<hr />
<div>For reasons that should be obvious, I've put the whole page in a certain much-hated font. *Cackles maniacally.* [[User:PinkAmpersand|PinkAmpersand]] ([[User talk:PinkAmpersand|talk]]) 11:15, 14 May 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
:I rather doubt whether this is really helpful. In my opinion, the purpose of this wiki is to deliver background information about the comics, not to ruminate its jokes. Besides, the page uses some Serif font for me (as I do not have Papyrus installed) which is stylistically inconsistent. If we should reach consent that this page MUST absolutely be in Papyrus, we should at least provide some appropriate fallback font. [[User:LotharW|LotharW]] ([[User talk:LotharW|talk]]) 12:46, 14 May 2013 (UTC)<br />
::[[1167: Star Trek into Darkness]] '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 13:04, 14 May 2013 (UTC)<br />
:::I must say I do not particularly like that page either. I think it looks childish and nonserious. Also, a second example does not necessarily justify the first. But as you see, I did not revert or change anything. If it be so, we should at least do it correctly. In the current state, the page looks simply strange to anyone who does not have the font. (As far as I know, it was included only in some versions of Microsoft Office.) Does anybody know whether the license allows web embedding? [[User:LotharW|LotharW]] ([[User talk:LotharW|talk]]) 13:54, 14 May 2013 (UTC)<br />
Over the years I have grown a hatred towards Papyrus because it's so overused, so this comic resonated with me well. But then this week I watched Firefly and Serenity which are now both my favorite TV show and movie, and they use Papyrus. I know Randall also loves them. But now I have no idea how I should feel about the font, as I would be rather hypocritical to hate the font used so heavily in my favorite show and movie. [[User:Keavon|Keavon]] ([[User talk:Keavon|talk]]) 01:48, 1 December 2014 (UTC)<br />
<br />
I feel the same way about the "Algerian" font. The most over used business sign font ever. {{unsigned ip|173.245.54.195}}<br />
<br />
NYEH HEH HEH! -Pennpenn [[Special:Contributions/108.162.250.162|108.162.250.162]] 04:06, 4 December 2015 (UTC)<br />
<br />
My Favorite font is Comic Sans :)</div>173.245.54.8https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=37:_Hyphen&diff=10872237: Hyphen2016-01-05T23:31:09Z<p>173.245.54.8: /* Explanation */</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 37<br />
| date = October 28, 2005<br />
| title = Hyphen<br />
| image = hyphen.jpg<br />
| titletext = I do this constantly<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
This is the first "[[My Hobby]]" comic in ''[[xkcd]]''. In these comics, [[Randall]] suggests an obscure activity or pastime he enjoys which he declares as his "hobby". In the premiere "My Hobby" comic, Randall's hobby is mentally re-interpreting what people mean when they say "[adjective]-ass [noun]" by moving the hyphen to after the word "ass" instead of before.<br />
<br />
The semi-{{Wiktionary|scatological}} suffix "-ass" is used as an intensifier in informal US English speech, usually attached to an adjective directly modifying a noun, as in "big-ass car" or "funny-ass comedian". In this comic, [[Cueball]] is exploring the increased humor aspect of changing "-ass" from a suffix modifying the adjective, to "ass-", a prefix modifying the noun, yielding a "big ass-car" or a "funny ass-comedian", the former presumably being a large car for carrying buttocks, the latter being a humorous comedian specializing in jokes about lower backs. The prefix "ass-" may also have a negative connotation, indicating that something is disliked. An "ass-car" may be a very terrible car, for example.<br />
<br />
Another explanation would be that, since this suffix/prefix refers to an element of human anatomy, the car would be in the shape of said anatomical piece.<br />
<br />
Outside of North America, most English speakers use "arse" to mean the buttocks, so to them it may sound as if Randall's talking about Donkeys.<br />
<br />
On an interesting note; there '''really is''' such a thing as an [[Wikipedia:ASS (car)|Ass-Car]]!<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:[Cueball is talking to his Cueball-like friend about a car that resembles a Volkswagen Beetle. Above the drawing is a statment:]<br />
:My hobby: whenever anyone calls something an [adjective]-ass [noun], I mentally move the hyphen one word to the right.<br />
<br />
:Cueball: Man, that's a sweet ass-car.<br />
<br />
==Trivia==<br />
*This was the 25th comic originally posted to [[LiveJournal]].<br />
**The previous was [[23: T-shirts]].<br />
**The next was [[25: Barrel - Part 4]].<br />
*Original title: "Friday's Drawing - Hyphen"<br />
**After a series of comics with no real title, only the week day as a heading, he began again, with this one, to add a titles, but only after stating the week day.<br />
**He kept this practice with including the title after the weekday, until he began using the xkcd site - see [[45: Schrodinger#Trivia|this trivia]].<br />
***Except the next Barrel comic, without no added title.<br />
***And the last Barrel comic [[31: Barrel - Part 5| Barrel - Part 5]] with the original title but not the week day.<br />
*Original [[Randall]] quote: "Tune in Monday for the conclusion to the story of the boy and his barrel."<br />
**The next comic on Monday really wasn't the conclusion of the [[:Category:Barrel|barrel story]] as mentioned above.<br />
**This is the first, and probably last time, that Randall has used a quote/[[Title text|title text]] to advertise the next comic.<br />
*This comic was posted on [[xkcd]] when the web site opened on Sunday the 1st of January 2006.<br />
**It was posted along [[:Category:First day on xkcd|with all 41 comics]] posted before that on LiveJournal as well as a few others.<br />
**The latter explaining why the numbers of these 41 LiveJournal comics ranges from 1-44.<br />
*One of the original drawings drawn on [[:Category:Checkered paper|checkered paper]].<br />
*This is one of the two comics featured in ''[[Blue Eyes]]: The Hardest Logic Puzzle in the World'', the other being [[82: Frame]].<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:Comics posted on livejournal| 25]]<br />
[[Category:First day on xkcd]]<br />
[[Category:Checkered paper]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]<br />
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]<br />
[[Category:My Hobby]]<br />
[[Category:Language]]</div>173.245.54.8https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=34:_Flowers&diff=10872134: Flowers2016-01-05T23:28:20Z<p>173.245.54.8: /* Explanation */</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 34<br />
| date = November 9, 2005<br />
| title = Flowers<br />
| image = flowers.jpg<br />
| titletext = This is actually pencil on paper, just inverted and colored<br />
}}<br />
==Explanation==<br />
This is a drawing of flowers that [[Randall]] made. It seems the flowers are based on his imagination, rather than being a real species - see the original quote in the [[#Trivia|trivia]] section.<br />
<br />
The title text explains that Randall originally drew the flowers in pencil on normal paper. He thus did not paint them. Instead he used the invert feature of a photo-editing program to reverse it from black-on-white to white-on-black. After that he added color to the flowers.<br />
<br />
==Trivia==<br />
As noted in the title text, the original drawing for the comic was made in pencil, then inverted and colored. The image below is a re-inverted, desaturated version of the comic, which gives a good approximation of what the original drawing might have looked like.<br />
<br />
[[File:flowers_inverted.jpeg|200px|thumb|left|Inverted and desaturated version of the comic.]]<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:[A sketch of flowers, drawn in green, red and yellow on a black background.]<br />
<br />
==Trivia==<br />
*This was the 30th comic originally posted to [[LiveJournal]].<br />
**The previous was [[30: Donner]].<br />
**The next was [[29: Hitler]]. <br />
*Original title: "Wednesday's Drawing - Flowers"<br />
*Original [[Randall]] quote: <br />
::"Original drawing is pencil on {{w|graph paper}}. <br />
::Bonus points if you can identify the flowers. 'cause I sure can't."<br />
*This comic was posted on [[xkcd]] when the web site opened on Sunday the 1st of January 2006.<br />
**It was posted along [[:Category:First day on xkcd|with all 41 comics]] posted before that on LiveJournal as well as a few others.<br />
**The latter explaining why the numbers of these 41 LiveJournal comics ranges from 1-44.<br />
<br />
{{Comic discussion}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:Comics posted on livejournal| 30]]<br />
[[Category:First day on xkcd]]<br />
[[Category:Checkered paper]]<br />
[[Category:Comics with color]]<br />
[[Category:Comics with inverted brightness]]</div>173.245.54.8https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1609:_Food_Combinations&diff=1067451609: Food Combinations2015-12-10T21:54:35Z<p>173.245.54.8: Proper Conjunctions</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 1609<br />
| date = November 27, 2015<br />
| title = Food Combinations<br />
| image = food_combinations.png<br />
| titletext = If anyone tries this on you, the best reply is a deadpan "Oh yeah, that's a common potato chip flavor in Canada."<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
[http://www.rd.com/funny/21-weird-food-combinations-and-obsessions/ Unusual food combinations] are often counter-intuitive and can vary wildly by individual taste. Real-world examples of unusual food pairings, such as [http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/24/dining/making-a-meal-out-of-peanut-butter-and-pickles.html pickles and peanut butter], French fries in chocolate shake, or even the comfort-food pairing of {{w|chicken and waffles}}, pair sweet, sour, or salty foods with a food or condiment from a different group. In many "normal" food pairings, though, the cross-over between sweet, savory and salty foods also exists, such as ketchup, a very sweet condiment being regularly applied to hamburgers and French fries, both savory and salty foods.<br />
<br />
In this comic, [[Randall]] lists twelve somewhat random food items. Below these [[Megan]] delivers a line to [[Ponytail]] and [[Cueball]] where she claims that two items of food from the list above (pick any) would be a great combination. Some of these are obviously great together (and much depends on personal taste) but many combination will definitely not be enjoyed by ''most'' people living for instance in the US (where Randall is situated). Say ketchup and ice cream or hot chocolate and avocado. But no matter which two Megan chooses the response from Cueball (or anyone else) would be the same - he can see what she means with this combination.<br />
<br />
Randall suggests, in the caption below, that by using the right tone of voice, you can put any pair of these food items together as an "actually really good" food combination, and no one will challenge you on it. This can either be because they have likely heard, or tried other unexpected combinations that are highly recommended or liked. But it could also just be because they are polite, or did not really think about what you said due to your tone of voice. Cueball's agreement could also be due to some social pressure in this situation, the same reason he will drink beer even though he does not enjoy the taste, as in [[1534: Beer]]. Or maybe they are like {{w|Joey Tribbiani|Joey}} from {{w|Friends}} who love any combination of food, as long as it is something he think is good by itself - see [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSFgDZJVYbo this clip].<br />
<br />
The title text extends the joke by recommending countering such a bizarre proposal with an assertion that the random pairing announced is an actual potato chip flavor popular in Canada. This plays on the fact that in different countries and regions, cultural tastes can vary wildly. For instance, [http://www.buzzfeed.com/tanyachen/americans-taste-canadian-ketchup-all-dressed-chips ketchup flavored potato chips] are quite popular in Canada, but are almost never offered in US markets. {{w|Loblaws}} and {{w|Lay's}} have run potato chips flavor competition in Canada in 2013-15 with flavors such as Maple Moose, Bacon Poutine, Jalapeño Mac N' Cheese, Cowboy BBQ Beans. Similar strange combinations of potato chips are run, either temporarily or permanently, in other countries including the [http://www.bbcamerica.com/anglophenia/2013/04/british-crisps/ United Kingdom]. In addition, some parts of Canada are used as experimental markets to test new flavors of potato chips.<br />
<br />
===Table of traditional pairings===<br />
*There are 12 items and they can be combined in a total of 66 different ways.<br />
**The 66 fields above the blue fields are the same as those below - of course it does not matter which order you put them in.<br />
*As of writing this 24 of these 66 has been made green (aka being tasty) (36,4%).<br />
**But this has much to do with individual taste.<br />
**Since the comic is made in the US, it should mainly be combinations that are common in the US.<br />
**Also remember that even though you personally may not like avocado or relish (etc.), all food items on on the list are something that many people enjoy eating.<br />
**They are thus NOT disgusting!<br />
**Do not take personal taste into account when changing the list below!<br />
<br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
|+ Traditional pairings found in the list of combinations<br />
!<br />
! Ice Cream<br />
! Ham<br />
! Relish<br />
! Pancakes<br />
! Ketchup<br />
! Cheese<br />
! Eggs<br />
! Cupcakes<br />
! Sour Cream<br />
! Hot Chocolate<br />
! Avocado<br />
! Skittles<br />
|-<br />
| {{w|Ice Cream}}<br />
| style="background-color:#748cff;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#FF748C;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#FF748C;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#8CFF74;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#FF748C;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#FF748C;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#FF748C;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#8CFF74;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#FF748C;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#8CFF74;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#FF748C;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#8CFF74;"| <br />
|-<br />
| {{w|Ham}}<br />
| style="background-color:#FF748C;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#748cff;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#8CFF74;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#8CFF74;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#8CFF74;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#8CFF74;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#8CFF74;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#FF748C;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#FF748C;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#FF748C;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#8CFF74;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#FF748C;"| <br />
|-<br />
| {{w|Relish}}<br />
| style="background-color:#FF748C;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#8CFF74;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#748cff;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#FF748C;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#8CFF74;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#8CFF74;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#8CFF74;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#FF748C;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#FF748C;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#FF748C;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#FF748C;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#FF748C;"| <br />
|-<br />
| {{w|Pancakes}}<br />
| style="background-color:#8CFF74;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#8CFF74;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#FF748C;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#748cff;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#FF748C;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#8CFF74;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#8CFF74;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#FF748C;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#8CFF74;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#8CFF74;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#FF748C;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#FF748C;"| <br />
|-<br />
| {{w|Ketchup}}<br />
| style="background-color:#FF748C;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#8CFF74;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#8CFF74;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#FF748C;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#748cff;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#8CFF74;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#8CFF74;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#FF748C;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#FF748C;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#FF748C;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#FF748C;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#FF748C;"| <br />
|-<br />
| {{w|Cheese}}<br />
| style="background-color:#FF748C;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#8CFF74;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#8CFF74;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#8CFF74;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#8CFF74;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#748cff;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#8CFF74;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#FF748C;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#8CFF74;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#FF748C;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#8CFF74;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#FF748C;"| <br />
|-<br />
| {{w|Egg (food)|Eggs}}<br />
| style="background-color:#FF748C;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#8CFF74;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#8CFF74;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#8CFF74;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#8CFF74;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#8CFF74;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#748cff;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#FF748C;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#8CFF74;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#FF748C;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#8CFF74;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#FF748C;"| <br />
|-<br />
| {{w|Cupcakes}}<br />
| style="background-color:#8CFF74;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#FF748C;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#FF748C;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#FF748C;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#FF748C;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#FF748C;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#FF748C;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#748cff;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#8CFF74;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#8CFF74;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#FF748C;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#8CFF74;"| <br />
|-<br />
| {{w|Sour Cream}}<br />
| style="background-color:#FF748C;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#FF748C;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#FF748C;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#8CFF74;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#FF748C;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#8CFF74;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#8CFF74;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#8CFF74;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#748cff;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#FF748C;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#8CFF74;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#FF748C;"| <br />
|-<br />
| {{w|Hot Chocolate}}<br />
| style="background-color:#8CFF74;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#FF748C;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#FF748C;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#8CFF74;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#FF748C;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#FF748C;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#FF748C;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#8CFF74;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#FF748C;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#748cff;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#FF748C;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#FF748C;"| <br />
|-<br />
| {{w|Avocado}}<br />
| style="background-color:#FF748C;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#8CFF74;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#FF748C;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#FF748C;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#FF748C;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#8CFF74;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#8CFF74;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#FF748C;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#8CFF74;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#FF748C;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#748cff;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#FF748C;"| <br />
|-<br />
| {{w|Skittles (confectionery)|Skittles}}<br />
| style="background-color:#8CFF74;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#FF748C;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#FF748C;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#FF748C;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#FF748C;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#FF748C;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#FF748C;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#8CFF74;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#FF748C;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#FF748C;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#FF748C;"| <br />
| style="background-color:#748cff;"| <br />
|}<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:[Megan is talking with Ponytail and Cueball, who has his hand to his chin. Above them in 4x3 black boxes different kind of food is written in white text].<br />
<br />
:{| class="wikitable"<br />
|style="background-color:black;"| <font color="white">Ice cream</font><br />
|style="background-color:black;"| <font color="white">Ham</font><br />
|style="background-color:black;"| <font color="white">Relish</font><br />
|-<br />
|style="background-color:black;"| <font color="white">Pancakes</font><br />
|style="background-color:black;"| <font color="white">Ketchup</font><br />
|style="background-color:black;"| <font color="white">Cheese</font><br />
|-<br />
|style="background-color:black;"| <font color="white">Eggs</font><br />
|style="background-color:black;"| <font color="white">Cupcakes</font><br />
|style="background-color:black;"| <font color="white">Sour cream</font><br />
|-<br />
|style="background-color:black;"| <font color="white">Hot chocolate</font><br />
|style="background-color:black;"| <font color="white">Avocado</font><br />
|style="background-color:black;"| <font color="white">Skittles</font><br />
|}<br />
<br />
:Megan: You know what's actually really good?<br />
:Megan: ____ and ____.<br />
:<font color="white">Megan:</font> food <font color="white">and</font> food<br />
<br />
:Cueball: Huh. I Guess I can see it.<br />
<br />
:[Caption below the panel.]<br />
:Fun fact: if you say "you know what's actually really good?" in the right tone of voice, you can name any two individually-good foods here and no one will challenge you one it.<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]<br />
[[Category:Fun fact]]</div>173.245.54.8https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1595:_30_Days_Hath_September&diff=1043001595: 30 Days Hath September2015-11-01T03:15:17Z<p>173.245.54.8: /* Explanation */</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 1595<br />
| date = October 26, 2015<br />
| title = 30 Days Hath September<br />
| image = 30_days_hath_september.png<br />
| titletext = There's a cool mental calculation hack I recently learned for this: If you open the calendar app on your phone or computer, the highest-numbered box along the bottom is equal to the number of days in the month!<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{w|Thirty days hath September}} is a {{w|mnemonic}} frequently used to remember how many days each month has in the Gregorian calendar. [[Cueball]] is reciting the mnemonic trying to figure out how many days October has. This comic was released during the last week of October (the 26th) where it becomes increasingly important to know if there are 30 or 31 days in the month. However, he seems unable to concentrate on reciting the poem correctly, keeping track of which months the poem has named and keeping in mind the specific month he was interested in, so by the time he finishes the poem he is unsure whether October was in the list of 30-day months or not. So he starts over again with the same result every single time, as can be seen from the caption below the frame. It seems he also get stuck in all the other months disregarding if it is one of the month mentioned in the mnemonic.<br />
<br />
There are numerous versions of the mnemonic, some of which rhyme better, but this version is one of the more common ones.<br />
<br />
In the caption, [[Randall]] states that this happens to him every month. It's assumed that, after a number of iterations with the poem, he eventually remembers the months correctly and figures out the number of days in the current month, which he then remembers until the month changes and forces him to resort to the mnemonic again.<br />
<br />
The title text is a parody of {{w|life hacking}}, and suggests just looking up on one's computer's calendar how many days there are in each month, with the punchline disguised by over-explaining the process of the "cool mental calculation hack" (even though there's nothing even remotely resembling a mental calculation in checking a calendar). The joke is that the mnemonic is supposed to be the real "cool mental calculation hack" which saves a lot of effort, but it is really just describing the mundane method of checking your calendar. This is similar to [[1567: Kitchen Tips]]. There is also a joke that he is unsure if there are 31 days in October, although Halloween is a largely celebrated holiday on the 31st.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:[Cueball is thinking.]<br />
:Cueball: Thirty days hath September, April, June and November<br />
:Cueball: All the rest have 31—except February, which has 28, and leap year makes it 29.<br />
:Cueball: Wait, which month was I listening for? Oh right, October.<br />
:Cueball: Did I say "October" in there? Now I can't remember.<br />
:Cueball: 30 days hath September...<br />
<br />
:I get stuck in this loop every month.<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]</div>173.245.54.8https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:1339:_When_You_Assume&diff=62747Talk:1339: When You Assume2014-03-15T02:59:01Z<p>173.245.54.8: I always like to respond with "... Or you make A SUM out of M and E" just to be different.</p>
<hr />
<div>This explanation is most certainly correct. A quick google search will prove as much. [[User:ImVeryAngryItsNotButter|ImVeryAngryItsNotButter]] ([[User talk:ImVeryAngryItsNotButter|talk]]) 15:19, 8 March 2014 (UTC)<br />
<br />
[[User:Tesshavon|Tesshavon]] ([[User talk:Tesshavon|talk]]) 09:11, 7 March 2014 (UTC) this is a direct reference to the popular saying 'When you ASSUME, you make an ASS out of U and ME'.<br />
:: My donkey is behind a donkey, I am behind my donkey, my entire country is behind me! [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.7|141.101.99.7]] 05:20, 9 March 2014 (UTC) <br />
<br />
I'm not a native English speaker, and I'm just curious. Is there any popular saying about ass-ass-inating someone? [[Special:Contributions/173.245.53.161|173.245.53.161]] 10:25, 7 March 2014 (UTC)<br />
:To the best of my knowledge, there is no such saying, but I'm sure it's a spelling mnemonic used by many. [[User:Jameslucas|jameslucas]] <small>([[User talk:Jameslucas|" "]] / [[Special:Contributions/Jameslucas|+]])</small> 14:18, 7 March 2014 (UTC)<br />
<br />
:I have read of badly programed profanity filters that change "assassin" to "buttbuttin". It's a clbuttic mistake. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.250.220|108.162.250.220]] 13:22, 8 March 2014 (UTC)<br />
<br />
::Funny that such profanity filters are the ones who gave me the idea of asking. I first heard about them in [http://www.thisistrue.com/blog-2008s_weirdest_stories.html This Is True] (search for "How Embarrbutting" in that page), who took it from The London Telegraph. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.53.161|173.245.53.161]] 15:24, 10 March 2014 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Assert is also used in programming (c and such) [[Special:Contributions/108.162.241.11|108.162.241.11]] 13:35, 7 March 2014 (UTC)<br />
::And Python, which I was hacking in yesterday, so that came to my mind. But Randall isn't distracting us with any assert + throw unhandled exception jokes today. &mdash; ''[[User:Tbc|tbc]] ([[User talk:Tbc|talk]]) 15:31, 8 March 2014 (UTC)''<br />
<br />
Thank goodness for the 'ERT' explanation; I had terrible notions of a [[739: Malamanteau|portmanteau]] involving 'insert'. [[User:Jameslucas|jameslucas]] <small>([[User talk:Jameslucas|" "]] / [[Special:Contributions/Jameslucas|+]])</small> 14:16, 7 March 2014 (UTC)<br />
<br />
If Megan was going to phrase it like "You know what happens when you assume something? You make an ass out of you and me.", then she wouldn't be assuming anything. Of course, in spoken English, you could determine which one it is through inflection. Maybe Randall could start making voice-overs for the comics. [[Special:Contributions/103.22.200.80|103.22.200.80]] 18:33, 7 March 2014 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Strictly speaking, Megan is asking a rhetorical question; one that she intends to answer herself. However, I once had a dickhead manager try this one on me, so I fully support this comic. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.215.56|108.162.215.56]] 20:32, 7 March 2014 (UTC)<br />
<br />
;This comic explain needs some enhancements!!!<br />
xkcd is a webcomic "A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and '''language'''." There is definitively no ASS here, or ERT... That could be mentioned at trivia, not more. This is all about language — assuming vs. asserting — not more or less. Everything more interpretations are like hearing a message by playing a song backwards. This explain isn't incomplete — it's incorrect! --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 21:21, 7 March 2014 (UTC)<br />
:Um, the explanation is fine. The cheesy "ass" + "u" + "me" pun is well-known, and the comic is quite specifically riffing on it. No pareidolia here. [[Special:Contributions/199.27.128.72|199.27.128.72]] 23:20, 7 March 2014 (UTC)<br />
<br />
I saw it as that Megan was on an ERT and that Cueball's assumption was about the emergency (e.g. "The building must be safe by now,") hence the comment about an ERT (although I now also see and agree with the explanation of the play on words). [[User:Z|Z]] ([[User talk:Z|talk]]) 23:32, 7 March 2014 (UTC)<br />
::WOW: Neil Armstrong was just a movie star (I will not talk about 911) or what??? Look at the picture, look at the comic; I'm pretty sure Randall is giggle about all the comments here. I'm pretty sure you can find a ERT at the bible many times; but this isn't that Randall talks about!!!--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 00:36, 8 March 2014 (UTC)<br />
:::Dgbrt, are you rejecting the simple ass-u-me explanation? &mdash; ''[[User:Tbc|tbc]] ([[User talk:Tbc|talk]]) 15:31, 8 March 2014 (UTC)''<br />
::::And this explain is still bad because: 1) A hint to use Google as a help is not a proper way. 2) There is also a real language issue on that both different words "assume" and "assert". The joke is about mixing this language issues and all that memes.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 23:00, 8 March 2014 (UTC)<br />
:::::I know I didn't user Google to search anything, but I knew the "ass out of u and me" joke immediately, same thing with the assert one. That's the comic's joke. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.54.40|173.245.54.40]] 17:36, 12 March 2014 (UTC)<br />
<br />
So... nobody else is going to mention that the proper phrase is, "When you assume, you make an ass IN FRONT OF 'u' and 'me'"? Not only is the "ass" in front of those two letters, but if somebody assumes, they're only making an ass out of theirself, not "you and me". Therefore, YOU are making an ass IN FRONT OF yourself and me. Though... are you truly doing so in front of yourself? Either way, more accurate than the innocent bystander being made an ass out of. [[User:Ferretwilliams|Ferretwilliams]] ([[User talk:Ferretwilliams|talk]]) 05:34, 13 March 2014 (UTC)<br />
<br />
I always like to respond with "... Or you make A SUM out of M and E" just to be different.[[Special:Contributions/173.245.54.8|173.245.54.8]]mtndew99</div>173.245.54.8https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1288:_Substitutions&diff=547821288: Substitutions2013-12-09T20:46:49Z<p>173.245.54.8: /* Explanation */</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 1288<br />
| date = November 8, 2013<br />
| title = Substitutions<br />
| image = substitutions.png<br />
| titletext = INSIDE ELON MUSK'S NEW ATOMIC CAT<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
[[Randall|Randall Munroe]] is playing off of the fact that many readers of modern news articles quickly become bored with the legal and political jargon. He suggests that by substituting certain words for others can make reading the article more interesting, albeit less accurate. Although since Randall [[558: 1000 Times|doesn't think very]] highly [[932: CIA|of the news]], he's probably suggesting this chart wouldn't make them less accurate at all.<br />
<br />
For example, a sentence that reads<br />
:Witnesses reported that the suspect allegedly escaped unharmed.<br />
would be changed to<br />
:These dudes I know reported that the suspect kinda probably escaped unharmed.<br />
<br />
This substitution does not change the meaning much, and the original sentence does not lose much of its accuracy. However, for substitutions later in the comic, a sentence may be changed as following<br />
:A new study finds that senators and other congressional leaders are increasingly likely to view election results on their smartphone.<br />
into<br />
:A Tumblr post finds that elf-lords and other river spirits are increasingly likely to view eating contest results on their Pokédex.<br />
<br />
Which is less meaningful, but more interesting.<br />
<br />
The final substitution returns from the realm of the ridiculous to replacing "could not be reached for comment" with "is guilty and everyone knows it." If a journalist writes a story about an accused suspect but is unable to contact them or receives no response from them, they will write that the person "could not be reached for comment." Randall's whimsical assumption that silence implies guilt is so common that juries are instructed that they should not infer guilt if the defendant fails to testify (particularly in nations which have a right against self-incrimination).<br />
<br />
A [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/xkcd-substitutions/jkgogmboalmaijfgfhfepckdgjeopfhk?hl=en&gl=001 Chrome extension] is available for applying the substitutions on webpages. <br />
<br />
'Spaaace' is a reference to the Space Core from {{w|Portal 2}}.<br />
<br />
The {{w|Virtual Boy}} is a table-top video game console made by Nintendo released in 1995, and discontinued about the same year. It achieved true-3D graphics through the use of a large visor containing a pair of LED screens.<br />
<br />
The Pokédex is a device in the {{w|Pokémon|Pokémon world}} that records the data of captured Pokémon.<br />
<br />
{{w|Homestar Runner}} is the title character of a Flash-animated web cartoon series.<br />
<br />
At the title text {{w|Elon Musk}} is mentioned who is the CEO of {{w|Tesla Motors}}, which produces electric cars (ATOMIC CATs).<br />
<br />
News reports about new studies (Tumblr posts) are further lampooned in [[1295: New Study|a comic posted two weeks later]].<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:'''Substitutions''' that make reading the news more fun:<br />
<br />
:Witnesses → These dudes I know<br />
:Allegedly → Kinda probably<br />
:New study → Tumblr post<br />
:Rebuild → Avenge<br />
:Space → Spaaace<br />
:Google Glass → Virtual Boy<br />
:Smartphone → Pokédex<br />
:Electric → Atomic<br />
:Senator → Elf-lord<br />
:Car → Cat<br />
:Election → Eating contest<br />
:Congressional leaders → River spirits<br />
:Homeland security → Homestar Runner<br />
:Could not be reached for comment → Is guilty and everyone knows it<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
<!-- Include any categories below this line. --><br />
<br />
[[Category:Language]]<br />
[[Category:Video games]]<br />
[[Category:Pokémon]]<br />
[[Category:Politics]]</div>173.245.54.8https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:1286:_Encryptic&diff=52607Talk:1286: Encryptic2013-11-13T01:18:14Z<p>173.245.54.8: </p>
<hr />
<div>The answer to the weathervane sword/ favorite apostle hint has got to be Matthias. It is 8 characters long, Matthias was the apostle chosen to replace Judas and in the Redwall series Matthias is one of the wielders of the Sword of Martin a sword that was hung on a weathervane.<br />
<br />
It is unclear to me if these are actual hashes from Adobe file? That would be very cool... but actual file seems to have passwords in slightly different format. http://arstechnica.com/security/2013/11/how-an-epic-blunder-by-adobe-could-strengthen-hand-of-password-crackers/ [[Special:Contributions/108.162.229.211|108.162.229.211]] 09:05, 4 November 2013 (UTC) pavel<br />
<br />
:I wouldn't call 3DES secure ... but yes, in this situation the real problem is not using per-user salt. Note that I would expect that at least some of those examples would be solvable ...any idea? Hmmm ... sword of weather vane and one of apostles might be Martin ([http://redwall.wikia.com/wiki/Sword_of_Martin]) ... -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 10:00, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
::It's Jonathon (for John). Not sure what it has to do with weather vane swords though... [[Special:Contributions/108.162.240.18|108.162.240.18]] 12:42, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
:Umm. "Peter" does not seem to have 8 characters, does it? Encryption method suggests it should be 8 characters, as do 8 character boxes on the right... [[Special:Contributions/108.162.229.211|108.162.229.211]] 10:43, 4 November 2013 (UTC) pavel<br />
<br />
::I'd say "weather vane sword", "name1" and "favorite of 12 apostles" is (Saint) Peter. "Weather vane" as symbol for the rooster in the denial, and the sword Peter used when Jesus was arrested. --[[Special:Contributions/108.162.254.177|108.162.254.177]] 10:25, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
::: ... interesting that google search didn't mentioned it :-) Seems bible have too low pagerank. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 10:32, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
::: The 'favourite' apostle was John the Evangelist though. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disciple_whom_Jesus_loved . The other biblical clue here is 'with your own hand you have done all this' - Judith 15:10. If that's Judith1510 then the 'name and shirt number' is 'Judith15'. The TOS/earlobes clue seems to be "Spock's brain" and "Spock's (ears?)". And the Michael Jackson one is (obviously) ABC123. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.214|141.101.99.214]] 11:14, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
:::: Perhaps "favorite" in this case refer's to the user's favorite, not Jesus's. [[User:Yomikoma|Yomikoma]] ([[User talk:Yomikoma|talk]]) 16:13, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
:::: The Michael Jackson password should just be "ABC". (The other clue refers only to letters, and the proper song title also has only letters.) —[[User:TobyBartels|TobyBartels]] ([[User talk:TobyBartels|talk]]) 20:57, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
::: Given that name1 is two blocks long, I would guess that the apostle's name is going to be eight characters long, with the second hash block being 1+seven spaces (or nulls if Adobe pads it with nulls and not spaces). But then again, as the only disciple with a name eight letters long is Thaddeus maybe not {{unsigned ip|141.101.99.214}}<br />
<br />
:::: "St.Peter" is 8 characters, and having a "special" character (the period) makes it a good choice for passwords that might require 1 non-alphanumeric character (and ban spaces). [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.223|141.101.99.223]] 11:47, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
:::: I think it is obvious that Name1 refers to {The user's name} + 1. I wonder though if we should be referring to one of the other 12 apostles in a different context? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelve_Apostles_%28disambiguation%29 - [[Special:Contributions/108.162.242.11|108.162.242.11]] 18:02, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
::::: Is the "weathervane sword" referring to Redwall? I haven't read the book myself, but would it be referring to the "Sword of Martin"? [http://redwall.wikia.com/wiki/Sword_of_Martin] --[[User:Jeff|<b><font color="orange">Jeff</font></b>]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 19:17, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Another article about using passwords hints from multiple users to find the passwords from the breach. http://7habitsofhighlyeffectivehackers.blogspot.com/2013/11/can-someone-be-targeted-using-adobe.html [[User:Bugefun|Bugefun]] ([[User talk:Bugefun|talk]]) 11:06, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
"Sexy earlobes" makes me think of [http://misswiu.livejournal.com/5385.html "The ABC of Aerobics"], but that would make that Shirley Clarke, and nothing in Star Trek has anything to do with Shirley that I am aware of, except possible [http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Ruth Shirley Bonne as Ruth]. I skimmed a list of episode titles, but nothing jumps out at me as particularly earlobish. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.187|108.162.219.187]] 11:20, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
:Sexy earlobes might have something to do with Ferengi, but they didn't appeared in TOS. 141.101.99.214's idea is better. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 11:42, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
:OK, we know that "sexy earlobes" and "best TOS Episode" are the same for the first eight character, but differ after that, while "best TOS" and "sugarland" are the same after the first 8 characters. So, my guesses are : Best TOS episode: "Charlie X"; "Sexy Earlobes": Someone with the first name of "Charlie"; "Sugarland": some city in Texas (perhaps "HoustonTX") [[User:JamesCurran|JamesCurran]] ([[User talk:JamesCurran|talk]]) 16:51, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Note that you should not ever use cipher in {{w|Block_cipher_mode_of_operation#Electronic_codebook_.28ECB.29|ECB (electronic codebook)}} mode, i.e. encrypt each block separately and independently, but use chaining. --[[User:JakubNarebski|JakubNarebski]] ([[User talk:JakubNarebski|talk]]) 12:15, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
: And for passwords you shouldn't be using a cipher at all, but rather a hash function. (Or a cipher in one of the approved hash constructions, if you must.) And really you shouldn't be using a standard hash function, but be following best practices for passwords instead: salting the hash, using a *slow* hash function, etc. [[User:Cscott|Cscott]] ([[User talk:Cscott|talk]]) 20:22, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Hmm, i'm rather confused about the last few on the list though. Assumedly the password for "he did the mash, he did the" would be "monster mash", but that would leave "purloined" with a password of either "monsterm" or "monster ". which doesn't make much sense. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.240.18|108.162.240.18]] 13:47, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
(charlie sheen) a1f9b2b6299e7a2b eadec1e6ab797397 sexy earlobes - He did a 2 and a half men episode on sexy earlobes<br />
:(charlie x) a1f9b2b6299e7a2b 617ab0277727ad85 best tos episode - Star Trek has so many good episodes...<br />
::(houstontx) 39738b7adb0b8af7 617ab0277727ad85 sugarland - Sugarland is in Houston, TX<br />
<br />
I don't know about anyone else, but the "hints" column incidentally reminded me of {{w|Darwinian poetry|Darwinian Poetry}}... Not intentionally, I'm sure. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.214|141.101.98.214]] 14:46, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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Somehow I've missed out on this issue until this comic alerted me to it, but: once a few passwords are correctly guessed, does that make it straightforward to recover the encryption key, and then be able to decrypt '''all''' of them? —[[User:Scs|scs]] ([[User talk:Scs|talk]]) 14:50, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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: Answering my own question: not really straightforward, no. 3DES is still pretty strong, and what knowing a few passwords gives you is a known-plaintext attack, which helps a little, but is by no means a giveaway. —[[User:Scs|scs]] ([[User talk:Scs|talk]]) 15:00, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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:: Note that if blackhat used this service, he would know at least one plaintext - his own password--[[User:JakubNarebski|JakubNarebski]] ([[User talk:JakubNarebski|talk]]) 15:05, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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:No, for calculating the encryption key of Triple DES, there is no real benefit in knowing million passwords, you would still need to brute force it. You would need to know at least 2<sup>32</sup> different passwords to make it easier but you can't do that with the leaked file (there are about 30 times less of them and moreover many of them are not unique). [[User:Sten|'''S<small>TEN</small>''']] <small>([[User talk:Sten|talk]])</small> 16:08, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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Okay, so the first column is the encrypted password, the second one is the hint chosen by user. What do rectangles mean? [[Special:Contributions/173.245.53.151|173.245.53.151]] 15:28, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
:That are the fields to fill the characters in just as you do in a crossword puzzle. There are small fields at the beginning that take one character each and one large field at the end that takes one to eight characters. [[User:Sten|'''S<small>TEN</small>''']] <small>([[User talk:Sten|talk]])</small> 15:32, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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Water 3 is an egg group: http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Water_3_(Egg_Group) . Given the length of the key, it will probably be 9-16 characters. (Crawdaunt, tentacool, and tentacruel are most likely) [[Special:Contributions/199.27.128.139|199.27.128.139]] 15:43, 4 November 2013 (UTC) <br />
:-- which means 9dca1d79d4dec6d5 is either L, EL, or T, but I can't find a way for that to match up with any variation of "monster mash." [[Special:Contributions/173.245.55.209|173.245.55.209]] 16:15, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
:: Same problem here... Monster mash must not be correct, but it is one of the easier ones, I can't give up on it. --[[User:Jeff|<b><font color="orange">Jeff</font></b>]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 17:35, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
::: Maybe, he did the MASH is about the book, movie or TV Show M*A*S*H instead? --[[User:Jeff|<b><font color="orange">Jeff</font></b>]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 17:49, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
:: Monster Mash was written by Bobby Pickett, maybe it has something to do with him? [[User:Sten|'''S<small>TEN</small>''']] <small>([[User talk:Sten|talk]])</small> 18:38, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
::: Maybe it's not "monster mash" but just "monster". This would allow the Water-3 Pokemon to be "Cloyster". [[Special:Contributions/108.162.237.5|108.162.237.5]] 19:17, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
:::: You are having trouble counting to eight. [[User:Cscott|Cscott]] ([[User talk:Cscott|talk]]) 20:22, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
::::: You are forgetting the space. Assuming space is stored as a null character, this might actually work.[[Special:Contributions/173.245.54.29|173.245.54.29]] 01:43, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
:::::: Nobody in their right mind would encode spaces as nulls. For us to suppose that they did, we'd need to have some specific clue to that effect. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.238.5|108.162.238.5]] 09:08, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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It seems to me there are two puzzles here, if folks are right that this is not actual data from the hack. 1) Figure out Adobe's master 3DES encryption password, for the big prize. 2) figure out Randall's 3DES encryption password for this puzzle based on these hints, and knowing it will be something clever. [[User:Nealmcb|Nealmcb]] ([[User talk:Nealmcb|talk]]) 16:12, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Trying to decode the passwords (As Randall obviously wants us to)<br />
"with your own hand you have done all this" is from the book of Judith.<br />
Working on decoding the others. --[[User:Jeff|<b><font color="orange">Jeff</font></b>]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 17:13, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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8babb6299e06eb6d = password<br />
a0a2876eb1ea1fea = 1<br />
85e9da81a8a78adc = 57<br />
--[[User:Jeff|<b><font color="orange">Jeff</font></b>]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 18:10, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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Weather Vane Sword may be a reference to Game of Thrones Ascent. The "Sworn Sword", I believe is "Rona" which is also a name. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.55.216|173.245.55.216]] 18:27, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
: It needs to be a name of an apostle (as per line 7) and have 7 or 8 characters (as line 3 needs a continuation) so this leaves Matthew, Thaddeus and (Judas) Iscariot. [[User:Sten|'''S<small>TEN</small>''']] <small>([[User talk:Sten|talk]])</small> 18:57, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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If a password(or 8 character segment) is guessed can it be confirmed? Somebody should take this leaked list and create a website that presents it like in the comment and lets people guess. It can fill in the guessed ones. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.246.117|108.162.246.117]] 19:17, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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I'm putting in Mattias for the sword, name1 and disciple because of Saint Matthias [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Matthias] and Redwall Matthias [http://redwall.wikia.com/wiki/Matthias] who held the Weathervane Sword (Also known as the sword of Martin [http://redwall.wikia.com/wiki/The_Sword_of_Martin] ) --[[User:Jeff|<b><font color="orange">Jeff</font></b>]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 19:27, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
: I've also removed "monster mash" from the list as it can't be right. Doesn't match the pokemon or the purloined clues. --[[User:Jeff|<b><font color="orange">Jeff</font></b>]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 19:27, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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Based on the Water-3 Pokemon hint, the only possibilities of more than 8 characters are tentacool, tentacruel, barbaracle, crawdaunt, carracosta, clauncher, and clawitzer. This would mean "9dca1d79d4dec6d5" would be l, el, le, t, ta, or r. --[[User:Dvorakmd|Dvorakmd]] ([[User talk:Dvorakmd|talk]]) 19:51, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
: This is assuming there are no characters before the actual name of the pokemon. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.55.209|173.245.55.209]] 20:30, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
: Assuming Randall has constructed this comic to have a unique answer, it can't end in r because then the clue would be ambiguous (could be clauncher or clawitzer). [[User:Cscott|Cscott]] ([[User talk:Cscott|talk]]) 21:53, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
: Some of these can be ruled out; it's very unlikely to be a Generation VI Pokémon (Barbaracle, Clauncher and Clawitzer) as this has only just come out and someone would have had to set up their pasword within the last few weeks. And the Pokémon that are also in the Water-1 group are probably more likely to be thought of as Water-1 than Water-3 (Crawdaunt and Carracosta). This only leaves Tentacool and Tentacruel as longer than 8 letter Water-3 only Pokémon that have been known of for a reasonable length of time; and Tentacool is no one's favourite, as the annoying multitude of them that show up whenever you try to Surf anyway makes them as reviled as Zubats in caves, if not moreso. :P Of course, the password need not be simply the Pokémon's name alone. "SexyShellder" "Cloyster1987" "Misty'sStarmie"... Who knows? [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.252|141.101.99.252]] 01:03, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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I don't know the answer to the end either, but here's a list of people who did the Monster Mash, from Wikipedia:<br />
* Bobby Picket (as Boris Picket)<br />
* Garpax Records (Gary S. Paxton)<br />
* The Misfits<br />
* far, far too many other covers to list<br />
And here's some synonyms for "purloined", from thesaurus.com:<br />
* stole<br />
* pilfered<br />
* filched<br />
* misappropriated<br />
* embezzled<br />
* burglarized<br />
* shoplifted<br />
* poached<br />
* pillaged<br />
* cheated<br />
* pinched<br />
* heisted<br />
* thieved<br />
* plundered<br />
* appropriated<br />
* lifted<br />
* took<br />
* snitched<br />
* defrauded<br />
* swindled<br />
* ripped off<br />
* made off with<br />
Good luck with these!<br />
—[[User:TobyBartels|TobyBartels]] ([[User talk:TobyBartels|talk]]) 20:31, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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What about Purloined referring to "The Purloined Letter?" When choosing hints, people, at least in my experience, tend to use word association rather than synonyms. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.55.209|173.245.55.209]]<br />
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Purloined could also be a reference to the Monster.com hack (http://www.symantec.com/connect/blogs/monster-trojan). [[Special:Contributions/108.162.237.11|108.162.237.11]] 21:00, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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Words meaning purloined that can have the listed suffixes could be '''embezzle'''/'''embezzler''' or '''scrounge'''/'''scrounger'''. Not sure if it fits to the mash clue. There was a loan shark character who would acquire things on MASH called Rizzo, it is a stretch though. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.246.117|108.162.246.117]] 21:01, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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I'm still trying to figure out how the solutions go into the spaces on the right -- it may be more obvious once the last couple clues are figured out. I suspect the ordering and numbers of clues have some sort of meaning. Why are there 5 of the 877... passwords, 2 with no clues? Why is one of the 4e18.... passwords separated from the rest? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.28|108.162.221.28]] 21:07, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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Could Purloined be a reference to the "Purloined Shadows" book in Elder Scrolls? --[[User:Dvorakmd|Dvorakmd]] ([[User talk:Dvorakmd|talk]]) 21:09, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
: Or 'The Purloined Payroll', a WoW quest? "Purloined in Petrograd" is also a lyric to a Decemberists song (The Bagman's Gambit). Google n-grams suggests that "Purloined Image", and "purloined documents" are a Thing. [[User:Cscott|Cscott]] ([[User talk:Cscott|talk]]) 21:58, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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Purloined could be a reference to something that is known as have been stolen like a work of art, or it could be something that was stolen in an XKCD comic. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.246.117|108.162.246.117]] 21:18, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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'''EdgarPoe'''(author of The Purloined Letter)/'''EdgarPoet''' fits, but again not really anything to do with MASH. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.246.117|108.162.246.117]] 21:27, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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Water-3 pokemon (egg group) are given here: http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Water_3_(Egg_Group) ...if I split off the letters of their names after the 8th letter, we see l, el, le, t, ta, and r. So the MASH item ends with one of those suffixes. [[Special:Contributions/199.27.128.167|199.27.128.167]] 21:31, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
: Can't end in 'r', because then that clue would be ambiguous. [[User:Cscott|Cscott]] ([[User talk:Cscott|talk]]) 21:53, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
: Speaking of pokemon, could the clue to purloined have something to do with the pokemon Purrloin? http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Purrloin_(Pok%C3%A9mon) [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.43|108.162.221.43]] 23:51, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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Is there a reason "MASH" is capitalized in the above sections? Given the context, it shouldn't be, and I still haven't given up on the password being a reference to the monster mash. That said, we can't ignore the movie/show MASH.<br />
Also, now that I think about it: pokeMONstermash? I don't know, just throwing ideas out :P [[Special:Contributions/173.245.55.209|173.245.55.209]] 22:08, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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On [http://de.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/1pvwyf/xkcd_encryptic_analysis_at_the_link_below/ reddit] they suggest "Letterman" (which is wrong, too many letters) based on the M*A*S*H episode, "Letters". [[User:Cscott|Cscott]] ([[User talk:Cscott|talk]]) 22:11, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
:...on the other hand, I wonder if an answer like "ALANALDA" would work? As in, someone who "did the M*A*S*H"... [[User:Cscott|Cscott]] ([[User talk:Cscott|talk]]) 22:13, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
:: Sadly, no. Because it needs to be more than 8 characters. --[[User:Jeff|<b><font color="orange">Jeff</font></b>]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 22:17, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
::: No, I mean, "an answer of this form", not ALANALDA exactly. The Edgar Allan / Alan Alda congruence is tasty, but I can't make it work. ALLANPOE works as an answer for "Purloined" but that makes something like ALLANPOET the answer to "he did the MASH" (CRAWDAUNT is then the pokemon). But that's misspelling Alda's name for the MASH clue, doesn't quite work. There's also JAMIEFARR (Cpl Klinger) as a better answer to "he did the MASH" but then that makes JAMIEFAR the answer to "purloined" and I can't plausibly make that work. ALLANARBUS is another M*A*S*H actor, but that doesn't work at all. Can anyone come up with other/better ideas in this vein? [[User:Cscott|Cscott]] ([[User talk:Cscott|talk]]) 22:31, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
::: Don't misspell Alda's name; misspell Poe's! —[[User:TobyBartels|TobyBartels]] ([[User talk:TobyBartels|talk]]) 02:07, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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In crossword puzzles, a clue ending in -ed (like 'purloined') is most commonly a hint that the answer ends in 'ed'. Cross referencing that with the Pokemon clue, the solution for "he did the MASH" becomes a nine or ten letter answer ending in: -edl, -edel, -edle, -edt, or -edta (excluding -edr due to non-uniqueness), with ......edle looking the most "English-y" to me. My hunch would be something else Robert Altman or Alan Alda "did"... but nothing seems to end in 'edle.' --[[User:Willowy burrito|Willowy burrito]] ([[User talk:Willowy burrito|talk]]) 23:07, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
: There is no indication that this is a standard crossword. Most users don't respect crossword conventions when writing password hints. [[User:Cscott|Cscott]] ([[User talk:Cscott|talk]]) 23:59, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
:: Aside from the title. And the text. And the fact these didn't come from users, but were just chosen for a puzzle designed by Randall, who would include just this sort of puzzler hint/in-joke in a comic about puzzles. It's moot, because no synonyms for 'stolen' make any sense with a couple other letters tacked on the end. But still, there've been worse hunches. --[[User:Willowy burrito|Willowy burrito]] ([[User talk:Willowy burrito|talk]]) 00:45, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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For all we know, his favourite Water-3 Pokémon could be Shell Smash Cloyster or Shell Smash Omastar - "OmastarSmash" as a password would fit in with "Monster mash". [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.252|141.101.99.252]] 23:16, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
: I like that idea, although it leaves "Monster " (with a trailing space) as the answer to "Purloined", which makes no sense. But interesting idea. [[User:Cscott|Cscott]] ([[User talk:Cscott|talk]]) 00:00, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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MonsterMash<br />
MonsterM<br />
TheWiscash {{unsigned|Jcupcake}}<br />
: It's "Whiscash", and it's Water 2 (not 3) and "MonsterM" makes no sense as an answer for the hint "Purloined". But I like the idea of adding "The" in front of the pokemon answer; perhaps we're being too restrictive by looking only at pokemon with length > 8. [[User:Cscott|Cscott]] ([[User talk:Cscott|talk]]) 23:59, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
::Yeah, sorry about the typo - last one would be TheWhiscash. MonsterM absolutely makes sense. http://www.hoax-slayer.com/monster-666.shtml The purloined letter here IS M [[User:Jcupcake|Jcupcake]] ([[User talk:Jcupcake|talk]]) 02:40, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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So somewhere above this someone pointed out that purloined could refer to a monster.com hack...in which case, could the first two passwords be "monster mash" and "monster"? That would allow for another previous suggestion of "OmastarSmash" Also, here's my IP Address and a remarkably not-random timestamp: [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.195|108.162.219.195]] 01:31, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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It could also be that there are modifiers to the base. I always thought of Monster Mash as MonstaMash. This would line up closely with My Corphish written as "mycorphish" My favorite pokemon is my pikachu not just any pikachu, but mine, sort of logic. [[User:Bitassassin|Bitassassin]] ([[User talk:Bitassassin|talk]]) 01:43, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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Could "he did the mash" be referring to brewing and/or the Maillard reaction? [[User:Cscott|Cscott]] ([[User talk:Cscott|talk]]) 05:32, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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I was just thinking that "MonsterM Ash", "MonsterM", both seem to make sense, and Ash had a few water pokemon in the water 3 egg group, so could it potentially be something along the lines of "Corphish Ash"? That was the only 8 letter water 3 pokemon he had and it fits with the other clues [[User:NewToThis|NewToThis]] ([[User talk:NewToThis|talk]]) 07:25, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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Has the idea of pokemon fusion been considered? http://pokemon.alexonsager.net/ referenced by http://kotaku.com/how-the-website-that-lets-you-create-frankenstein-pokem-510517336<br />
--[[User:Oukansz|Oukansz]] ([[User talk:Oukansz|talk]]) 19:25, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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;Fanservice<br />
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Randall must know about this site. This comic doesn't work without people to crack the code. Should we have a fanservice category? :-) --[[User:SurturZ|SurturZ]] ([[User talk:SurturZ|talk]]) 23:32, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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I'm beginning to suspect that the wide boxes will have the key in it. Assuming he used regular DES (or DES3, for that matter, but using the same 8-byte key 3 times), it could be plausible. The 5 in the middle could be 'abcde', a lot of the other 'second halves' are numbers, and the likely known one that's not seems to be an 'x' -- which could certainly be involved in writing a hex number... problem is there's 11 of those boxes. Trying to guess what signficance the positioning of those boxes have. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.28|108.162.221.28]] 00:00, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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Actually, it looks like the boxes line up perfectly such that the wide bits (for second-half) will only touch the words they apply to. Order will be more or less what they are (I see the wide boxes as, in order, 1, 57, 10, Sheen, and X, with the 8 char boxes as Matthias, Password, Judith15, Charlie, and HoustonT). The next 5 are odd -- I'm not sure if we repeat the alpha/obvious password 5 times, or it's 5 chars long (abcde) and one per box. The last set is still under discussion, of course. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.28|108.162.221.28]] 00:20, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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;MASH capitalized<br />
I'm currently chasing down the idea that MASH refers to [[Wikipedia:MASH-1]]. Haven't seen any name yet that looks like it might satisfy "Purloined". - [[User:BozoTheScary|BozoTheScary]] ([[User talk:BozoTheScary|talk]]) 01:56, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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I think MASH is a transcribing error. The comic doesn't have any difference on those letters as far as I can tell. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.50.222|173.245.50.222]] 03:18, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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The Purloined Letter is a Edgar Alan Poe story starring C. Auguste Dupin. Might help. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.249.5|108.162.249.5]] 03:08, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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There is also a strong association between the Monster Mash and the Mashed Potato, just throwing another idea into the ring. Also try the name BobbyPickett. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.249.5|108.162.249.5]] 03:22, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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<br />
Frankenstein did the Monster Mash in the cartoon for the song. That leads to a Pokemon card ending in 'tein' and 'frankens' for the hint Purloined. I could not find a Pokemon card that ended in 'tein' nor could I link 'frankens' with Purloined. I ran 'frankens' through Google Translate but found nothing. Also, it's the same password for the "monster mash" hint and the entry with no password hint so I think it's an obvious password (something someone can recall without a hint). Frankenstein fits that part but not the other ones. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.50.222|173.245.50.222]] 03:35, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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My $0.02: "He did the mash..." might allude to the expression "doing the math" only (intentionally) misspelled and something like "numbert" or "numb" could be the answer. --[[User:RagnarDa|RagnarDa]] ([[User talk:RagnarDa|talk]]) 04:01, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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graveyard smash fits for the first clue (though lyrically incorrect). Gives smash as second block, but cannot find association between graveyard and purloined. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.249.5|108.162.249.5]] 04:08, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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If we take The Monster Mash for the first answer, it could be written as TheMonsterMash or The Monster Mash, giving either TheMonst erMash or The Mons ter Mash as the two blocks. This gives either Themonst or The Mons as Purloined and either ermash or ter Mash for second block of pokemon answer. Suggestions? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.249.5|108.162.249.5]] 04:15, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
: Only problem is that the word "the" is the last word of the hint.[[Special:Contributions/108.162.237.117|108.162.237.117]] 04:51, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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I know that the water-3 group is not the same, but it seems like an odd coincidence that another pokemon group is the "monster" group. --[[User:Natnee|Natnee]] ([[User talk:Natnee|talk]]) 04:44, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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There is a Scooby Doo comic book story titled "[The Purloined Poe-M](http://scoobydoo.wikia.com/wiki/The_Purloined_Poe-M)", which has an odd similarity to the "MonsterM" possible password. This would leave the pokemon password ending "ash" who, of course, is a pokemon character ... which makes no sense in that place. [[Special:Contributions/199.27.128.83|199.27.128.83]] 05:51, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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Here's one that fits: <br><br />
facemash4077 (Combination of facemash by zuckerberg and M*A*S*H) <br><br />
facemash (Site made by Zuck in The Social network.) <br><br />
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Maybe facmashklinger.. The eggklinger being a water-3 Pokemon? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.215.39|108.162.215.39]] 06:14, 5 November 2013 (UTC)rbnm<br />
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[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Orchard John Orchard] played in M*A*S*H and also was in the movie "The Letter" [[Special:Contributions/108.162.250.8|108.162.250.8]] 05:02, 6 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
;Working Backwards<br />
I'm attempting to take a different tact, by trying to find the key itself. I'm assuming its something easy to guess. I've tried the top 100 Adobe passwords (you can get them [http://stricture-group.com/files/adobe-top100.txt here]) using the following bash script (testing the word "matthias", as this one seems pretty certain):<br />
<br />
<code><br />
while read p; do echo -n $p\: && echo -n "matthias" | openssl enc -e -des-ede3 -nosalt -nopad -pass pass:$p | xxd -p; done < passwords.txt<br />
</code><br />
<br />
For this to work, I pre-processed the top 100 passwords file with:<br />
<br />
<code><br />
cat adobe-top100.txt | cut -c51- > passwords.txt<br />
</code><br />
<br />
…and then trimmed the cruft with a text editor (leading text paragraph and table headers). So far no luck; perhaps someone with more time on their hands can try some obvious XKCD-related passwords (I've tried XKCD, xkcd, xkcd.com, randall, rmunroe, encryptic, and Encrytic) and see if the encrypted version(s) match up with what we have here. [[User:Yaztromo|Yaztromo]] ([[User talk:Yaztromo|talk]]) 09:27, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
:I should mention that I've also tried OpenSSL's des-ede mode and des-ecb, as Im not sure if Randall used one, two, or three key mode. I'm also assuming the key has been generated from the password using OpenSSL's default key generation method, any of with I suppose could be incorrect. [[User:Yaztromo|Yaztromo]] ([[User talk:Yaztromo|talk]]) 09:39, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
:: Nice work. Note that the puzzle is very specific about using "block mode 3-DES" (usually called "ECB"). DES keys are actually 56 bits; each of the 8 bytes has odd parity (the number of 1 bits is odd). From [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Encryption_Standard wp], "Bits 8, 16,..., 64 are for use in ensuring that each byte is of odd parity." As a wild guess, I'd suggest that, if Randall chose a readable 8-ASCII-character passphrase, he also selected only characters that would make the parity bit zero (so that the result was ASCII). That is, <code><nowiki>[ #%&)*,/12478;=>@CEFIJLOQRTWX[]^abdghkmnpsuvyz|]</nowiki></code>. [[User:Cscott|Cscott]] ([[User talk:Cscott|talk]]) 16:34, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
::: Uh, hold one. Read the "Explanation" section above. It's clear that the hashes are not real, so brute-forcing the key isn't going to work. [[User:Cscott|Cscott]] ([[User talk:Cscott|talk]]) 16:48, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
:::: Just to note, there are actually three options for keys in TripleDES: having three independent keys (K1, K2, K3), having two independent keys (K1, K2, K1), or using a single key (K1, K1, K1). When run in ECB mode, OpenSSL calls these '''des-ede3''' and '''des-ede''' for options 1 and 2 (option 3 is for backwards compatibility with DES, and can be run using just '''des-ecb'''). See [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple_DES#Keying_options Triple DES - Keying Options] for details. In addition, the password and the key are two different entities -- typically the password is run through a keying algorithm first (commonly [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PBKDF2 PBKDF2] for 3DES), so there is no need to select password characters based on parity patterns. All of which is moot now that we know that the data isn't in fact TripleDES encrypted in the first place. I'm actually disappointed in Randall now :P. [[User:Yaztromo|Yaztromo]] ([[User talk:Yaztromo|talk]]) 19:01, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
I Hadn't seen it mentioned yet, but Monster Mash was written by Robert George Pickett (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobby_Pickett), Whose last name goes closely with the second clue, Purloined, which means "stolen". I can't make it work, but I figured it was worth pointing out. (Nov 5th 1:26 pm utc ) [[Special:Contributions/173.245.56.24|173.245.56.24]] 13:27, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
: It's a good connection. Maybe we should reorganize the discussion and start a list of "interesting ideas we can't quite make work" in the hopes that someone else has an insight. Edgar Allan / Alan Alda, Pickett / "Pick it", Klinger / Kingler, etc. Most of these are just manifestation of the human brain's ability to find patterns even in random coincidence, of course, but one of them might be on the right track. [[User:Cscott|Cscott]] ([[User talk:Cscott|talk]]) 16:23, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Just quick thoughts. <br />
I feel like Cpl klinger and the water type kingler is too solid a connection to ignore even though I can't really use it. <br />
Kingler was owned in the series by Ash. <br />
Ash is a three letter word and the last three letters of the phrase monstermash. <br />
Monsterm=8 letters so the first block ash=3 letters in the second block. <br />
Monsterm is about the monster.com thing, therefore purloined. It's a double reference, the .co has been purloined from the purloined website. <br />
Then blastoise -3, or rather blastois3 - 3 (mocking the common password meme of replacing letters with numbers) <br />
So the last password, which is super hard to guess and well chosen even with the clue is, blastoisash? It's a feasibly memorable password that would not be quickly forgotten by a pokemon fan while still being hard to guess. <br />
Can you think of a way to check it? Maybe go into the old command line xkcd and try it as a password? (From a contributor to my talk page) --[[User:Jeff|<b><font color="orange">Jeff</font></b>]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 13:52, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
: That's really a stretch. ".co is purloined from monster.com?" really? The answer will be far more obviously correct... once we figure it out. Look at the other answers, for example. [[User:Cscott|Cscott]] ([[User talk:Cscott|talk]]) 16:23, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
;another quick idea for monster mash<br />
<br />
It could be deflection. Maybe whoever put it in was paranoid. Or just dumb. Or who knows.<br />
<br />
But, there is a pokemon that's in the monster/water(-1) hybrid group called Marshtomp.<br />
<br />
Monster mash, mashed (ie anagrammed) can give us all but the P out of that... which is fine, as it's a 9-letter name.<br />
<br />
Thus we have E, N and S left over (and indeed a further T, H, E), which could become overall, e.g, Marshtomens (...Marshtomethens? Or w/e), which you can split up as you like to represent something which has been stolen (personally). Possibly in german slang or something. It doesn't have to be a direct thesaurus link, it could well be complete misdirection (on Randall's behalf, or that of his notional Adobe user), same as for the pokemon.<br />
<br />
And for the pokemon itself, it could well be "Marshtomp3" ;)<br />
<br />
Also, don't forget about reversed words and so-on.<br />
<br />
Heck, I've used very personal and/or random things (like, maybe two or three people in the world may recognise it in connection with me, and it's not online, at least not anywhere it can be found - basically it's just in my head and dies with me), reversed, with numbers substituting random characters, as passwords before. That covers each individual base in just one PW...<br />
<br />
Now we just have to start feeding the guesses into a hash engine and try to figure out, maybe brute force, what the original key was. Knowing almost all of the other answers already makes this far, far easier for those who may have the facility to run the tests already. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.213|141.101.99.213]] 14:54, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
: This is not a real excerpt from the password file, this is a puzzle which Randall made up. Therefore, the answer to the last group will not be random, and it will not be a stretch. It will be obvious (as obvious as the previous ones)... once we figure out the catch. [[User:Cscott|Cscott]] ([[User talk:Cscott|talk]]) 16:23, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
FWIW, Eve Online also features a "Purloined Sansha Codebreaker". [[User:Cscott|Cscott]] ([[User talk:Cscott|talk]]) 17:16, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
I agree that the solution has to be obvious - especially after its revealed. If this were a crossword puzzle, then the clues like Purloined might be followed by a question mark. Purloined? a cat that is loined - a cat that is covered with cloths? Puss in boots? Or something along those lines... [[Special:Contributions/108.162.215.34|108.162.215.34]]rbnm<br />
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purloined=phished (Corphish)? {{unsigned ip|108.162.216.227}}<br />
<br />
i wonder if the link between the last three clues is more like a cryptic crossword puzzle---for instance, --purloined= heisted; the other clues reading it as he/is/ted...?--[[User:Wwd|Wwd]] ([[User talk:Wwd|talk]]) 22:40, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
I wonder if the pokemon could be the name of an ubuntu release, per "Not Really Into Pokemon" at http://xkcd.com/178/ --[[User:Willowy burrito|Willowy burrito]] ([[User talk:Willowy burrito|talk]]) 22:45, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
You could also abbreviate Robert Pickett's name (the co-writer of Monster Mash) as "Rob Pickett" which goes even more with purloined (the first 8 letters are now "Rob Pick"). [[User:Davheld|Davheld]] ([[User talk:Davheld|talk]]) 06:21, 6 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Beings that "did the mash" according to the song http://www.lyricsondemand.com/onehitwonders/monstermashlyrics.html : my monster, the ghouls, Igor, Igor's baying hounds, the coffin-bangers, "The Crypt-Kicker Five", you. Zombies, Wolf Man, Dracula/Drac, and Boris were also mentioned, but they didn't do the mash. Hope that helps someone (doesn't help me). [[User:DPWally|DPWally]] ([[User talk:DPWally|talk]]) 23:05, 6 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
;Capitalization hints?<br />
<br />
I have no idea who first put the capital letters in "MASH" and "Purloined" in the transcript (and I don't want to check), but now that I've gotten rid of the second (after somebody else got rid of the first), I want to record them here for the record. Possibly Randall put them in and was feeding us clues (so ''MASH'' the book or movie, and ''Purloined'' a title such as Poe's). I consider this unlikely (after all, I removed one of these capitalizations), but the possibility should be recorded. —[[User:TobyBartels|TobyBartels]] ([[User talk:TobyBartels|talk]]) 01:17, 6 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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I can't be a coincidence that this comes up as the top google news search for 'purloined:' http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/11/05/adobe_users_purloined_passwords_were_pathetic/ {{unsigned ip|108.162.246.120}}<br />
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<br />
"38a7c9279cadeb44 9dca1d79d4dec6d5 he did the mash, he did the": Ministermash (sounds like monster mash)<br />
"38a7c9279cadeb44 purloined": Minister (based on the character Minister D-, who stole the letter in the Edgar Allen Poe story) <br />
"a8ae5754a2b7af7a 9dca1d79d4dec6d5 fav water-3 pokemon": OmastarSmash (Shell Smash Omastar)<br />
So,38a7c9279cadeb44 = minister, 9dca1d79d4dec6d5 = mash, a8ae5754a2b7af7a = omastars<br />
04:07, 6 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
:Probably one of the best complete theories I've heard [[User:Davheld|Davheld]] ([[User talk:Davheld|talk]]) 06:26, 6 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
I suggest "alligato" (a form of Latin ''alligatus'', perfect passive participle of ''alligo'' "bind up"), and "alligator" (Referencing "Land of 1000 Dances"). [[Special:Contributions/199.27.128.62|199.27.128.62]] 05:37, 6 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
I think there is a transcribe mistake. <br><br />
Instead of "fav water-3 pokemon" <br><br />
Could it be "fay water-3 pokemon" <br><br />
Look at the Y and V letters in the non-chopped letters above. I think it is a Y and not a V. <br><br />
{{unsigned ip|108.162.215.51}}<br />
*About the Pokemon, is it possible everyone's ignoring a much simpler explanation? Every Pokemon game begins with a choice of one of the three starter Pokemon, each of which have an evolutionary line of three Pokemon. In first gen, if your "favorite [is] water [from the] 3 Pokemon", then you'll be using Squirtle, followed by Wartortle and Blastoise. 2nd gen: Totodile, Croconaw, Feraligatr. 3rd gen: Mudkip, Marshtomp, Swampert. 4th gen: Piplup, Prinplup, Empoleon. Perhaps the answer uses one of these, or some combination of them? --Anon 08:57, 6 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Boris Blacher wrote an opera based on 'The purloined letter' This may fit with Bobby 'Boris' Pickett who sang Monster Mash [[User:YellowYeti|YellowYeti]] ([[User talk:YellowYeti|talk]]) 11:11, 6 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
The "Boris" in "Boris Pickett" is a reference to Boris Karloff. (In his other work, Pickett doesn't use that name.) —[[User:TobyBartels|TobyBartels]] ([[User talk:TobyBartels|talk]]) 12:36, 6 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
An alternative tack: how about Barbaracle for the Pokemon, BarbaraC(Jordan) for purloined and Barbara Clark - famous for doing Monster Mash-up novels. Does Barbara Jordan have some purloined link with watergate? {{unsigned ip|108.162.231.16}}<br />
No, because the pokemon has a different starting string as the other two. --[[Special:Contributions/199.27.128.119|199.27.128.119]] 13:48, 6 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
I think it is not coincidence that it is the last one that you can't solve. It may be an experiment by Randall to see if people can find a solution for a puzzle that doesn't make any sense. That said, if it does have a solution, it should not be "monstermash" since that is too close to the clue. If that was the password, everyone could guess it easily from the clue. It has to be one level "removed" from those words, guided by the clues for the matching passwords. The point of the post was that using unsalted crypt in the passwords allows you to combine clues, right? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.201|108.162.219.201]] 13:42, 6 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Not an answer, but maybe an approach: Look at it from the "what piece of information is Randall trying to tell us?" angle. In the first few puzzles, he teaches us the rules of the game. We disambiguate clues by later ones, which we can only do because of the missing salts. For example, the "name and jersey number" just tells us the format of the answer to the previous clue about Judith 15:10. Otherwise, there would have been no way to guess that exact string without the space and colon. Also, "Charlie X" and "Charlie Sheen" demonstrate that spaces are used in a "fair" way. I would not expect a trailing space on a password, for example. So what about the Pokemon then? The first half of the crypt for the Pokemon isn't used anywhere else. The easiest interpretation I can come up with is that this is just trying to restrict the common second part of the word to letters from the list of Water-3 Pokemon. Let's assume it wasn't made very difficult, so take just 'el', 'le', and 'l' from the Water-3-only group on bulbapedia. Then the puzzle is this:<br />
<br />
something related to 'monster mash': 8 letters plus the ending 'el', 'le', or 'l'<br />
something related to 'purloined' or related to 'letter': the same 8 letters, minus the ending<br />
pokemon: completely unrelated, just chosen to have a well known list of 9 or 10 letter words to restrict search space for first line<br />
<br />
I suck at crosswords, but can someone solve this restated version? There can't be that many 8 letter words that also make a word with 'el', 'le', or 'l' added to them? 15:23, 6 November 2013 (UTC) {{unsigned ip|108.162.219.201}}<br />
<br />
: Not to insult your reasoning, which is entirely correct, but I believe your restatement is *exactly* the puzzle that (reasonable) people have been working on (and failing to solve) since Monday. As a long-time mystery hunter, I'd like to suggest the opposite: the continued failure to find some reasonable solution to the puzzle as stated above implies that *at least one* of the assumptions above is wrong. (For the record, I'd broaden your first to "...related to 'monster mash' or the show/film M*A*S*H", but again, that's the assumption we *have* been making.) So I'm especially interested in ideas *different* from the above, at this point, although not necessarily throwing out the bathtub, baby and all. Probably there's a fundamentally different way to read the first clue, or the second, or the third. [[User:Cscott|Cscott]] ([[User talk:Cscott|talk]]) 17:11, 6 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
:: Not insulted at all, just glad if I summarized it correctly, since I was late to the party. Maybe this helps others bootstrap. As requested, a slightly alternate view for clue 1: the word "mash" may not be part of the answer, since it appears in the clue. This means the direct answer to the clue is "monster" and has nothing to do with the song at all. The password could just be the name of a monster that is formed from something purloined plus an short ending. The endings we're already considering make nice monster names.[[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.198|108.162.219.198]] 19:54, 6 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
:::I appreciate the summary, it helped me come up with my "keyboard mash" proposed solution, which you can see below" [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.16|108.162.221.16]] 21:51, 6 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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Looking at some word lists at http://www.litscape.com/words/ending_with/l/9_letter_l_end_words.html , this doesn't seem to be leading anywhere good. Can someone fix my logic? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.201|108.162.219.201]] 15:33, 6 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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Not sure if anyone else has pointed out yet, but there is a pokemon named purrloin http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Purrloin_%28Pok%C3%A9mon%29 . That seems like far too much of a coincidence to not be related. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.52.211|173.245.52.211]] 16:17, 6 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
: We'll add it to the long list of suspicious coincidences. [[User:Cscott|Cscott]] ([[User talk:Cscott|talk]]) 17:11, 6 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
:: I don't believe the hints can be related. Note that the Pokemon's name shares zero characters with the answer to the 'purloined' clue, so they are not linked via the same password. Any semantic link is inconsistent with these being password hints from separate (imaginary) users. Maybe Randall subconsciously (or via google) went from purloined to Purrloin to names of Pokemon. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.198|108.162.219.198]] 19:20, 6 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
a stretch.. but maybe a starting point?<br />
bootlegd purloined<br />
bootlegd ash he did the..<br />
???whisc ash fav-3<br />
[[Special:Contributions/108.162.215.34|108.162.215.34]]rbnm<br />
<br />
;Hash collision<br />
<br />
Maybe the last clues could be intended to be a hash collision? With 64-bit blocks that seems unlikely, but maybe it's a trick?<br />
[[User:Quantum7|Quantum7]] ([[User talk:Quantum7|talk]]) 21:29, 6 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
:Finding the probability of a collision amounts to the birthday problem. Assuming the hash function gives all 2^64 hash values with equal probability and there are 153 million unique message blocks (probably right within an order of magnitude), we have:<br />
:<br />
: <pre>Pr[collision] = 1 - exp(-153000000^2/(2*2^64)) = 0.000634</pre><br />
:<br />
: So the probability of a hash collision from different passwords is still quite low, even with such a large number of passwords. So it's worth assuming that all the identical hash blocks are from the same message, and keep looking for the poke-mash password.<br />
: BTW, getting a 50% chance of a collision requires about <tt>sqrt(-2^65*ln(.5))</tt> = 5 billion unique passwords.<br />
:[[User:Quantum7|Quantum7]] ([[User talk:Quantum7|talk]]) 21:46, 6 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
'''Explanation for the last 3 - Keyboard Mash'''<br />
<br />
"He did the mash, he did the" keyboard mash<br />
ASDFGHJK - L<br />
<br />
"purloined" letter, as in one letter from the home row<br />
ASDFGHJK<br />
<br />
Then the third one is TENTACOO - L <br />
[[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.16|108.162.221.16]] 21:45, 6 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
:Purloined seems like a stretch. On the other hand, 'asdfghjkl' is the 56th most common password in the real adobe data, so perhaps you're on to something. [[User:Quantum7|Quantum7]] ([[User talk:Quantum7|talk]]) 22:08, 6 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
::I don't know, I feel like purloined has got to be a reference to the Poe story. The pun that letter means single character rather than item of correspondence is cute and funny. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.16|108.162.221.16]] 22:30, 6 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
:I like this explanation --[[User:Lackadaisical|Lackadaisical]] ([[User talk:Lackadaisical|talk]]) 22:28, 6 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
: This get's my vote. There's no reason for the "mash" password to be repeated twice in the puzzle with no clue for one of them except to say "this is a commonly used password" (as shown by the abc and password1 entries). Common password with an l (or el etc.) missing from the end, a purloined letter(!), plus "mash" as a clue is oblique but not crazyily so [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.223|141.101.99.223]] 17:37, 7 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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:: I agree with the repetition part. Looking at the adobe top 100 passwords http://stricture-group.com/files/adobe-top100.txt I was hoping that 'asdfghjkl' was 2/5 as common as 'abc', based on the number of repetitions. It is actually more common, but at least it is on the list. I also think it is by far the best fit if choosing only from that list. Also, maybe Randall used another source material where it is less common than 'abc.' [[Special:Contributions/173.245.52.158|173.245.52.158]] 13:13, 8 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
: I think this is the best wrong answer yet. That is, I don't see how you can plausibly clue "ASDFGHJK" with "purloined" (that is, the hint doesn't work on its own, it requires the rest of the puzzle to make sense at all, which is against the rules of the puzzle). But it's a good story. Definitely wrong, but wrong in a really interesting way, and the most interesting wrong answer yet. ;) [[User:Cscott|Cscott]] ([[User talk:Cscott|talk]]) 19:41, 7 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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:: I disagree. Even without the context of the rest of the comic, ASDFGHJKL is such a common password that it makes sense to imagine a hint that simply refers to a variation on it. In the same way, I can imagine someone using "purloined" to hint at a password of PASSWOR. Of course, with only 7 letters that wouldn't work for the comic. You would need a common 9 letter password to make a workable puzzle in the comic, and it's hard to think of anything better than ASDFGHJKL in that context. I appreciate the symmetry of the reference as well, in The Purloined Letter, the trick is that the police are all overthinking things and overlooking the obvious. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.16|108.162.221.16]] 21:58, 7 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
::: I don't like "purloined" as a hint for "ASDFGHJK" one bit ("christmas" [that is, "noel"], "eight home", "elephant sneeze with a holiday", or any number of other phrases would be much better if that's what you were trying to clue), but it is the best thing so far. Maybe if we pencil it in, Randall will be motivated to let us know what he *really* meant. (Or apologize for "purloined" being lame.) [[User:Cscott|Cscott]] ([[User talk:Cscott|talk]]) 19:32, 8 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
: If there's no objection, I'll go ahead and add this solution to the table above explaining the comic? I don't think there are any other credible candidates. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.218.41|108.162.218.41]] 18:50, 12 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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Why the restriction on the ending of the Pokemon to el, l, etc? There could be an adjective before (i.e. redkingle), so the Pokemon name could extend more into the second frame. The adjective might be some abreviated synonym for favorite, or whatever fav (or fay) stand for. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.215.34|108.162.215.34]] 22:07, 6 November 2013 (UTC)rbnm<br />
<br />
;The last clue<br />
<br />
Regarding it being actually Fay water-3 pokemon, have a look at this: http://www.serebii.net/e-reader/battle/08.shtml<br />
<br />
The trainer is named Fay, and has a Starmie, which is a Water-3 Pokemon according to http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Water_3_(Egg_Group)<br />
<br />
However, its only 7 characters. Not sure if it means anything, but just putting it out there.<br />
<br />
EDIT: FayStarmie takes us to 10, leaving 9dca1d79d4dec6d5 meaning 'ie'<br />
<br />
EDIT 2: I believe there is a Fay in Pokemon X and Y, but I can't find any information on her. Also Fay could refer to fairy, which is the new type added in Pokemon X and Y, but there doesn't seem to be any fairy Water-3 Pokemon, or any pokemon that reside in both groups. [[User:Haelbarde|Haelbarde]] ([[User talk:Haelbarde|talk]]) 00:24, 7 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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It's not "FAY", it's "FAV". Check how "FAVORITE" is written in the middle of the picture, and look at the Y's. The vertex is clearly below the mid-point of A, which is where it is in Y. --[[Special:Contributions/199.27.128.119|199.27.128.119]] 09:45, 7 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
;Another theory on last part<br />
Numbers and dates. Other passwords had numbers, why not this one? <br />
<br />
A birthday is an easy thing to remember, so it's bound to be someone's password. So lets say a birthday was August 25, 1962. One can write that as august2562, which just so happens to be when Monster Mash was released, as per Wikipedia. In addition, August is quite similar to C. Auguste Dupin, from The Purlioned Letter. Lastly, one can add the Pokedex number of the Pokemon to the end of its name, but Poliwrath62 is too long, and is a water 1 Pokemon, not water 3.<br />
<br />
This theory doesn't fit perfectly, but I haven't seen it posted yet. Maybe it'll give someone that eureka moment...[[Special:Contributions/199.27.128.188|199.27.128.188]] 10:11, 7 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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On the "purloined" and "monster mash" things: this is an incomplete theory but might give someone else an idea. Poe's "The Purloined Letter" contains this line: "He is the monstrum horrendum, an unprincipled man of genius." So perhaps the "purloined" clue is a reference to this line somehow. "Monstrum horrendum" is Latin for "horrendous monster" (although in Latin "monster" technically means "something to be pointed out and marvel at"). So if the password is "monsterm", this could be a misspelling of "monstrum"; if it's "monster " it could be a translation, though that begs the question as to why it ends with a space. [[User:Darthkiwi|Darthkiwi]] ([[User talk:Darthkiwi|talk]]) 15:50, 7 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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Could purloined be a pun for a stolen persistant URL? [[Special:Contributions/199.27.128.113|199.27.128.113]] 18:32, 7 November 2013 (UTC)rbnm<br />
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I did some copypasting with v's y's and a's in paint and i now know for certain that it's fav pokemon, not fay. Althogh i did think about fay referring to fairy. But i now find this very unlikely. Personally i think it has some relation to water-3 egg group because that is just that obvious to any pokemon player, although it may be some weird distant connection. i usually do a few cryptic things with the password that i can probably remember but makes it as hard as possible to guess. so i might make something like that my hint if my favorite pokemon trainer used a pokemon once who shared the same colors as a water 3 pokemon. so my guess is that it is water-3 but maybe not a pokemon directly in it. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.231.53|108.162.231.53]] 18:57, 7 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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I'm wondering if the mash comment could refer to the Mashed Potato dance. From the wikipedia page about said dance, a slightly modified version of it was one of the dances that people danced to the Monster Mash. {{unsigned ip|108.162.219.35}}<br />
<br />
---<br />
<br />
One technique for creating strong passwords is to take the first letter of each word in a passage from a book/movie quote/song/etc. as seen at http://www.mrsware.com/2/post/2013/06/passwords-revisited.html - "I was working in the lab late one night" would turn into "iwwitllon". If we take the next lyrics from the monster mash after "he did the", we get 'mmhdtmiwags'. The first eight words of The Purloined Letter would spell 'apjadoge'. Not sure how helpful this is.<br />
<br />
Another thought is that in the story of The Purloined Letter, the letter is hidden in plain sight. Also, the story starts out with "Nihil sapientiae odiosius acumine nimio" - Nothing is more hateful to wisdom than excessive cleverness, which may be relevant here.<br />
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Finally, I was thinking about punctuation. "mon*m#" could be pronounced like "mon-star-m-hash". [[Special:Contributions/199.27.130.146|199.27.130.146]] 23:02, 7 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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It's also possible that Monster Mash means combining (mashing) the names of two Pokemon. I believe you guys have only been looking at single pokemon names. Regarding Purloined, could that word be the opposite mashup? So a Pokemon called (I'm making this up, don't hate on me) Purfect and another one named Charloined could mash into Purloined or Charfect. {{unsigned|Mirrordude}}<br />
: I don't think that is 'legal' in the rules that everyone is assuming for this game. Note the (simulated) user who picked the pokemon clue is unaware that someone else used monster mash in their clue. This is addressed in more detail above. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.52.158|173.245.52.158]] 13:00, 8 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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'''Not 1, but 3 Pokemon'''<br />
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What if the Pokemon clue wasn't a single favorite from the water-3 group, but a favorite group of three water type Pokemon? This is less intuitive from the hint, but do people really pick out favorites from egg groups rather than types? [[Special:Contributions/173.245.54.8|173.245.54.8]] 01:41, 8 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
: For example, "PokeBroKing" would represent a family of three water Pokemon (Slowpoke, Slowbro, Slowking), and "ING" would be the second hash to use with MonsterMash and the blank hint. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.54.8|173.245.54.8]] 03:18, 8 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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'''Two Word Monsters?'''<br />
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What if the most simple derivation summarized above is correct, but with two minor changes:<br />
1) he did the... refers to 'monster' not 'monster mash' since 'mash' appears in the clue (I asked about this above, but nobody commented)<br />
note that this needs to be a password that you wouldn't guess if you don't also have the purloined clue, so not the word 'monster' or 'monster mash' itself<br />
2) assume there is a space making two words in the first 8 characters of the answer to this clue<br />
Then the search for 8 character words for 'purloined' would actually be the search for 8 character phrases, like so:<br />
purloined -> letter -> 'post man'<br />
monster -> 'post manle' (ok, that's not a monster, but for the correct 'purloined' phrase it would be)<br />
This should fix the problem where you can't add short endings to 8 character words and make another word. I think it is easier to add these endings to shorter words. I also like the form of this puzzle, because it would be a logical difficulty progression after the 'Charlie X' thing above.<br />
[[Special:Contributions/173.245.52.158|173.245.52.158]] 12:52, 8 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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I think you're on the wrong track. The answer for the last one could be "Password|Smash" or "Password|Mash" (rhymes with MonsterMash) capitalization unknown, of course. "OmastarS|mash" or "Omastar |Smash" for the Pokemon. Purloined, of course would be the "Password" itself, self-referential. {{unsigned ip|108.162.219.23}}<br />
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;Who did the mash?<br />
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It's right in the lyrics: "my monster". The obvious corresponding answer to the Pokémon clue is to prepend the Pokédex number to the name, eg, "099kingler". It could also be, say, "99 kingler" or "91cloyster", which is unfortunate because we'd prefer a unique solution. Even sadder is that this leaves us with "my monst" for the password with the purloined clue, and that really just makes no sense at all. --[[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.38|108.162.219.38]] 22:55, 8 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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I might have missed it - did we figure out what the boxes on the right are for? They might be a key to the puzzle. [[User:Davheld|Davheld]] ([[User talk:Davheld|talk]]) 10:57, 10 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
:The boxes are just what people have been doing with the fact that each block represents up to 8 characters. You'll notice the rectangles made up of smaller boxes contain 8 boxes. These are only for the passwords which contain two blocks (thus having 9-16 characters). The smaller rectangles not subdivided then tell us that there is 8 or less characters inside it. [[User:Haelbarde|Haelbarde]] ([[User talk:Haelbarde|talk]]) 14:05, 11 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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Purrloin is the name of a Pokemon. I would suggest checking Water-3 Pokemon that can breed with Purrloin, but none can. Perhaps another connection? {{unsigned ip|173.245.54.79}}<br />
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---<br />
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Rob and pick are both synonyms of steal, and the guy who wrote the monster mash is robert pickett. So purloined could be "rob pick" and the other clue just "rob pickett". This doesn't seem to fit with any of the pokemon clues mentioned, but since I know nothing about pokemon mayber there's a way to make it work? -- starwed [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.19|108.162.216.19]] 19:16, 11 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
: I like the idea of some permutation of Robert Pickett. I'm sure the ending can be used with some Pokemon, provided the region number is added. What bothers me though is that the answer to monster mash is the same as the one above, which makes me think it should be a common phrase, not a name. But maybe there's a way to mess with Bob's name to turn it into a common phrase. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.54.8|173.245.54.8]] 01:18, 13 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
ducklett is a water pokemon belonging to egg group water 1 (so not completely fitting) his pokedex number is 580. disregarding the fact that it's water 1 and not 3 it could be 580ducklett. but even then we don't know for sure if we need a regional or national pokedex number. most pokemon (if not all) appear in more than one pokedex, and they are numbered differently in each one. so it could also be 086ducklett, #86ducklett, 153ducklett, or 127ducklett, along with the aforementioned 580 ducklett. so this would not be unambiguous. and prefixing a pokemon with it's pokedex number means there would be more than one solution to the puzzle. i now think that this is not the correct approach. i also really hope this isn't like a bait and switch, or some other trick to fool us into believing there is a solution, while in fact there is none. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.231.53|108.162.231.53]] 22:04, 11 November 2013 (UTC)</div>173.245.54.8https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:1286:_Encryptic&diff=52268Talk:1286: Encryptic2013-11-08T03:18:22Z<p>173.245.54.8: </p>
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<div>The answer to the weathervane sword/ favorite apostle hint has got to be Matthias. It is 8 characters long, Matthias was the apostle chosen to replace Judas and in the Redwall series Matthias is one of the wielders of the Sword of Martin a sword that was hung on a weathervane.<br />
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It is unclear to me if these are actual hashes from Adobe file? That would be very cool... but actual file seems to have passwords in slightly different format. http://arstechnica.com/security/2013/11/how-an-epic-blunder-by-adobe-could-strengthen-hand-of-password-crackers/ [[Special:Contributions/108.162.229.211|108.162.229.211]] 09:05, 4 November 2013 (UTC) pavel<br />
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:I wouldn't call 3DES secure ... but yes, in this situation the real problem is not using per-user salt. Note that I would expect that at least some of those examples would be solvable ...any idea? Hmmm ... sword of weather vane and one of apostles might be Martin ([http://redwall.wikia.com/wiki/Sword_of_Martin]) ... -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 10:00, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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::It's Jonathon (for John). Not sure what it has to do with weather vane swords though... [[Special:Contributions/108.162.240.18|108.162.240.18]] 12:42, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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:Umm. "Peter" does not seem to have 8 characters, does it? Encryption method suggests it should be 8 characters, as do 8 character boxes on the right... [[Special:Contributions/108.162.229.211|108.162.229.211]] 10:43, 4 November 2013 (UTC) pavel<br />
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::I'd say "weather vane sword", "name1" and "favorite of 12 apostles" is (Saint) Peter. "Weather vane" as symbol for the rooster in the denial, and the sword Peter used when Jesus was arrested. --[[Special:Contributions/108.162.254.177|108.162.254.177]] 10:25, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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::: ... interesting that google search didn't mentioned it :-) Seems bible have too low pagerank. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 10:32, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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::: The 'favourite' apostle was John the Evangelist though. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disciple_whom_Jesus_loved . The other biblical clue here is 'with your own hand you have done all this' - Judith 15:10. If that's Judith1510 then the 'name and shirt number' is 'Judith15'. The TOS/earlobes clue seems to be "Spock's brain" and "Spock's (ears?)". And the Michael Jackson one is (obviously) ABC123. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.214|141.101.99.214]] 11:14, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
:::: Perhaps "favorite" in this case refer's to the user's favorite, not Jesus's. [[User:Yomikoma|Yomikoma]] ([[User talk:Yomikoma|talk]]) 16:13, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
:::: The Michael Jackson password should just be "ABC". (The other clue refers only to letters, and the proper song title also has only letters.) —[[User:TobyBartels|TobyBartels]] ([[User talk:TobyBartels|talk]]) 20:57, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
::: Given that name1 is two blocks long, I would guess that the apostle's name is going to be eight characters long, with the second hash block being 1+seven spaces (or nulls if Adobe pads it with nulls and not spaces). But then again, as the only disciple with a name eight letters long is Thaddeus maybe not {{unsigned ip|141.101.99.214}}<br />
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:::: "St.Peter" is 8 characters, and having a "special" character (the period) makes it a good choice for passwords that might require 1 non-alphanumeric character (and ban spaces). [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.223|141.101.99.223]] 11:47, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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:::: I think it is obvious that Name1 refers to {The user's name} + 1. I wonder though if we should be referring to one of the other 12 apostles in a different context? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelve_Apostles_%28disambiguation%29 - [[Special:Contributions/108.162.242.11|108.162.242.11]] 18:02, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
::::: Is the "weathervane sword" referring to Redwall? I haven't read the book myself, but would it be referring to the "Sword of Martin"? [http://redwall.wikia.com/wiki/Sword_of_Martin] --[[User:Jeff|<b><font color="orange">Jeff</font></b>]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 19:17, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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Another article about using passwords hints from multiple users to find the passwords from the breach. http://7habitsofhighlyeffectivehackers.blogspot.com/2013/11/can-someone-be-targeted-using-adobe.html [[User:Bugefun|Bugefun]] ([[User talk:Bugefun|talk]]) 11:06, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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"Sexy earlobes" makes me think of [http://misswiu.livejournal.com/5385.html "The ABC of Aerobics"], but that would make that Shirley Clarke, and nothing in Star Trek has anything to do with Shirley that I am aware of, except possible [http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Ruth Shirley Bonne as Ruth]. I skimmed a list of episode titles, but nothing jumps out at me as particularly earlobish. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.187|108.162.219.187]] 11:20, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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:Sexy earlobes might have something to do with Ferengi, but they didn't appeared in TOS. 141.101.99.214's idea is better. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 11:42, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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:OK, we know that "sexy earlobes" and "best TOS Episode" are the same for the first eight character, but differ after that, while "best TOS" and "sugarland" are the same after the first 8 characters. So, my guesses are : Best TOS episode: "Charlie X"; "Sexy Earlobes": Someone with the first name of "Charlie"; "Sugarland": some city in Texas (perhaps "HoustonTX") [[User:JamesCurran|JamesCurran]] ([[User talk:JamesCurran|talk]]) 16:51, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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Note that you should not ever use cipher in {{w|Block_cipher_mode_of_operation#Electronic_codebook_.28ECB.29|ECB (electronic codebook)}} mode, i.e. encrypt each block separately and independently, but use chaining. --[[User:JakubNarebski|JakubNarebski]] ([[User talk:JakubNarebski|talk]]) 12:15, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
: And for passwords you shouldn't be using a cipher at all, but rather a hash function. (Or a cipher in one of the approved hash constructions, if you must.) And really you shouldn't be using a standard hash function, but be following best practices for passwords instead: salting the hash, using a *slow* hash function, etc. [[User:Cscott|Cscott]] ([[User talk:Cscott|talk]]) 20:22, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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Hmm, i'm rather confused about the last few on the list though. Assumedly the password for "he did the mash, he did the" would be "monster mash", but that would leave "purloined" with a password of either "monsterm" or "monster ". which doesn't make much sense. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.240.18|108.162.240.18]] 13:47, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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(charlie sheen) a1f9b2b6299e7a2b eadec1e6ab797397 sexy earlobes - He did a 2 and a half men episode on sexy earlobes<br />
:(charlie x) a1f9b2b6299e7a2b 617ab0277727ad85 best tos episode - Star Trek has so many good episodes...<br />
::(houstontx) 39738b7adb0b8af7 617ab0277727ad85 sugarland - Sugarland is in Houston, TX<br />
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I don't know about anyone else, but the "hints" column incidentally reminded me of {{w|Darwinian poetry|Darwinian Poetry}}... Not intentionally, I'm sure. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.214|141.101.98.214]] 14:46, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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Somehow I've missed out on this issue until this comic alerted me to it, but: once a few passwords are correctly guessed, does that make it straightforward to recover the encryption key, and then be able to decrypt '''all''' of them? —[[User:Scs|scs]] ([[User talk:Scs|talk]]) 14:50, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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: Answering my own question: not really straightforward, no. 3DES is still pretty strong, and what knowing a few passwords gives you is a known-plaintext attack, which helps a little, but is by no means a giveaway. —[[User:Scs|scs]] ([[User talk:Scs|talk]]) 15:00, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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:: Note that if blackhat used this service, he would know at least one plaintext - his own password--[[User:JakubNarebski|JakubNarebski]] ([[User talk:JakubNarebski|talk]]) 15:05, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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:No, for calculating the encryption key of Triple DES, there is no real benefit in knowing million passwords, you would still need to brute force it. You would need to know at least 2<sup>32</sup> different passwords to make it easier but you can't do that with the leaked file (there are about 30 times less of them and moreover many of them are not unique). [[User:Sten|'''S<small>TEN</small>''']] <small>([[User talk:Sten|talk]])</small> 16:08, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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Okay, so the first column is the encrypted password, the second one is the hint chosen by user. What do rectangles mean? [[Special:Contributions/173.245.53.151|173.245.53.151]] 15:28, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
:That are the fields to fill the characters in just as you do in a crossword puzzle. There are small fields at the beginning that take one character each and one large field at the end that takes one to eight characters. [[User:Sten|'''S<small>TEN</small>''']] <small>([[User talk:Sten|talk]])</small> 15:32, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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Water 3 is an egg group: http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Water_3_(Egg_Group) . Given the length of the key, it will probably be 9-16 characters. (Crawdaunt, tentacool, and tentacruel are most likely) [[Special:Contributions/199.27.128.139|199.27.128.139]] 15:43, 4 November 2013 (UTC) <br />
:-- which means 9dca1d79d4dec6d5 is either L, EL, or T, but I can't find a way for that to match up with any variation of "monster mash." [[Special:Contributions/173.245.55.209|173.245.55.209]] 16:15, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
:: Same problem here... Monster mash must not be correct, but it is one of the easier ones, I can't give up on it. --[[User:Jeff|<b><font color="orange">Jeff</font></b>]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 17:35, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
::: Maybe, he did the MASH is about the book, movie or TV Show M*A*S*H instead? --[[User:Jeff|<b><font color="orange">Jeff</font></b>]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 17:49, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
:: Monster Mash was written by Bobby Pickett, maybe it has something to do with him? [[User:Sten|'''S<small>TEN</small>''']] <small>([[User talk:Sten|talk]])</small> 18:38, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
::: Maybe it's not "monster mash" but just "monster". This would allow the Water-3 Pokemon to be "Cloyster". [[Special:Contributions/108.162.237.5|108.162.237.5]] 19:17, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
:::: You are having trouble counting to eight. [[User:Cscott|Cscott]] ([[User talk:Cscott|talk]]) 20:22, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
::::: You are forgetting the space. Assuming space is stored as a null character, this might actually work.[[Special:Contributions/173.245.54.29|173.245.54.29]] 01:43, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
:::::: Nobody in their right mind would encode spaces as nulls. For us to suppose that they did, we'd need to have some specific clue to that effect. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.238.5|108.162.238.5]] 09:08, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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It seems to me there are two puzzles here, if folks are right that this is not actual data from the hack. 1) Figure out Adobe's master 3DES encryption password, for the big prize. 2) figure out Randall's 3DES encryption password for this puzzle based on these hints, and knowing it will be something clever. [[User:Nealmcb|Nealmcb]] ([[User talk:Nealmcb|talk]]) 16:12, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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Trying to decode the passwords (As Randall obviously wants us to)<br />
"with your own hand you have done all this" is from the book of Judith.<br />
Working on decoding the others. --[[User:Jeff|<b><font color="orange">Jeff</font></b>]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 17:13, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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8babb6299e06eb6d = password<br />
a0a2876eb1ea1fea = 1<br />
85e9da81a8a78adc = 57<br />
--[[User:Jeff|<b><font color="orange">Jeff</font></b>]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 18:10, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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Weather Vane Sword may be a reference to Game of Thrones Ascent. The "Sworn Sword", I believe is "Rona" which is also a name. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.55.216|173.245.55.216]] 18:27, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
: It needs to be a name of an apostle (as per line 7) and have 7 or 8 characters (as line 3 needs a continuation) so this leaves Matthew, Thaddeus and (Judas) Iscariot. [[User:Sten|'''S<small>TEN</small>''']] <small>([[User talk:Sten|talk]])</small> 18:57, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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If a password(or 8 character segment) is guessed can it be confirmed? Somebody should take this leaked list and create a website that presents it like in the comment and lets people guess. It can fill in the guessed ones. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.246.117|108.162.246.117]] 19:17, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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I'm putting in Mattias for the sword, name1 and disciple because of Saint Matthias [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Matthias] and Redwall Matthias [http://redwall.wikia.com/wiki/Matthias] who held the Weathervane Sword (Also known as the sword of Martin [http://redwall.wikia.com/wiki/The_Sword_of_Martin] ) --[[User:Jeff|<b><font color="orange">Jeff</font></b>]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 19:27, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
: I've also removed "monster mash" from the list as it can't be right. Doesn't match the pokemon or the purloined clues. --[[User:Jeff|<b><font color="orange">Jeff</font></b>]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 19:27, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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Based on the Water-3 Pokemon hint, the only possibilities of more than 8 characters are tentacool, tentacruel, barbaracle, crawdaunt, carracosta, clauncher, and clawitzer. This would mean "9dca1d79d4dec6d5" would be l, el, le, t, ta, or r. --[[User:Dvorakmd|Dvorakmd]] ([[User talk:Dvorakmd|talk]]) 19:51, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
: This is assuming there are no characters before the actual name of the pokemon. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.55.209|173.245.55.209]] 20:30, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
: Assuming Randall has constructed this comic to have a unique answer, it can't end in r because then the clue would be ambiguous (could be clauncher or clawitzer). [[User:Cscott|Cscott]] ([[User talk:Cscott|talk]]) 21:53, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
: Some of these can be ruled out; it's very unlikely to be a Generation VI Pokémon (Barbaracle, Clauncher and Clawitzer) as this has only just come out and someone would have had to set up their pasword within the last few weeks. And the Pokémon that are also in the Water-1 group are probably more likely to be thought of as Water-1 than Water-3 (Crawdaunt and Carracosta). This only leaves Tentacool and Tentacruel as longer than 8 letter Water-3 only Pokémon that have been known of for a reasonable length of time; and Tentacool is no one's favourite, as the annoying multitude of them that show up whenever you try to Surf anyway makes them as reviled as Zubats in caves, if not moreso. :P Of course, the password need not be simply the Pokémon's name alone. "SexyShellder" "Cloyster1987" "Misty'sStarmie"... Who knows? [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.252|141.101.99.252]] 01:03, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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I don't know the answer to the end either, but here's a list of people who did the Monster Mash, from Wikipedia:<br />
* Bobby Picket (as Boris Picket)<br />
* Garpax Records (Gary S. Paxton)<br />
* The Misfits<br />
* far, far too many other covers to list<br />
And here's some synonyms for "purloined", from thesaurus.com:<br />
* stole<br />
* pilfered<br />
* filched<br />
* misappropriated<br />
* embezzled<br />
* burglarized<br />
* shoplifted<br />
* poached<br />
* pillaged<br />
* cheated<br />
* pinched<br />
* heisted<br />
* thieved<br />
* plundered<br />
* appropriated<br />
* lifted<br />
* took<br />
* snitched<br />
* defrauded<br />
* swindled<br />
* ripped off<br />
* made off with<br />
Good luck with these!<br />
—[[User:TobyBartels|TobyBartels]] ([[User talk:TobyBartels|talk]]) 20:31, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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What about Purloined referring to "The Purloined Letter?" When choosing hints, people, at least in my experience, tend to use word association rather than synonyms. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.55.209|173.245.55.209]]<br />
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Purloined could also be a reference to the Monster.com hack (http://www.symantec.com/connect/blogs/monster-trojan). [[Special:Contributions/108.162.237.11|108.162.237.11]] 21:00, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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Words meaning purloined that can have the listed suffixes could be '''embezzle'''/'''embezzler''' or '''scrounge'''/'''scrounger'''. Not sure if it fits to the mash clue. There was a loan shark character who would acquire things on MASH called Rizzo, it is a stretch though. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.246.117|108.162.246.117]] 21:01, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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I'm still trying to figure out how the solutions go into the spaces on the right -- it may be more obvious once the last couple clues are figured out. I suspect the ordering and numbers of clues have some sort of meaning. Why are there 5 of the 877... passwords, 2 with no clues? Why is one of the 4e18.... passwords separated from the rest? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.28|108.162.221.28]] 21:07, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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Could Purloined be a reference to the "Purloined Shadows" book in Elder Scrolls? --[[User:Dvorakmd|Dvorakmd]] ([[User talk:Dvorakmd|talk]]) 21:09, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
: Or 'The Purloined Payroll', a WoW quest? "Purloined in Petrograd" is also a lyric to a Decemberists song (The Bagman's Gambit). Google n-grams suggests that "Purloined Image", and "purloined documents" are a Thing. [[User:Cscott|Cscott]] ([[User talk:Cscott|talk]]) 21:58, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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Purloined could be a reference to something that is known as have been stolen like a work of art, or it could be something that was stolen in an XKCD comic. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.246.117|108.162.246.117]] 21:18, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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'''EdgarPoe'''(author of The Purloined Letter)/'''EdgarPoet''' fits, but again not really anything to do with MASH. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.246.117|108.162.246.117]] 21:27, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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Water-3 pokemon (egg group) are given here: http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Water_3_(Egg_Group) ...if I split off the letters of their names after the 8th letter, we see l, el, le, t, ta, and r. So the MASH item ends with one of those suffixes. [[Special:Contributions/199.27.128.167|199.27.128.167]] 21:31, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
: Can't end in 'r', because then that clue would be ambiguous. [[User:Cscott|Cscott]] ([[User talk:Cscott|talk]]) 21:53, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
: Speaking of pokemon, could the clue to purloined have something to do with the pokemon Purrloin? http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Purrloin_(Pok%C3%A9mon) [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.43|108.162.221.43]] 23:51, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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Is there a reason "MASH" is capitalized in the above sections? Given the context, it shouldn't be, and I still haven't given up on the password being a reference to the monster mash. That said, we can't ignore the movie/show MASH.<br />
Also, now that I think about it: pokeMONstermash? I don't know, just throwing ideas out :P [[Special:Contributions/173.245.55.209|173.245.55.209]] 22:08, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
On [http://de.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/1pvwyf/xkcd_encryptic_analysis_at_the_link_below/ reddit] they suggest "Letterman" (which is wrong, too many letters) based on the M*A*S*H episode, "Letters". [[User:Cscott|Cscott]] ([[User talk:Cscott|talk]]) 22:11, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
:...on the other hand, I wonder if an answer like "ALANALDA" would work? As in, someone who "did the M*A*S*H"... [[User:Cscott|Cscott]] ([[User talk:Cscott|talk]]) 22:13, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
:: Sadly, no. Because it needs to be more than 8 characters. --[[User:Jeff|<b><font color="orange">Jeff</font></b>]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 22:17, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
::: No, I mean, "an answer of this form", not ALANALDA exactly. The Edgar Allan / Alan Alda congruence is tasty, but I can't make it work. ALLANPOE works as an answer for "Purloined" but that makes something like ALLANPOET the answer to "he did the MASH" (CRAWDAUNT is then the pokemon). But that's misspelling Alda's name for the MASH clue, doesn't quite work. There's also JAMIEFARR (Cpl Klinger) as a better answer to "he did the MASH" but then that makes JAMIEFAR the answer to "purloined" and I can't plausibly make that work. ALLANARBUS is another M*A*S*H actor, but that doesn't work at all. Can anyone come up with other/better ideas in this vein? [[User:Cscott|Cscott]] ([[User talk:Cscott|talk]]) 22:31, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
::: Don't misspell Alda's name; misspell Poe's! —[[User:TobyBartels|TobyBartels]] ([[User talk:TobyBartels|talk]]) 02:07, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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In crossword puzzles, a clue ending in -ed (like 'purloined') is most commonly a hint that the answer ends in 'ed'. Cross referencing that with the Pokemon clue, the solution for "he did the MASH" becomes a nine or ten letter answer ending in: -edl, -edel, -edle, -edt, or -edta (excluding -edr due to non-uniqueness), with ......edle looking the most "English-y" to me. My hunch would be something else Robert Altman or Alan Alda "did"... but nothing seems to end in 'edle.' --[[User:Willowy burrito|Willowy burrito]] ([[User talk:Willowy burrito|talk]]) 23:07, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
: There is no indication that this is a standard crossword. Most users don't respect crossword conventions when writing password hints. [[User:Cscott|Cscott]] ([[User talk:Cscott|talk]]) 23:59, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
:: Aside from the title. And the text. And the fact these didn't come from users, but were just chosen for a puzzle designed by Randall, who would include just this sort of puzzler hint/in-joke in a comic about puzzles. It's moot, because no synonyms for 'stolen' make any sense with a couple other letters tacked on the end. But still, there've been worse hunches. --[[User:Willowy burrito|Willowy burrito]] ([[User talk:Willowy burrito|talk]]) 00:45, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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For all we know, his favourite Water-3 Pokémon could be Shell Smash Cloyster or Shell Smash Omastar - "OmastarSmash" as a password would fit in with "Monster mash". [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.252|141.101.99.252]] 23:16, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
: I like that idea, although it leaves "Monster " (with a trailing space) as the answer to "Purloined", which makes no sense. But interesting idea. [[User:Cscott|Cscott]] ([[User talk:Cscott|talk]]) 00:00, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
MonsterMash<br />
MonsterM<br />
TheWiscash {{unsigned|Jcupcake}}<br />
: It's "Whiscash", and it's Water 2 (not 3) and "MonsterM" makes no sense as an answer for the hint "Purloined". But I like the idea of adding "The" in front of the pokemon answer; perhaps we're being too restrictive by looking only at pokemon with length > 8. [[User:Cscott|Cscott]] ([[User talk:Cscott|talk]]) 23:59, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
::Yeah, sorry about the typo - last one would be TheWhiscash. MonsterM absolutely makes sense. http://www.hoax-slayer.com/monster-666.shtml The purloined letter here IS M [[User:Jcupcake|Jcupcake]] ([[User talk:Jcupcake|talk]]) 02:40, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
So somewhere above this someone pointed out that purloined could refer to a monster.com hack...in which case, could the first two passwords be "monster mash" and "monster"? That would allow for another previous suggestion of "OmastarSmash" Also, here's my IP Address and a remarkably not-random timestamp: [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.195|108.162.219.195]] 01:31, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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It could also be that there are modifiers to the base. I always thought of Monster Mash as MonstaMash. This would line up closely with My Corphish written as "mycorphish" My favorite pokemon is my pikachu not just any pikachu, but mine, sort of logic. [[User:Bitassassin|Bitassassin]] ([[User talk:Bitassassin|talk]]) 01:43, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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Could "he did the mash" be referring to brewing and/or the Maillard reaction? [[User:Cscott|Cscott]] ([[User talk:Cscott|talk]]) 05:32, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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I was just thinking that "MonsterM Ash", "MonsterM", both seem to make sense, and Ash had a few water pokemon in the water 3 egg group, so could it potentially be something along the lines of "Corphish Ash"? That was the only 8 letter water 3 pokemon he had and it fits with the other clues [[User:NewToThis|NewToThis]] ([[User talk:NewToThis|talk]]) 07:25, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Has the idea of pokemon fusion been considered? http://pokemon.alexonsager.net/ referenced by http://kotaku.com/how-the-website-that-lets-you-create-frankenstein-pokem-510517336<br />
--[[User:Oukansz|Oukansz]] ([[User talk:Oukansz|talk]]) 19:25, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
;Fanservice<br />
<br />
Randall must know about this site. This comic doesn't work without people to crack the code. Should we have a fanservice category? :-) --[[User:SurturZ|SurturZ]] ([[User talk:SurturZ|talk]]) 23:32, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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I'm beginning to suspect that the wide boxes will have the key in it. Assuming he used regular DES (or DES3, for that matter, but using the same 8-byte key 3 times), it could be plausible. The 5 in the middle could be 'abcde', a lot of the other 'second halves' are numbers, and the likely known one that's not seems to be an 'x' -- which could certainly be involved in writing a hex number... problem is there's 11 of those boxes. Trying to guess what signficance the positioning of those boxes have. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.28|108.162.221.28]] 00:00, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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Actually, it looks like the boxes line up perfectly such that the wide bits (for second-half) will only touch the words they apply to. Order will be more or less what they are (I see the wide boxes as, in order, 1, 57, 10, Sheen, and X, with the 8 char boxes as Matthias, Password, Judith15, Charlie, and HoustonT). The next 5 are odd -- I'm not sure if we repeat the alpha/obvious password 5 times, or it's 5 chars long (abcde) and one per box. The last set is still under discussion, of course. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.28|108.162.221.28]] 00:20, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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;MASH capitalized<br />
I'm currently chasing down the idea that MASH refers to [[Wikipedia:MASH-1]]. Haven't seen any name yet that looks like it might satisfy "Purloined". - [[User:BozoTheScary|BozoTheScary]] ([[User talk:BozoTheScary|talk]]) 01:56, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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I think MASH is a transcribing error. The comic doesn't have any difference on those letters as far as I can tell. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.50.222|173.245.50.222]] 03:18, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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The Purloined Letter is a Edgar Alan Poe story starring C. Auguste Dupin. Might help. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.249.5|108.162.249.5]] 03:08, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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There is also a strong association between the Monster Mash and the Mashed Potato, just throwing another idea into the ring. Also try the name BobbyPickett. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.249.5|108.162.249.5]] 03:22, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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<br />
Frankenstein did the Monster Mash in the cartoon for the song. That leads to a Pokemon card ending in 'tein' and 'frankens' for the hint Purloined. I could not find a Pokemon card that ended in 'tein' nor could I link 'frankens' with Purloined. I ran 'frankens' through Google Translate but found nothing. Also, it's the same password for the "monster mash" hint and the entry with no password hint so I think it's an obvious password (something someone can recall without a hint). Frankenstein fits that part but not the other ones. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.50.222|173.245.50.222]] 03:35, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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My $0.02: "He did the mash..." might allude to the expression "doing the math" only (intentionally) misspelled and something like "numbert" or "numb" could be the answer. --[[User:RagnarDa|RagnarDa]] ([[User talk:RagnarDa|talk]]) 04:01, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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graveyard smash fits for the first clue (though lyrically incorrect). Gives smash as second block, but cannot find association between graveyard and purloined. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.249.5|108.162.249.5]] 04:08, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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If we take The Monster Mash for the first answer, it could be written as TheMonsterMash or The Monster Mash, giving either TheMonst erMash or The Mons ter Mash as the two blocks. This gives either Themonst or The Mons as Purloined and either ermash or ter Mash for second block of pokemon answer. Suggestions? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.249.5|108.162.249.5]] 04:15, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
: Only problem is that the word "the" is the last word of the hint.[[Special:Contributions/108.162.237.117|108.162.237.117]] 04:51, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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I know that the water-3 group is not the same, but it seems like an odd coincidence that another pokemon group is the "monster" group. --[[User:Natnee|Natnee]] ([[User talk:Natnee|talk]]) 04:44, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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There is a Scooby Doo comic book story titled "[The Purloined Poe-M](http://scoobydoo.wikia.com/wiki/The_Purloined_Poe-M)", which has an odd similarity to the "MonsterM" possible password. This would leave the pokemon password ending "ash" who, of course, is a pokemon character ... which makes no sense in that place. [[Special:Contributions/199.27.128.83|199.27.128.83]] 05:51, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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Here's one that fits: <br><br />
facemash4077 (Combination of facemash by zuckerberg and M*A*S*H) <br><br />
facemash (Site made by Zuck in The Social network.) <br><br />
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Maybe facmashklinger.. The eggklinger being a water-3 Pokemon? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.215.39|108.162.215.39]] 06:14, 5 November 2013 (UTC)rbnm<br />
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[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Orchard John Orchard] played in M*A*S*H and also was in the movie "The Letter" [[Special:Contributions/108.162.250.8|108.162.250.8]] 05:02, 6 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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;Working Backwards<br />
I'm attempting to take a different tact, by trying to find the key itself. I'm assuming its something easy to guess. I've tried the top 100 Adobe passwords (you can get them [http://stricture-group.com/files/adobe-top100.txt here]) using the following bash script (testing the word "matthias", as this one seems pretty certain):<br />
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<code><br />
while read p; do echo -n $p\: && echo -n "matthias" | openssl enc -e -des-ede3 -nosalt -nopad -pass pass:$p | xxd -p; done < passwords.txt<br />
</code><br />
<br />
For this to work, I pre-processed the top 100 passwords file with:<br />
<br />
<code><br />
cat adobe-top100.txt | cut -c51- > passwords.txt<br />
</code><br />
<br />
…and then trimmed the cruft with a text editor (leading text paragraph and table headers). So far no luck; perhaps someone with more time on their hands can try some obvious XKCD-related passwords (I've tried XKCD, xkcd, xkcd.com, randall, rmunroe, encryptic, and Encrytic) and see if the encrypted version(s) match up with what we have here. [[User:Yaztromo|Yaztromo]] ([[User talk:Yaztromo|talk]]) 09:27, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
:I should mention that I've also tried OpenSSL's des-ede mode and des-ecb, as Im not sure if Randall used one, two, or three key mode. I'm also assuming the key has been generated from the password using OpenSSL's default key generation method, any of with I suppose could be incorrect. [[User:Yaztromo|Yaztromo]] ([[User talk:Yaztromo|talk]]) 09:39, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
:: Nice work. Note that the puzzle is very specific about using "block mode 3-DES" (usually called "ECB"). DES keys are actually 56 bits; each of the 8 bytes has odd parity (the number of 1 bits is odd). From [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Encryption_Standard wp], "Bits 8, 16,..., 64 are for use in ensuring that each byte is of odd parity." As a wild guess, I'd suggest that, if Randall chose a readable 8-ASCII-character passphrase, he also selected only characters that would make the parity bit zero (so that the result was ASCII). That is, <code><nowiki>[ #%&)*,/12478;=>@CEFIJLOQRTWX[]^abdghkmnpsuvyz|]</nowiki></code>. [[User:Cscott|Cscott]] ([[User talk:Cscott|talk]]) 16:34, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
::: Uh, hold one. Read the "Explanation" section above. It's clear that the hashes are not real, so brute-forcing the key isn't going to work. [[User:Cscott|Cscott]] ([[User talk:Cscott|talk]]) 16:48, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
:::: Just to note, there are actually three options for keys in TripleDES: having three independent keys (K1, K2, K3), having two independent keys (K1, K2, K1), or using a single key (K1, K1, K1). When run in ECB mode, OpenSSL calls these '''des-ede3''' and '''des-ede''' for options 1 and 2 (option 3 is for backwards compatibility with DES, and can be run using just '''des-ecb'''). See [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple_DES#Keying_options Triple DES - Keying Options] for details. In addition, the password and the key are two different entities -- typically the password is run through a keying algorithm first (commonly [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PBKDF2 PBKDF2] for 3DES), so there is no need to select password characters based on parity patterns. All of which is moot now that we know that the data isn't in fact TripleDES encrypted in the first place. I'm actually disappointed in Randall now :P. [[User:Yaztromo|Yaztromo]] ([[User talk:Yaztromo|talk]]) 19:01, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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I Hadn't seen it mentioned yet, but Monster Mash was written by Robert George Pickett (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobby_Pickett), Whose last name goes closely with the second clue, Purloined, which means "stolen". I can't make it work, but I figured it was worth pointing out. (Nov 5th 1:26 pm utc ) [[Special:Contributions/173.245.56.24|173.245.56.24]] 13:27, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
: It's a good connection. Maybe we should reorganize the discussion and start a list of "interesting ideas we can't quite make work" in the hopes that someone else has an insight. Edgar Allan / Alan Alda, Pickett / "Pick it", Klinger / Kingler, etc. Most of these are just manifestation of the human brain's ability to find patterns even in random coincidence, of course, but one of them might be on the right track. [[User:Cscott|Cscott]] ([[User talk:Cscott|talk]]) 16:23, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Just quick thoughts. <br />
I feel like Cpl klinger and the water type kingler is too solid a connection to ignore even though I can't really use it. <br />
Kingler was owned in the series by Ash. <br />
Ash is a three letter word and the last three letters of the phrase monstermash. <br />
Monsterm=8 letters so the first block ash=3 letters in the second block. <br />
Monsterm is about the monster.com thing, therefore purloined. It's a double reference, the .co has been purloined from the purloined website. <br />
Then blastoise -3, or rather blastois3 - 3 (mocking the common password meme of replacing letters with numbers) <br />
So the last password, which is super hard to guess and well chosen even with the clue is, blastoisash? It's a feasibly memorable password that would not be quickly forgotten by a pokemon fan while still being hard to guess. <br />
Can you think of a way to check it? Maybe go into the old command line xkcd and try it as a password? (From a contributor to my talk page) --[[User:Jeff|<b><font color="orange">Jeff</font></b>]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 13:52, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
: That's really a stretch. ".co is purloined from monster.com?" really? The answer will be far more obviously correct... once we figure it out. Look at the other answers, for example. [[User:Cscott|Cscott]] ([[User talk:Cscott|talk]]) 16:23, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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;another quick idea for monster mash<br />
<br />
It could be deflection. Maybe whoever put it in was paranoid. Or just dumb. Or who knows.<br />
<br />
But, there is a pokemon that's in the monster/water(-1) hybrid group called Marshtomp.<br />
<br />
Monster mash, mashed (ie anagrammed) can give us all but the P out of that... which is fine, as it's a 9-letter name.<br />
<br />
Thus we have E, N and S left over (and indeed a further T, H, E), which could become overall, e.g, Marshtomens (...Marshtomethens? Or w/e), which you can split up as you like to represent something which has been stolen (personally). Possibly in german slang or something. It doesn't have to be a direct thesaurus link, it could well be complete misdirection (on Randall's behalf, or that of his notional Adobe user), same as for the pokemon.<br />
<br />
And for the pokemon itself, it could well be "Marshtomp3" ;)<br />
<br />
Also, don't forget about reversed words and so-on.<br />
<br />
Heck, I've used very personal and/or random things (like, maybe two or three people in the world may recognise it in connection with me, and it's not online, at least not anywhere it can be found - basically it's just in my head and dies with me), reversed, with numbers substituting random characters, as passwords before. That covers each individual base in just one PW...<br />
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Now we just have to start feeding the guesses into a hash engine and try to figure out, maybe brute force, what the original key was. Knowing almost all of the other answers already makes this far, far easier for those who may have the facility to run the tests already. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.213|141.101.99.213]] 14:54, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
: This is not a real excerpt from the password file, this is a puzzle which Randall made up. Therefore, the answer to the last group will not be random, and it will not be a stretch. It will be obvious (as obvious as the previous ones)... once we figure out the catch. [[User:Cscott|Cscott]] ([[User talk:Cscott|talk]]) 16:23, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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FWIW, Eve Online also features a "Purloined Sansha Codebreaker". [[User:Cscott|Cscott]] ([[User talk:Cscott|talk]]) 17:16, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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I agree that the solution has to be obvious - especially after its revealed. If this were a crossword puzzle, then the clues like Purloined might be followed by a question mark. Purloined? a cat that is loined - a cat that is covered with cloths? Puss in boots? Or something along those lines... [[Special:Contributions/108.162.215.34|108.162.215.34]]rbnm<br />
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purloined=phished (Corphish)? {{unsigned ip|108.162.216.227}}<br />
<br />
i wonder if the link between the last three clues is more like a cryptic crossword puzzle---for instance, --purloined= heisted; the other clues reading it as he/is/ted...?--[[User:Wwd|Wwd]] ([[User talk:Wwd|talk]]) 22:40, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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I wonder if the pokemon could be the name of an ubuntu release, per "Not Really Into Pokemon" at http://xkcd.com/178/ --[[User:Willowy burrito|Willowy burrito]] ([[User talk:Willowy burrito|talk]]) 22:45, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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You could also abbreviate Robert Pickett's name (the co-writer of Monster Mash) as "Rob Pickett" which goes even more with purloined (the first 8 letters are now "Rob Pick"). [[User:Davheld|Davheld]] ([[User talk:Davheld|talk]]) 06:21, 6 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Beings that "did the mash" according to the song http://www.lyricsondemand.com/onehitwonders/monstermashlyrics.html : my monster, the ghouls, Igor, Igor's baying hounds, the coffin-bangers, "The Crypt-Kicker Five", you. Zombies, Wolf Man, Dracula/Drac, and Boris were also mentioned, but they didn't do the mash. Hope that helps someone (doesn't help me). [[User:DPWally|DPWally]] ([[User talk:DPWally|talk]]) 23:05, 6 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
;Capitalization hints?<br />
<br />
I have no idea who first put the capital letters in "MASH" and "Purloined" in the transcript (and I don't want to check), but now that I've gotten rid of the second (after somebody else got rid of the first), I want to record them here for the record. Possibly Randall put them in and was feeding us clues (so ''MASH'' the book or movie, and ''Purloined'' a title such as Poe's). I consider this unlikely (after all, I removed one of these capitalizations), but the possibility should be recorded. —[[User:TobyBartels|TobyBartels]] ([[User talk:TobyBartels|talk]]) 01:17, 6 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
I can't be a coincidence that this comes up as the top google news search for 'purloined:' http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/11/05/adobe_users_purloined_passwords_were_pathetic/ {{unsigned ip|108.162.246.120}}<br />
<br />
<br />
"38a7c9279cadeb44 9dca1d79d4dec6d5 he did the mash, he did the": Ministermash (sounds like monster mash)<br />
"38a7c9279cadeb44 purloined": Minister (based on the character Minister D-, who stole the letter in the Edgar Allen Poe story) <br />
"a8ae5754a2b7af7a 9dca1d79d4dec6d5 fav water-3 pokemon": OmastarSmash (Shell Smash Omastar)<br />
So,38a7c9279cadeb44 = minister, 9dca1d79d4dec6d5 = mash, a8ae5754a2b7af7a = omastars<br />
04:07, 6 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
:Probably one of the best complete theories I've heard [[User:Davheld|Davheld]] ([[User talk:Davheld|talk]]) 06:26, 6 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
I suggest "alligato" (a form of Latin ''alligatus'', perfect passive participle of ''alligo'' "bind up"), and "alligator" (Referencing "Land of 1000 Dances"). [[Special:Contributions/199.27.128.62|199.27.128.62]] 05:37, 6 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
I think there is a transcribe mistake. <br><br />
Instead of "fav water-3 pokemon" <br><br />
Could it be "fay water-3 pokemon" <br><br />
Look at the Y and V letters in the non-chopped letters above. I think it is a Y and not a V. <br><br />
{{unsigned ip|108.162.215.51}}<br />
*About the Pokemon, is it possible everyone's ignoring a much simpler explanation? Every Pokemon game begins with a choice of one of the three starter Pokemon, each of which have an evolutionary line of three Pokemon. In first gen, if your "favorite [is] water [from the] 3 Pokemon", then you'll be using Squirtle, followed by Wartortle and Blastoise. 2nd gen: Totodile, Croconaw, Feraligatr. 3rd gen: Mudkip, Marshtomp, Swampert. 4th gen: Piplup, Prinplup, Empoleon. Perhaps the answer uses one of these, or some combination of them? --Anon 08:57, 6 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Boris Blacher wrote an opera based on 'The purloined letter' This may fit with Bobby 'Boris' Pickett who sang Monster Mash [[User:YellowYeti|YellowYeti]] ([[User talk:YellowYeti|talk]]) 11:11, 6 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
The "Boris" in "Boris Pickett" is a reference to Boris Karloff. (In his other work, Pickett doesn't use that name.) —[[User:TobyBartels|TobyBartels]] ([[User talk:TobyBartels|talk]]) 12:36, 6 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
An alternative tack: how about Barbaracle for the Pokemon, BarbaraC(Jordan) for purloined and Barbara Clark - famous for doing Monster Mash-up novels. Does Barbara Jordan have some purloined link with watergate? {{unsigned ip|108.162.231.16}}<br />
No, because the pokemon has a different starting string as the other two. --[[Special:Contributions/199.27.128.119|199.27.128.119]] 13:48, 6 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
I think it is not coincidence that it is the last one that you can't solve. It may be an experiment by Randall to see if people can find a solution for a puzzle that doesn't make any sense. That said, if it does have a solution, it should not be "monstermash" since that is too close to the clue. If that was the password, everyone could guess it easily from the clue. It has to be one level "removed" from those words, guided by the clues for the matching passwords. The point of the post was that using unsalted crypt in the passwords allows you to combine clues, right? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.201|108.162.219.201]] 13:42, 6 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Not an answer, but maybe an approach: Look at it from the "what piece of information is Randall trying to tell us?" angle. In the first few puzzles, he teaches us the rules of the game. We disambiguate clues by later ones, which we can only do because of the missing salts. For example, the "name and jersey number" just tells us the format of the answer to the previous clue about Judith 15:10. Otherwise, there would have been no way to guess that exact string without the space and colon. Also, "Charlie X" and "Charlie Sheen" demonstrate that spaces are used in a "fair" way. I would not expect a trailing space on a password, for example. So what about the Pokemon then? The first half of the crypt for the Pokemon isn't used anywhere else. The easiest interpretation I can come up with is that this is just trying to restrict the common second part of the word to letters from the list of Water-3 Pokemon. Let's assume it wasn't made very difficult, so take just 'el', 'le', and 'l' from the Water-3-only group on bulbapedia. Then the puzzle is this:<br />
<br />
something related to 'monster mash': 8 letters plus the ending 'el', 'le', or 'l'<br />
something related to 'purloined' or related to 'letter': the same 8 letters, minus the ending<br />
pokemon: completely unrelated, just chosen to have a well known list of 9 or 10 letter words to restrict search space for first line<br />
<br />
I suck at crosswords, but can someone solve this restated version? There can't be that many 8 letter words that also make a word with 'el', 'le', or 'l' added to them? 15:23, 6 November 2013 (UTC) {{unsigned ip|108.162.219.201}}<br />
<br />
: Not to insult your reasoning, which is entirely correct, but I believe your restatement is *exactly* the puzzle that (reasonable) people have been working on (and failing to solve) since Monday. As a long-time mystery hunter, I'd like to suggest the opposite: the continued failure to find some reasonable solution to the puzzle as stated above implies that *at least one* of the assumptions above is wrong. (For the record, I'd broaden your first to "...related to 'monster mash' or the show/film M*A*S*H", but again, that's the assumption we *have* been making.) So I'm especially interested in ideas *different* from the above, at this point, although not necessarily throwing out the bathtub, baby and all. Probably there's a fundamentally different way to read the first clue, or the second, or the third. [[User:Cscott|Cscott]] ([[User talk:Cscott|talk]]) 17:11, 6 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
:: Not insulted at all, just glad if I summarized it correctly, since I was late to the party. Maybe this helps others bootstrap. As requested, a slightly alternate view for clue 1: the word "mash" may not be part of the answer, since it appears in the clue. This means the direct answer to the clue is "monster" and has nothing to do with the song at all. The password could just be the name of a monster that is formed from something purloined plus an short ending. The endings we're already considering make nice monster names.[[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.198|108.162.219.198]] 19:54, 6 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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:::I appreciate the summary, it helped me come up with my "keyboard mash" proposed solution, which you can see below" [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.16|108.162.221.16]] 21:51, 6 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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Looking at some word lists at http://www.litscape.com/words/ending_with/l/9_letter_l_end_words.html , this doesn't seem to be leading anywhere good. Can someone fix my logic? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.201|108.162.219.201]] 15:33, 6 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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Not sure if anyone else has pointed out yet, but there is a pokemon named purrloin http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Purrloin_%28Pok%C3%A9mon%29 . That seems like far too much of a coincidence to not be related. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.52.211|173.245.52.211]] 16:17, 6 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
: We'll add it to the long list of suspicious coincidences. [[User:Cscott|Cscott]] ([[User talk:Cscott|talk]]) 17:11, 6 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
:: I don't believe the hints can be related. Note that the Pokemon's name shares zero characters with the answer to the 'purloined' clue, so they are not linked via the same password. Any semantic link is inconsistent with these being password hints from separate (imaginary) users. Maybe Randall subconsciously (or via google) went from purloined to Purrloin to names of Pokemon. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.198|108.162.219.198]] 19:20, 6 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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a stretch.. but maybe a starting point?<br />
bootlegd purloined<br />
bootlegd ash he did the..<br />
???whisc ash fav-3<br />
[[Special:Contributions/108.162.215.34|108.162.215.34]]rbnm<br />
<br />
;Hash collision<br />
<br />
Maybe the last clues could be intended to be a hash collision? With 64-bit blocks that seems unlikely, but maybe it's a trick?<br />
[[User:Quantum7|Quantum7]] ([[User talk:Quantum7|talk]]) 21:29, 6 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
:Finding the probability of a collision amounts to the birthday problem. Assuming the hash function gives all 2^64 hash values with equal probability and there are 153 million unique message blocks (probably right within an order of magnitude), we have:<br />
:<br />
: <pre>Pr[collision] = 1 - exp(-153000000^2/(2*2^64)) = 0.000634</pre><br />
:<br />
: So the probability of a hash collision from different passwords is still quite low, even with such a large number of passwords. So it's worth assuming that all the identical hash blocks are from the same message, and keep looking for the poke-mash password.<br />
: BTW, getting a 50% chance of a collision requires about <tt>sqrt(-2^65*ln(.5))</tt> = 5 billion unique passwords.<br />
:[[User:Quantum7|Quantum7]] ([[User talk:Quantum7|talk]]) 21:46, 6 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
'''Explanation for the last 3 - Keyboard Mash'''<br />
<br />
"He did the mash, he did the" keyboard mash<br />
ASDFGHJK - L<br />
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"purloined" letter, as in one letter from the home row<br />
ASDFGHJK<br />
<br />
Then the third one is TENTACOO - L <br />
[[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.16|108.162.221.16]] 21:45, 6 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
:Purloined seems like a stretch. On the other hand, 'asdfghjkl' is the 56th most common password in the real adobe data, so perhaps you're on to something. [[User:Quantum7|Quantum7]] ([[User talk:Quantum7|talk]]) 22:08, 6 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
::I don't know, I feel like purloined has got to be a reference to the Poe story. The pun that letter means single character rather than item of correspondence is cute and funny. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.16|108.162.221.16]] 22:30, 6 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
:I like this explanation --[[User:Lackadaisical|Lackadaisical]] ([[User talk:Lackadaisical|talk]]) 22:28, 6 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
: This get's my vote. There's no reason for the "mash" password to be repeated twice in the puzzle with no clue for one of them except to say "this is a commonly used password" (as shown by the abc and password1 entries). Common password with an l (or el etc.) missing from the end, a purloined letter(!), plus "mash" as a clue is oblique but not crazyily so [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.223|141.101.99.223]] 17:37, 7 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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: I think this is the best wrong answer yet. That is, I don't see how you can plausibly clue "ASDFGHJK" with "purloined" (that is, the hint doesn't work on its own, it requires the rest of the puzzle to make sense at all, which is against the rules of the puzzle). But it's a good story. Definitely wrong, but wrong in a really interesting way, and the most interesting wrong answer yet. ;) [[User:Cscott|Cscott]] ([[User talk:Cscott|talk]]) 19:41, 7 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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:: I disagree. Even without the context of the rest of the comic, ASDFGHJKL is such a common password that it makes sense to imagine a hint that simply refers to a variation on it. In the same way, I can imagine someone using "purloined" to hint at a password of PASSWOR. Of course, with only 7 letters that wouldn't work for the comic. You would need a common 9 letter password to make a workable puzzle in the comic, and it's hard to think of anything better than ASDFGHJKL in that context. I appreciate the symmetry of the reference as well, in The Purloined Letter, the trick is that the police are all overthinking things and overlooking the obvious. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.16|108.162.221.16]] 21:58, 7 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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Why the restriction on the ending of the Pokemon to el, l, etc? There could be an adjective before (i.e. redkingle), so the Pokemon name could extend more into the second frame. The adjective might be some abreviated synonym for favorite, or whatever fav (or fay) stand for. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.215.34|108.162.215.34]] 22:07, 6 November 2013 (UTC)rbnm<br />
<br />
;The last clue<br />
<br />
Regarding it being actually Fay water-3 pokemon, have a look at this: http://www.serebii.net/e-reader/battle/08.shtml<br />
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The trainer is named Fay, and has a Starmie, which is a Water-3 Pokemon according to http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Water_3_(Egg_Group)<br />
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However, its only 7 characters. Not sure if it means anything, but just putting it out there.<br />
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EDIT: FayStarmie takes us to 10, leaving 9dca1d79d4dec6d5 meaning 'ie'<br />
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EDIT 2: I believe there is a Fay in Pokemon X and Y, but I can't find any information on her. Also Fay could refer to fairy, which is the new type added in Pokemon X and Y, but there doesn't seem to be any fairy Water-3 Pokemon, or any pokemon that reside in both groups. [[User:Haelbarde|Haelbarde]] ([[User talk:Haelbarde|talk]]) 00:24, 7 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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It's not "FAY", it's "FAV". Check how "FAVORITE" is written in the middle of the picture, and look at the Y's. The vertex is clearly below the mid-point of A, which is where it is in Y. --[[Special:Contributions/199.27.128.119|199.27.128.119]] 09:45, 7 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
;Another theory on last part<br />
Numbers and dates. Other passwords had numbers, why not this one? <br />
<br />
A birthday is an easy thing to remember, so it's bound to be someone's password. So lets say a birthday was August 25, 1962. One can write that as august2562, which just so happens to be when Monster Mash was released, as per Wikipedia. In addition, August is quite similar to C. Auguste Dupin, from The Purlioned Letter. Lastly, one can add the Pokedex number of the Pokemon to the end of its name, but Poliwrath62 is too long, and is a water 1 Pokemon, not water 3.<br />
<br />
This theory doesn't fit perfectly, but I haven't seen it posted yet. Maybe it'll give someone that eureka moment...[[Special:Contributions/199.27.128.188|199.27.128.188]] 10:11, 7 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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On the "purloined" and "monster mash" things: this is an incomplete theory but might give someone else an idea. Poe's "The Purloined Letter" contains this line: "He is the monstrum horrendum, an unprincipled man of genius." So perhaps the "purloined" clue is a reference to this line somehow. "Monstrum horrendum" is Latin for "horrendous monster" (although in Latin "monster" technically means "something to be pointed out and marvel at"). So if the password is "monsterm", this could be a misspelling of "monstrum"; if it's "monster " it could be a translation, though that begs the question as to why it ends with a space. [[User:Darthkiwi|Darthkiwi]] ([[User talk:Darthkiwi|talk]]) 15:50, 7 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Could purloined be a pun for a stolen persistant URL? [[Special:Contributions/199.27.128.113|199.27.128.113]] 18:32, 7 November 2013 (UTC)rbnm<br />
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I did some copypasting with v's y's and a's in paint and i now know for certain that it's fav pokemon, not fay. Althogh i did think about fay referring to fairy. But i now find this very unlikely. Personally i think it has some relation to water-3 egg group because that is just that obvious to any pokemon player, although it may be some weird distant connection. i usually do a few cryptic things with the password that i can probably remember but makes it as hard as possible to guess. so i might make something like that my hint if my favorite pokemon trainer used a pokemon once who shared the same colors as a water 3 pokemon. so my guess is that it is water-3 but maybe not a pokemon directly in it. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.231.53|108.162.231.53]] 18:57, 7 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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I'm wondering if the mash comment could refer to the Mashed Potato dance. From the wikipedia page about said dance, a slightly modified version of it was one of the dances that people danced to the Monster Mash. {{unsigned ip|108.162.219.35}}<br />
<br />
---<br />
<br />
One technique for creating strong passwords is to take the first letter of each word in a passage from a book/movie quote/song/etc. as seen at http://www.mrsware.com/2/post/2013/06/passwords-revisited.html - "I was working in the lab late one night" would turn into "iwwitllon". If we take the next lyrics from the monster mash after "he did the", we get 'mmhdtmiwags'. The first eight words of The Purloined Letter would spell 'apjadoge'. Not sure how helpful this is.<br />
<br />
Another thought is that in the story of The Purloined Letter, the letter is hidden in plain sight. Also, the story starts out with "Nihil sapientiae odiosius acumine nimio" - Nothing is more hateful to wisdom than excessive cleverness, which may be relevant here.<br />
<br />
Finally, I was thinking about punctuation. "mon*m#" could be pronounced like "mon-star-m-hash". [[Special:Contributions/199.27.130.146|199.27.130.146]] 23:02, 7 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
It's also possible that Monster Mash means combining (mashing) the names of two Pokemon. I believe you guys have only been looking at single pokemon names. Regarding Purloined, could that word be the opposite mashup? So a Pokemon called (I'm making this up, don't hate on me) Purfect and another one named Charloined could mash into Purloined or Charfect. {{unsigned|Mirrordude}}<br />
<br />
'''Not 1, but 3 Pokemon'''<br />
<br />
What if the Pokemon clue wasn't a single favorite from the water-3 group, but a favorite group of three water type Pokemon? This is less intuitive from the hint, but do people really pick out favorites from egg groups rather than types? [[Special:Contributions/173.245.54.8|173.245.54.8]] 01:41, 8 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
: For example, "PokeBroKing" would represent a family of three water Pokemon (Slowpoke, Slowbro, Slowking), and "ING" would be the second hash to use with MonsterMash and the blank hint. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.54.8|173.245.54.8]] 03:18, 8 November 2013 (UTC)</div>173.245.54.8https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:1286:_Encryptic&diff=52264Talk:1286: Encryptic2013-11-08T01:41:34Z<p>173.245.54.8: </p>
<hr />
<div>The answer to the weathervane sword/ favorite apostle hint has got to be Matthias. It is 8 characters long, Matthias was the apostle chosen to replace Judas and in the Redwall series Matthias is one of the wielders of the Sword of Martin a sword that was hung on a weathervane.<br />
<br />
It is unclear to me if these are actual hashes from Adobe file? That would be very cool... but actual file seems to have passwords in slightly different format. http://arstechnica.com/security/2013/11/how-an-epic-blunder-by-adobe-could-strengthen-hand-of-password-crackers/ [[Special:Contributions/108.162.229.211|108.162.229.211]] 09:05, 4 November 2013 (UTC) pavel<br />
<br />
:I wouldn't call 3DES secure ... but yes, in this situation the real problem is not using per-user salt. Note that I would expect that at least some of those examples would be solvable ...any idea? Hmmm ... sword of weather vane and one of apostles might be Martin ([http://redwall.wikia.com/wiki/Sword_of_Martin]) ... -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 10:00, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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::It's Jonathon (for John). Not sure what it has to do with weather vane swords though... [[Special:Contributions/108.162.240.18|108.162.240.18]] 12:42, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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:Umm. "Peter" does not seem to have 8 characters, does it? Encryption method suggests it should be 8 characters, as do 8 character boxes on the right... [[Special:Contributions/108.162.229.211|108.162.229.211]] 10:43, 4 November 2013 (UTC) pavel<br />
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::I'd say "weather vane sword", "name1" and "favorite of 12 apostles" is (Saint) Peter. "Weather vane" as symbol for the rooster in the denial, and the sword Peter used when Jesus was arrested. --[[Special:Contributions/108.162.254.177|108.162.254.177]] 10:25, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
::: ... interesting that google search didn't mentioned it :-) Seems bible have too low pagerank. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 10:32, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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::: The 'favourite' apostle was John the Evangelist though. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disciple_whom_Jesus_loved . The other biblical clue here is 'with your own hand you have done all this' - Judith 15:10. If that's Judith1510 then the 'name and shirt number' is 'Judith15'. The TOS/earlobes clue seems to be "Spock's brain" and "Spock's (ears?)". And the Michael Jackson one is (obviously) ABC123. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.214|141.101.99.214]] 11:14, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
:::: Perhaps "favorite" in this case refer's to the user's favorite, not Jesus's. [[User:Yomikoma|Yomikoma]] ([[User talk:Yomikoma|talk]]) 16:13, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
:::: The Michael Jackson password should just be "ABC". (The other clue refers only to letters, and the proper song title also has only letters.) —[[User:TobyBartels|TobyBartels]] ([[User talk:TobyBartels|talk]]) 20:57, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
::: Given that name1 is two blocks long, I would guess that the apostle's name is going to be eight characters long, with the second hash block being 1+seven spaces (or nulls if Adobe pads it with nulls and not spaces). But then again, as the only disciple with a name eight letters long is Thaddeus maybe not {{unsigned ip|141.101.99.214}}<br />
<br />
:::: "St.Peter" is 8 characters, and having a "special" character (the period) makes it a good choice for passwords that might require 1 non-alphanumeric character (and ban spaces). [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.223|141.101.99.223]] 11:47, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
:::: I think it is obvious that Name1 refers to {The user's name} + 1. I wonder though if we should be referring to one of the other 12 apostles in a different context? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelve_Apostles_%28disambiguation%29 - [[Special:Contributions/108.162.242.11|108.162.242.11]] 18:02, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
::::: Is the "weathervane sword" referring to Redwall? I haven't read the book myself, but would it be referring to the "Sword of Martin"? [http://redwall.wikia.com/wiki/Sword_of_Martin] --[[User:Jeff|<b><font color="orange">Jeff</font></b>]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 19:17, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Another article about using passwords hints from multiple users to find the passwords from the breach. http://7habitsofhighlyeffectivehackers.blogspot.com/2013/11/can-someone-be-targeted-using-adobe.html [[User:Bugefun|Bugefun]] ([[User talk:Bugefun|talk]]) 11:06, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
"Sexy earlobes" makes me think of [http://misswiu.livejournal.com/5385.html "The ABC of Aerobics"], but that would make that Shirley Clarke, and nothing in Star Trek has anything to do with Shirley that I am aware of, except possible [http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Ruth Shirley Bonne as Ruth]. I skimmed a list of episode titles, but nothing jumps out at me as particularly earlobish. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.187|108.162.219.187]] 11:20, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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:Sexy earlobes might have something to do with Ferengi, but they didn't appeared in TOS. 141.101.99.214's idea is better. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 11:42, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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:OK, we know that "sexy earlobes" and "best TOS Episode" are the same for the first eight character, but differ after that, while "best TOS" and "sugarland" are the same after the first 8 characters. So, my guesses are : Best TOS episode: "Charlie X"; "Sexy Earlobes": Someone with the first name of "Charlie"; "Sugarland": some city in Texas (perhaps "HoustonTX") [[User:JamesCurran|JamesCurran]] ([[User talk:JamesCurran|talk]]) 16:51, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Note that you should not ever use cipher in {{w|Block_cipher_mode_of_operation#Electronic_codebook_.28ECB.29|ECB (electronic codebook)}} mode, i.e. encrypt each block separately and independently, but use chaining. --[[User:JakubNarebski|JakubNarebski]] ([[User talk:JakubNarebski|talk]]) 12:15, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
: And for passwords you shouldn't be using a cipher at all, but rather a hash function. (Or a cipher in one of the approved hash constructions, if you must.) And really you shouldn't be using a standard hash function, but be following best practices for passwords instead: salting the hash, using a *slow* hash function, etc. [[User:Cscott|Cscott]] ([[User talk:Cscott|talk]]) 20:22, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Hmm, i'm rather confused about the last few on the list though. Assumedly the password for "he did the mash, he did the" would be "monster mash", but that would leave "purloined" with a password of either "monsterm" or "monster ". which doesn't make much sense. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.240.18|108.162.240.18]] 13:47, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
(charlie sheen) a1f9b2b6299e7a2b eadec1e6ab797397 sexy earlobes - He did a 2 and a half men episode on sexy earlobes<br />
:(charlie x) a1f9b2b6299e7a2b 617ab0277727ad85 best tos episode - Star Trek has so many good episodes...<br />
::(houstontx) 39738b7adb0b8af7 617ab0277727ad85 sugarland - Sugarland is in Houston, TX<br />
<br />
I don't know about anyone else, but the "hints" column incidentally reminded me of {{w|Darwinian poetry|Darwinian Poetry}}... Not intentionally, I'm sure. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.214|141.101.98.214]] 14:46, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Somehow I've missed out on this issue until this comic alerted me to it, but: once a few passwords are correctly guessed, does that make it straightforward to recover the encryption key, and then be able to decrypt '''all''' of them? —[[User:Scs|scs]] ([[User talk:Scs|talk]]) 14:50, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
: Answering my own question: not really straightforward, no. 3DES is still pretty strong, and what knowing a few passwords gives you is a known-plaintext attack, which helps a little, but is by no means a giveaway. —[[User:Scs|scs]] ([[User talk:Scs|talk]]) 15:00, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
:: Note that if blackhat used this service, he would know at least one plaintext - his own password--[[User:JakubNarebski|JakubNarebski]] ([[User talk:JakubNarebski|talk]]) 15:05, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
:No, for calculating the encryption key of Triple DES, there is no real benefit in knowing million passwords, you would still need to brute force it. You would need to know at least 2<sup>32</sup> different passwords to make it easier but you can't do that with the leaked file (there are about 30 times less of them and moreover many of them are not unique). [[User:Sten|'''S<small>TEN</small>''']] <small>([[User talk:Sten|talk]])</small> 16:08, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Okay, so the first column is the encrypted password, the second one is the hint chosen by user. What do rectangles mean? [[Special:Contributions/173.245.53.151|173.245.53.151]] 15:28, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
:That are the fields to fill the characters in just as you do in a crossword puzzle. There are small fields at the beginning that take one character each and one large field at the end that takes one to eight characters. [[User:Sten|'''S<small>TEN</small>''']] <small>([[User talk:Sten|talk]])</small> 15:32, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Water 3 is an egg group: http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Water_3_(Egg_Group) . Given the length of the key, it will probably be 9-16 characters. (Crawdaunt, tentacool, and tentacruel are most likely) [[Special:Contributions/199.27.128.139|199.27.128.139]] 15:43, 4 November 2013 (UTC) <br />
:-- which means 9dca1d79d4dec6d5 is either L, EL, or T, but I can't find a way for that to match up with any variation of "monster mash." [[Special:Contributions/173.245.55.209|173.245.55.209]] 16:15, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
:: Same problem here... Monster mash must not be correct, but it is one of the easier ones, I can't give up on it. --[[User:Jeff|<b><font color="orange">Jeff</font></b>]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 17:35, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
::: Maybe, he did the MASH is about the book, movie or TV Show M*A*S*H instead? --[[User:Jeff|<b><font color="orange">Jeff</font></b>]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 17:49, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
:: Monster Mash was written by Bobby Pickett, maybe it has something to do with him? [[User:Sten|'''S<small>TEN</small>''']] <small>([[User talk:Sten|talk]])</small> 18:38, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
::: Maybe it's not "monster mash" but just "monster". This would allow the Water-3 Pokemon to be "Cloyster". [[Special:Contributions/108.162.237.5|108.162.237.5]] 19:17, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
:::: You are having trouble counting to eight. [[User:Cscott|Cscott]] ([[User talk:Cscott|talk]]) 20:22, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
::::: You are forgetting the space. Assuming space is stored as a null character, this might actually work.[[Special:Contributions/173.245.54.29|173.245.54.29]] 01:43, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
:::::: Nobody in their right mind would encode spaces as nulls. For us to suppose that they did, we'd need to have some specific clue to that effect. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.238.5|108.162.238.5]] 09:08, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
It seems to me there are two puzzles here, if folks are right that this is not actual data from the hack. 1) Figure out Adobe's master 3DES encryption password, for the big prize. 2) figure out Randall's 3DES encryption password for this puzzle based on these hints, and knowing it will be something clever. [[User:Nealmcb|Nealmcb]] ([[User talk:Nealmcb|talk]]) 16:12, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Trying to decode the passwords (As Randall obviously wants us to)<br />
"with your own hand you have done all this" is from the book of Judith.<br />
Working on decoding the others. --[[User:Jeff|<b><font color="orange">Jeff</font></b>]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 17:13, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
8babb6299e06eb6d = password<br />
a0a2876eb1ea1fea = 1<br />
85e9da81a8a78adc = 57<br />
--[[User:Jeff|<b><font color="orange">Jeff</font></b>]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 18:10, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Weather Vane Sword may be a reference to Game of Thrones Ascent. The "Sworn Sword", I believe is "Rona" which is also a name. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.55.216|173.245.55.216]] 18:27, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
: It needs to be a name of an apostle (as per line 7) and have 7 or 8 characters (as line 3 needs a continuation) so this leaves Matthew, Thaddeus and (Judas) Iscariot. [[User:Sten|'''S<small>TEN</small>''']] <small>([[User talk:Sten|talk]])</small> 18:57, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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<br />
If a password(or 8 character segment) is guessed can it be confirmed? Somebody should take this leaked list and create a website that presents it like in the comment and lets people guess. It can fill in the guessed ones. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.246.117|108.162.246.117]] 19:17, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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I'm putting in Mattias for the sword, name1 and disciple because of Saint Matthias [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Matthias] and Redwall Matthias [http://redwall.wikia.com/wiki/Matthias] who held the Weathervane Sword (Also known as the sword of Martin [http://redwall.wikia.com/wiki/The_Sword_of_Martin] ) --[[User:Jeff|<b><font color="orange">Jeff</font></b>]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 19:27, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
: I've also removed "monster mash" from the list as it can't be right. Doesn't match the pokemon or the purloined clues. --[[User:Jeff|<b><font color="orange">Jeff</font></b>]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 19:27, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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Based on the Water-3 Pokemon hint, the only possibilities of more than 8 characters are tentacool, tentacruel, barbaracle, crawdaunt, carracosta, clauncher, and clawitzer. This would mean "9dca1d79d4dec6d5" would be l, el, le, t, ta, or r. --[[User:Dvorakmd|Dvorakmd]] ([[User talk:Dvorakmd|talk]]) 19:51, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
: This is assuming there are no characters before the actual name of the pokemon. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.55.209|173.245.55.209]] 20:30, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
: Assuming Randall has constructed this comic to have a unique answer, it can't end in r because then the clue would be ambiguous (could be clauncher or clawitzer). [[User:Cscott|Cscott]] ([[User talk:Cscott|talk]]) 21:53, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
: Some of these can be ruled out; it's very unlikely to be a Generation VI Pokémon (Barbaracle, Clauncher and Clawitzer) as this has only just come out and someone would have had to set up their pasword within the last few weeks. And the Pokémon that are also in the Water-1 group are probably more likely to be thought of as Water-1 than Water-3 (Crawdaunt and Carracosta). This only leaves Tentacool and Tentacruel as longer than 8 letter Water-3 only Pokémon that have been known of for a reasonable length of time; and Tentacool is no one's favourite, as the annoying multitude of them that show up whenever you try to Surf anyway makes them as reviled as Zubats in caves, if not moreso. :P Of course, the password need not be simply the Pokémon's name alone. "SexyShellder" "Cloyster1987" "Misty'sStarmie"... Who knows? [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.252|141.101.99.252]] 01:03, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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I don't know the answer to the end either, but here's a list of people who did the Monster Mash, from Wikipedia:<br />
* Bobby Picket (as Boris Picket)<br />
* Garpax Records (Gary S. Paxton)<br />
* The Misfits<br />
* far, far too many other covers to list<br />
And here's some synonyms for "purloined", from thesaurus.com:<br />
* stole<br />
* pilfered<br />
* filched<br />
* misappropriated<br />
* embezzled<br />
* burglarized<br />
* shoplifted<br />
* poached<br />
* pillaged<br />
* cheated<br />
* pinched<br />
* heisted<br />
* thieved<br />
* plundered<br />
* appropriated<br />
* lifted<br />
* took<br />
* snitched<br />
* defrauded<br />
* swindled<br />
* ripped off<br />
* made off with<br />
Good luck with these!<br />
—[[User:TobyBartels|TobyBartels]] ([[User talk:TobyBartels|talk]]) 20:31, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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What about Purloined referring to "The Purloined Letter?" When choosing hints, people, at least in my experience, tend to use word association rather than synonyms. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.55.209|173.245.55.209]]<br />
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Purloined could also be a reference to the Monster.com hack (http://www.symantec.com/connect/blogs/monster-trojan). [[Special:Contributions/108.162.237.11|108.162.237.11]] 21:00, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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Words meaning purloined that can have the listed suffixes could be '''embezzle'''/'''embezzler''' or '''scrounge'''/'''scrounger'''. Not sure if it fits to the mash clue. There was a loan shark character who would acquire things on MASH called Rizzo, it is a stretch though. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.246.117|108.162.246.117]] 21:01, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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I'm still trying to figure out how the solutions go into the spaces on the right -- it may be more obvious once the last couple clues are figured out. I suspect the ordering and numbers of clues have some sort of meaning. Why are there 5 of the 877... passwords, 2 with no clues? Why is one of the 4e18.... passwords separated from the rest? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.28|108.162.221.28]] 21:07, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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Could Purloined be a reference to the "Purloined Shadows" book in Elder Scrolls? --[[User:Dvorakmd|Dvorakmd]] ([[User talk:Dvorakmd|talk]]) 21:09, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
: Or 'The Purloined Payroll', a WoW quest? "Purloined in Petrograd" is also a lyric to a Decemberists song (The Bagman's Gambit). Google n-grams suggests that "Purloined Image", and "purloined documents" are a Thing. [[User:Cscott|Cscott]] ([[User talk:Cscott|talk]]) 21:58, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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Purloined could be a reference to something that is known as have been stolen like a work of art, or it could be something that was stolen in an XKCD comic. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.246.117|108.162.246.117]] 21:18, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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'''EdgarPoe'''(author of The Purloined Letter)/'''EdgarPoet''' fits, but again not really anything to do with MASH. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.246.117|108.162.246.117]] 21:27, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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Water-3 pokemon (egg group) are given here: http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Water_3_(Egg_Group) ...if I split off the letters of their names after the 8th letter, we see l, el, le, t, ta, and r. So the MASH item ends with one of those suffixes. [[Special:Contributions/199.27.128.167|199.27.128.167]] 21:31, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
: Can't end in 'r', because then that clue would be ambiguous. [[User:Cscott|Cscott]] ([[User talk:Cscott|talk]]) 21:53, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
: Speaking of pokemon, could the clue to purloined have something to do with the pokemon Purrloin? http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Purrloin_(Pok%C3%A9mon) [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.43|108.162.221.43]] 23:51, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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Is there a reason "MASH" is capitalized in the above sections? Given the context, it shouldn't be, and I still haven't given up on the password being a reference to the monster mash. That said, we can't ignore the movie/show MASH.<br />
Also, now that I think about it: pokeMONstermash? I don't know, just throwing ideas out :P [[Special:Contributions/173.245.55.209|173.245.55.209]] 22:08, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
On [http://de.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/1pvwyf/xkcd_encryptic_analysis_at_the_link_below/ reddit] they suggest "Letterman" (which is wrong, too many letters) based on the M*A*S*H episode, "Letters". [[User:Cscott|Cscott]] ([[User talk:Cscott|talk]]) 22:11, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
:...on the other hand, I wonder if an answer like "ALANALDA" would work? As in, someone who "did the M*A*S*H"... [[User:Cscott|Cscott]] ([[User talk:Cscott|talk]]) 22:13, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
:: Sadly, no. Because it needs to be more than 8 characters. --[[User:Jeff|<b><font color="orange">Jeff</font></b>]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 22:17, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
::: No, I mean, "an answer of this form", not ALANALDA exactly. The Edgar Allan / Alan Alda congruence is tasty, but I can't make it work. ALLANPOE works as an answer for "Purloined" but that makes something like ALLANPOET the answer to "he did the MASH" (CRAWDAUNT is then the pokemon). But that's misspelling Alda's name for the MASH clue, doesn't quite work. There's also JAMIEFARR (Cpl Klinger) as a better answer to "he did the MASH" but then that makes JAMIEFAR the answer to "purloined" and I can't plausibly make that work. ALLANARBUS is another M*A*S*H actor, but that doesn't work at all. Can anyone come up with other/better ideas in this vein? [[User:Cscott|Cscott]] ([[User talk:Cscott|talk]]) 22:31, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
::: Don't misspell Alda's name; misspell Poe's! —[[User:TobyBartels|TobyBartels]] ([[User talk:TobyBartels|talk]]) 02:07, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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In crossword puzzles, a clue ending in -ed (like 'purloined') is most commonly a hint that the answer ends in 'ed'. Cross referencing that with the Pokemon clue, the solution for "he did the MASH" becomes a nine or ten letter answer ending in: -edl, -edel, -edle, -edt, or -edta (excluding -edr due to non-uniqueness), with ......edle looking the most "English-y" to me. My hunch would be something else Robert Altman or Alan Alda "did"... but nothing seems to end in 'edle.' --[[User:Willowy burrito|Willowy burrito]] ([[User talk:Willowy burrito|talk]]) 23:07, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
: There is no indication that this is a standard crossword. Most users don't respect crossword conventions when writing password hints. [[User:Cscott|Cscott]] ([[User talk:Cscott|talk]]) 23:59, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
:: Aside from the title. And the text. And the fact these didn't come from users, but were just chosen for a puzzle designed by Randall, who would include just this sort of puzzler hint/in-joke in a comic about puzzles. It's moot, because no synonyms for 'stolen' make any sense with a couple other letters tacked on the end. But still, there've been worse hunches. --[[User:Willowy burrito|Willowy burrito]] ([[User talk:Willowy burrito|talk]]) 00:45, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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For all we know, his favourite Water-3 Pokémon could be Shell Smash Cloyster or Shell Smash Omastar - "OmastarSmash" as a password would fit in with "Monster mash". [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.252|141.101.99.252]] 23:16, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
: I like that idea, although it leaves "Monster " (with a trailing space) as the answer to "Purloined", which makes no sense. But interesting idea. [[User:Cscott|Cscott]] ([[User talk:Cscott|talk]]) 00:00, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
MonsterMash<br />
MonsterM<br />
TheWiscash {{unsigned|Jcupcake}}<br />
: It's "Whiscash", and it's Water 2 (not 3) and "MonsterM" makes no sense as an answer for the hint "Purloined". But I like the idea of adding "The" in front of the pokemon answer; perhaps we're being too restrictive by looking only at pokemon with length > 8. [[User:Cscott|Cscott]] ([[User talk:Cscott|talk]]) 23:59, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
::Yeah, sorry about the typo - last one would be TheWhiscash. MonsterM absolutely makes sense. http://www.hoax-slayer.com/monster-666.shtml The purloined letter here IS M [[User:Jcupcake|Jcupcake]] ([[User talk:Jcupcake|talk]]) 02:40, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
So somewhere above this someone pointed out that purloined could refer to a monster.com hack...in which case, could the first two passwords be "monster mash" and "monster"? That would allow for another previous suggestion of "OmastarSmash" Also, here's my IP Address and a remarkably not-random timestamp: [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.195|108.162.219.195]] 01:31, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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It could also be that there are modifiers to the base. I always thought of Monster Mash as MonstaMash. This would line up closely with My Corphish written as "mycorphish" My favorite pokemon is my pikachu not just any pikachu, but mine, sort of logic. [[User:Bitassassin|Bitassassin]] ([[User talk:Bitassassin|talk]]) 01:43, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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Could "he did the mash" be referring to brewing and/or the Maillard reaction? [[User:Cscott|Cscott]] ([[User talk:Cscott|talk]]) 05:32, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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I was just thinking that "MonsterM Ash", "MonsterM", both seem to make sense, and Ash had a few water pokemon in the water 3 egg group, so could it potentially be something along the lines of "Corphish Ash"? That was the only 8 letter water 3 pokemon he had and it fits with the other clues [[User:NewToThis|NewToThis]] ([[User talk:NewToThis|talk]]) 07:25, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Has the idea of pokemon fusion been considered? http://pokemon.alexonsager.net/ referenced by http://kotaku.com/how-the-website-that-lets-you-create-frankenstein-pokem-510517336<br />
--[[User:Oukansz|Oukansz]] ([[User talk:Oukansz|talk]]) 19:25, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
;Fanservice<br />
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Randall must know about this site. This comic doesn't work without people to crack the code. Should we have a fanservice category? :-) --[[User:SurturZ|SurturZ]] ([[User talk:SurturZ|talk]]) 23:32, 4 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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I'm beginning to suspect that the wide boxes will have the key in it. Assuming he used regular DES (or DES3, for that matter, but using the same 8-byte key 3 times), it could be plausible. The 5 in the middle could be 'abcde', a lot of the other 'second halves' are numbers, and the likely known one that's not seems to be an 'x' -- which could certainly be involved in writing a hex number... problem is there's 11 of those boxes. Trying to guess what signficance the positioning of those boxes have. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.28|108.162.221.28]] 00:00, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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Actually, it looks like the boxes line up perfectly such that the wide bits (for second-half) will only touch the words they apply to. Order will be more or less what they are (I see the wide boxes as, in order, 1, 57, 10, Sheen, and X, with the 8 char boxes as Matthias, Password, Judith15, Charlie, and HoustonT). The next 5 are odd -- I'm not sure if we repeat the alpha/obvious password 5 times, or it's 5 chars long (abcde) and one per box. The last set is still under discussion, of course. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.28|108.162.221.28]] 00:20, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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;MASH capitalized<br />
I'm currently chasing down the idea that MASH refers to [[Wikipedia:MASH-1]]. Haven't seen any name yet that looks like it might satisfy "Purloined". - [[User:BozoTheScary|BozoTheScary]] ([[User talk:BozoTheScary|talk]]) 01:56, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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I think MASH is a transcribing error. The comic doesn't have any difference on those letters as far as I can tell. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.50.222|173.245.50.222]] 03:18, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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The Purloined Letter is a Edgar Alan Poe story starring C. Auguste Dupin. Might help. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.249.5|108.162.249.5]] 03:08, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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There is also a strong association between the Monster Mash and the Mashed Potato, just throwing another idea into the ring. Also try the name BobbyPickett. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.249.5|108.162.249.5]] 03:22, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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<br />
Frankenstein did the Monster Mash in the cartoon for the song. That leads to a Pokemon card ending in 'tein' and 'frankens' for the hint Purloined. I could not find a Pokemon card that ended in 'tein' nor could I link 'frankens' with Purloined. I ran 'frankens' through Google Translate but found nothing. Also, it's the same password for the "monster mash" hint and the entry with no password hint so I think it's an obvious password (something someone can recall without a hint). Frankenstein fits that part but not the other ones. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.50.222|173.245.50.222]] 03:35, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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My $0.02: "He did the mash..." might allude to the expression "doing the math" only (intentionally) misspelled and something like "numbert" or "numb" could be the answer. --[[User:RagnarDa|RagnarDa]] ([[User talk:RagnarDa|talk]]) 04:01, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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graveyard smash fits for the first clue (though lyrically incorrect). Gives smash as second block, but cannot find association between graveyard and purloined. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.249.5|108.162.249.5]] 04:08, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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If we take The Monster Mash for the first answer, it could be written as TheMonsterMash or The Monster Mash, giving either TheMonst erMash or The Mons ter Mash as the two blocks. This gives either Themonst or The Mons as Purloined and either ermash or ter Mash for second block of pokemon answer. Suggestions? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.249.5|108.162.249.5]] 04:15, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
: Only problem is that the word "the" is the last word of the hint.[[Special:Contributions/108.162.237.117|108.162.237.117]] 04:51, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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I know that the water-3 group is not the same, but it seems like an odd coincidence that another pokemon group is the "monster" group. --[[User:Natnee|Natnee]] ([[User talk:Natnee|talk]]) 04:44, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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There is a Scooby Doo comic book story titled "[The Purloined Poe-M](http://scoobydoo.wikia.com/wiki/The_Purloined_Poe-M)", which has an odd similarity to the "MonsterM" possible password. This would leave the pokemon password ending "ash" who, of course, is a pokemon character ... which makes no sense in that place. [[Special:Contributions/199.27.128.83|199.27.128.83]] 05:51, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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Here's one that fits: <br><br />
facemash4077 (Combination of facemash by zuckerberg and M*A*S*H) <br><br />
facemash (Site made by Zuck in The Social network.) <br><br />
<br />
Maybe facmashklinger.. The eggklinger being a water-3 Pokemon? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.215.39|108.162.215.39]] 06:14, 5 November 2013 (UTC)rbnm<br />
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[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Orchard John Orchard] played in M*A*S*H and also was in the movie "The Letter" [[Special:Contributions/108.162.250.8|108.162.250.8]] 05:02, 6 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
;Working Backwards<br />
I'm attempting to take a different tact, by trying to find the key itself. I'm assuming its something easy to guess. I've tried the top 100 Adobe passwords (you can get them [http://stricture-group.com/files/adobe-top100.txt here]) using the following bash script (testing the word "matthias", as this one seems pretty certain):<br />
<br />
<code><br />
while read p; do echo -n $p\: && echo -n "matthias" | openssl enc -e -des-ede3 -nosalt -nopad -pass pass:$p | xxd -p; done < passwords.txt<br />
</code><br />
<br />
For this to work, I pre-processed the top 100 passwords file with:<br />
<br />
<code><br />
cat adobe-top100.txt | cut -c51- > passwords.txt<br />
</code><br />
<br />
…and then trimmed the cruft with a text editor (leading text paragraph and table headers). So far no luck; perhaps someone with more time on their hands can try some obvious XKCD-related passwords (I've tried XKCD, xkcd, xkcd.com, randall, rmunroe, encryptic, and Encrytic) and see if the encrypted version(s) match up with what we have here. [[User:Yaztromo|Yaztromo]] ([[User talk:Yaztromo|talk]]) 09:27, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
:I should mention that I've also tried OpenSSL's des-ede mode and des-ecb, as Im not sure if Randall used one, two, or three key mode. I'm also assuming the key has been generated from the password using OpenSSL's default key generation method, any of with I suppose could be incorrect. [[User:Yaztromo|Yaztromo]] ([[User talk:Yaztromo|talk]]) 09:39, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
:: Nice work. Note that the puzzle is very specific about using "block mode 3-DES" (usually called "ECB"). DES keys are actually 56 bits; each of the 8 bytes has odd parity (the number of 1 bits is odd). From [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Encryption_Standard wp], "Bits 8, 16,..., 64 are for use in ensuring that each byte is of odd parity." As a wild guess, I'd suggest that, if Randall chose a readable 8-ASCII-character passphrase, he also selected only characters that would make the parity bit zero (so that the result was ASCII). That is, <code><nowiki>[ #%&)*,/12478;=>@CEFIJLOQRTWX[]^abdghkmnpsuvyz|]</nowiki></code>. [[User:Cscott|Cscott]] ([[User talk:Cscott|talk]]) 16:34, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
::: Uh, hold one. Read the "Explanation" section above. It's clear that the hashes are not real, so brute-forcing the key isn't going to work. [[User:Cscott|Cscott]] ([[User talk:Cscott|talk]]) 16:48, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
:::: Just to note, there are actually three options for keys in TripleDES: having three independent keys (K1, K2, K3), having two independent keys (K1, K2, K1), or using a single key (K1, K1, K1). When run in ECB mode, OpenSSL calls these '''des-ede3''' and '''des-ede''' for options 1 and 2 (option 3 is for backwards compatibility with DES, and can be run using just '''des-ecb'''). See [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple_DES#Keying_options Triple DES - Keying Options] for details. In addition, the password and the key are two different entities -- typically the password is run through a keying algorithm first (commonly [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PBKDF2 PBKDF2] for 3DES), so there is no need to select password characters based on parity patterns. All of which is moot now that we know that the data isn't in fact TripleDES encrypted in the first place. I'm actually disappointed in Randall now :P. [[User:Yaztromo|Yaztromo]] ([[User talk:Yaztromo|talk]]) 19:01, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
I Hadn't seen it mentioned yet, but Monster Mash was written by Robert George Pickett (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobby_Pickett), Whose last name goes closely with the second clue, Purloined, which means "stolen". I can't make it work, but I figured it was worth pointing out. (Nov 5th 1:26 pm utc ) [[Special:Contributions/173.245.56.24|173.245.56.24]] 13:27, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
: It's a good connection. Maybe we should reorganize the discussion and start a list of "interesting ideas we can't quite make work" in the hopes that someone else has an insight. Edgar Allan / Alan Alda, Pickett / "Pick it", Klinger / Kingler, etc. Most of these are just manifestation of the human brain's ability to find patterns even in random coincidence, of course, but one of them might be on the right track. [[User:Cscott|Cscott]] ([[User talk:Cscott|talk]]) 16:23, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Just quick thoughts. <br />
I feel like Cpl klinger and the water type kingler is too solid a connection to ignore even though I can't really use it. <br />
Kingler was owned in the series by Ash. <br />
Ash is a three letter word and the last three letters of the phrase monstermash. <br />
Monsterm=8 letters so the first block ash=3 letters in the second block. <br />
Monsterm is about the monster.com thing, therefore purloined. It's a double reference, the .co has been purloined from the purloined website. <br />
Then blastoise -3, or rather blastois3 - 3 (mocking the common password meme of replacing letters with numbers) <br />
So the last password, which is super hard to guess and well chosen even with the clue is, blastoisash? It's a feasibly memorable password that would not be quickly forgotten by a pokemon fan while still being hard to guess. <br />
Can you think of a way to check it? Maybe go into the old command line xkcd and try it as a password? (From a contributor to my talk page) --[[User:Jeff|<b><font color="orange">Jeff</font></b>]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 13:52, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
: That's really a stretch. ".co is purloined from monster.com?" really? The answer will be far more obviously correct... once we figure it out. Look at the other answers, for example. [[User:Cscott|Cscott]] ([[User talk:Cscott|talk]]) 16:23, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
;another quick idea for monster mash<br />
<br />
It could be deflection. Maybe whoever put it in was paranoid. Or just dumb. Or who knows.<br />
<br />
But, there is a pokemon that's in the monster/water(-1) hybrid group called Marshtomp.<br />
<br />
Monster mash, mashed (ie anagrammed) can give us all but the P out of that... which is fine, as it's a 9-letter name.<br />
<br />
Thus we have E, N and S left over (and indeed a further T, H, E), which could become overall, e.g, Marshtomens (...Marshtomethens? Or w/e), which you can split up as you like to represent something which has been stolen (personally). Possibly in german slang or something. It doesn't have to be a direct thesaurus link, it could well be complete misdirection (on Randall's behalf, or that of his notional Adobe user), same as for the pokemon.<br />
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And for the pokemon itself, it could well be "Marshtomp3" ;)<br />
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Also, don't forget about reversed words and so-on.<br />
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Heck, I've used very personal and/or random things (like, maybe two or three people in the world may recognise it in connection with me, and it's not online, at least not anywhere it can be found - basically it's just in my head and dies with me), reversed, with numbers substituting random characters, as passwords before. That covers each individual base in just one PW...<br />
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Now we just have to start feeding the guesses into a hash engine and try to figure out, maybe brute force, what the original key was. Knowing almost all of the other answers already makes this far, far easier for those who may have the facility to run the tests already. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.213|141.101.99.213]] 14:54, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
: This is not a real excerpt from the password file, this is a puzzle which Randall made up. Therefore, the answer to the last group will not be random, and it will not be a stretch. It will be obvious (as obvious as the previous ones)... once we figure out the catch. [[User:Cscott|Cscott]] ([[User talk:Cscott|talk]]) 16:23, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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FWIW, Eve Online also features a "Purloined Sansha Codebreaker". [[User:Cscott|Cscott]] ([[User talk:Cscott|talk]]) 17:16, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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I agree that the solution has to be obvious - especially after its revealed. If this were a crossword puzzle, then the clues like Purloined might be followed by a question mark. Purloined? a cat that is loined - a cat that is covered with cloths? Puss in boots? Or something along those lines... [[Special:Contributions/108.162.215.34|108.162.215.34]]rbnm<br />
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purloined=phished (Corphish)? {{unsigned ip|108.162.216.227}}<br />
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i wonder if the link between the last three clues is more like a cryptic crossword puzzle---for instance, --purloined= heisted; the other clues reading it as he/is/ted...?--[[User:Wwd|Wwd]] ([[User talk:Wwd|talk]]) 22:40, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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I wonder if the pokemon could be the name of an ubuntu release, per "Not Really Into Pokemon" at http://xkcd.com/178/ --[[User:Willowy burrito|Willowy burrito]] ([[User talk:Willowy burrito|talk]]) 22:45, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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You could also abbreviate Robert Pickett's name (the co-writer of Monster Mash) as "Rob Pickett" which goes even more with purloined (the first 8 letters are now "Rob Pick"). [[User:Davheld|Davheld]] ([[User talk:Davheld|talk]]) 06:21, 6 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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Beings that "did the mash" according to the song http://www.lyricsondemand.com/onehitwonders/monstermashlyrics.html : my monster, the ghouls, Igor, Igor's baying hounds, the coffin-bangers, "The Crypt-Kicker Five", you. Zombies, Wolf Man, Dracula/Drac, and Boris were also mentioned, but they didn't do the mash. Hope that helps someone (doesn't help me). [[User:DPWally|DPWally]] ([[User talk:DPWally|talk]]) 23:05, 6 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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;Capitalization hints?<br />
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I have no idea who first put the capital letters in "MASH" and "Purloined" in the transcript (and I don't want to check), but now that I've gotten rid of the second (after somebody else got rid of the first), I want to record them here for the record. Possibly Randall put them in and was feeding us clues (so ''MASH'' the book or movie, and ''Purloined'' a title such as Poe's). I consider this unlikely (after all, I removed one of these capitalizations), but the possibility should be recorded. —[[User:TobyBartels|TobyBartels]] ([[User talk:TobyBartels|talk]]) 01:17, 6 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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I can't be a coincidence that this comes up as the top google news search for 'purloined:' http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/11/05/adobe_users_purloined_passwords_were_pathetic/ {{unsigned ip|108.162.246.120}}<br />
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"38a7c9279cadeb44 9dca1d79d4dec6d5 he did the mash, he did the": Ministermash (sounds like monster mash)<br />
"38a7c9279cadeb44 purloined": Minister (based on the character Minister D-, who stole the letter in the Edgar Allen Poe story) <br />
"a8ae5754a2b7af7a 9dca1d79d4dec6d5 fav water-3 pokemon": OmastarSmash (Shell Smash Omastar)<br />
So,38a7c9279cadeb44 = minister, 9dca1d79d4dec6d5 = mash, a8ae5754a2b7af7a = omastars<br />
04:07, 6 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
:Probably one of the best complete theories I've heard [[User:Davheld|Davheld]] ([[User talk:Davheld|talk]]) 06:26, 6 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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I suggest "alligato" (a form of Latin ''alligatus'', perfect passive participle of ''alligo'' "bind up"), and "alligator" (Referencing "Land of 1000 Dances"). [[Special:Contributions/199.27.128.62|199.27.128.62]] 05:37, 6 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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I think there is a transcribe mistake. <br><br />
Instead of "fav water-3 pokemon" <br><br />
Could it be "fay water-3 pokemon" <br><br />
Look at the Y and V letters in the non-chopped letters above. I think it is a Y and not a V. <br><br />
{{unsigned ip|108.162.215.51}}<br />
*About the Pokemon, is it possible everyone's ignoring a much simpler explanation? Every Pokemon game begins with a choice of one of the three starter Pokemon, each of which have an evolutionary line of three Pokemon. In first gen, if your "favorite [is] water [from the] 3 Pokemon", then you'll be using Squirtle, followed by Wartortle and Blastoise. 2nd gen: Totodile, Croconaw, Feraligatr. 3rd gen: Mudkip, Marshtomp, Swampert. 4th gen: Piplup, Prinplup, Empoleon. Perhaps the answer uses one of these, or some combination of them? --Anon 08:57, 6 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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Boris Blacher wrote an opera based on 'The purloined letter' This may fit with Bobby 'Boris' Pickett who sang Monster Mash [[User:YellowYeti|YellowYeti]] ([[User talk:YellowYeti|talk]]) 11:11, 6 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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The "Boris" in "Boris Pickett" is a reference to Boris Karloff. (In his other work, Pickett doesn't use that name.) —[[User:TobyBartels|TobyBartels]] ([[User talk:TobyBartels|talk]]) 12:36, 6 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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An alternative tack: how about Barbaracle for the Pokemon, BarbaraC(Jordan) for purloined and Barbara Clark - famous for doing Monster Mash-up novels. Does Barbara Jordan have some purloined link with watergate? {{unsigned ip|108.162.231.16}}<br />
No, because the pokemon has a different starting string as the other two. --[[Special:Contributions/199.27.128.119|199.27.128.119]] 13:48, 6 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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I think it is not coincidence that it is the last one that you can't solve. It may be an experiment by Randall to see if people can find a solution for a puzzle that doesn't make any sense. That said, if it does have a solution, it should not be "monstermash" since that is too close to the clue. If that was the password, everyone could guess it easily from the clue. It has to be one level "removed" from those words, guided by the clues for the matching passwords. The point of the post was that using unsalted crypt in the passwords allows you to combine clues, right? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.201|108.162.219.201]] 13:42, 6 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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Not an answer, but maybe an approach: Look at it from the "what piece of information is Randall trying to tell us?" angle. In the first few puzzles, he teaches us the rules of the game. We disambiguate clues by later ones, which we can only do because of the missing salts. For example, the "name and jersey number" just tells us the format of the answer to the previous clue about Judith 15:10. Otherwise, there would have been no way to guess that exact string without the space and colon. Also, "Charlie X" and "Charlie Sheen" demonstrate that spaces are used in a "fair" way. I would not expect a trailing space on a password, for example. So what about the Pokemon then? The first half of the crypt for the Pokemon isn't used anywhere else. The easiest interpretation I can come up with is that this is just trying to restrict the common second part of the word to letters from the list of Water-3 Pokemon. Let's assume it wasn't made very difficult, so take just 'el', 'le', and 'l' from the Water-3-only group on bulbapedia. Then the puzzle is this:<br />
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something related to 'monster mash': 8 letters plus the ending 'el', 'le', or 'l'<br />
something related to 'purloined' or related to 'letter': the same 8 letters, minus the ending<br />
pokemon: completely unrelated, just chosen to have a well known list of 9 or 10 letter words to restrict search space for first line<br />
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I suck at crosswords, but can someone solve this restated version? There can't be that many 8 letter words that also make a word with 'el', 'le', or 'l' added to them? 15:23, 6 November 2013 (UTC) {{unsigned ip|108.162.219.201}}<br />
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: Not to insult your reasoning, which is entirely correct, but I believe your restatement is *exactly* the puzzle that (reasonable) people have been working on (and failing to solve) since Monday. As a long-time mystery hunter, I'd like to suggest the opposite: the continued failure to find some reasonable solution to the puzzle as stated above implies that *at least one* of the assumptions above is wrong. (For the record, I'd broaden your first to "...related to 'monster mash' or the show/film M*A*S*H", but again, that's the assumption we *have* been making.) So I'm especially interested in ideas *different* from the above, at this point, although not necessarily throwing out the bathtub, baby and all. Probably there's a fundamentally different way to read the first clue, or the second, or the third. [[User:Cscott|Cscott]] ([[User talk:Cscott|talk]]) 17:11, 6 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
:: Not insulted at all, just glad if I summarized it correctly, since I was late to the party. Maybe this helps others bootstrap. As requested, a slightly alternate view for clue 1: the word "mash" may not be part of the answer, since it appears in the clue. This means the direct answer to the clue is "monster" and has nothing to do with the song at all. The password could just be the name of a monster that is formed from something purloined plus an short ending. The endings we're already considering make nice monster names.[[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.198|108.162.219.198]] 19:54, 6 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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:::I appreciate the summary, it helped me come up with my "keyboard mash" proposed solution, which you can see below" [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.16|108.162.221.16]] 21:51, 6 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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Looking at some word lists at http://www.litscape.com/words/ending_with/l/9_letter_l_end_words.html , this doesn't seem to be leading anywhere good. Can someone fix my logic? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.201|108.162.219.201]] 15:33, 6 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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Not sure if anyone else has pointed out yet, but there is a pokemon named purrloin http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Purrloin_%28Pok%C3%A9mon%29 . That seems like far too much of a coincidence to not be related. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.52.211|173.245.52.211]] 16:17, 6 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
: We'll add it to the long list of suspicious coincidences. [[User:Cscott|Cscott]] ([[User talk:Cscott|talk]]) 17:11, 6 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
:: I don't believe the hints can be related. Note that the Pokemon's name shares zero characters with the answer to the 'purloined' clue, so they are not linked via the same password. Any semantic link is inconsistent with these being password hints from separate (imaginary) users. Maybe Randall subconsciously (or via google) went from purloined to Purrloin to names of Pokemon. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.198|108.162.219.198]] 19:20, 6 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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a stretch.. but maybe a starting point?<br />
bootlegd purloined<br />
bootlegd ash he did the..<br />
???whisc ash fav-3<br />
[[Special:Contributions/108.162.215.34|108.162.215.34]]rbnm<br />
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;Hash collision<br />
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Maybe the last clues could be intended to be a hash collision? With 64-bit blocks that seems unlikely, but maybe it's a trick?<br />
[[User:Quantum7|Quantum7]] ([[User talk:Quantum7|talk]]) 21:29, 6 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
:Finding the probability of a collision amounts to the birthday problem. Assuming the hash function gives all 2^64 hash values with equal probability and there are 153 million unique message blocks (probably right within an order of magnitude), we have:<br />
:<br />
: <pre>Pr[collision] = 1 - exp(-153000000^2/(2*2^64)) = 0.000634</pre><br />
:<br />
: So the probability of a hash collision from different passwords is still quite low, even with such a large number of passwords. So it's worth assuming that all the identical hash blocks are from the same message, and keep looking for the poke-mash password.<br />
: BTW, getting a 50% chance of a collision requires about <tt>sqrt(-2^65*ln(.5))</tt> = 5 billion unique passwords.<br />
:[[User:Quantum7|Quantum7]] ([[User talk:Quantum7|talk]]) 21:46, 6 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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'''Explanation for the last 3 - Keyboard Mash'''<br />
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"He did the mash, he did the" keyboard mash<br />
ASDFGHJK - L<br />
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"purloined" letter, as in one letter from the home row<br />
ASDFGHJK<br />
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Then the third one is TENTACOO - L <br />
[[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.16|108.162.221.16]] 21:45, 6 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
:Purloined seems like a stretch. On the other hand, 'asdfghjkl' is the 56th most common password in the real adobe data, so perhaps you're on to something. [[User:Quantum7|Quantum7]] ([[User talk:Quantum7|talk]]) 22:08, 6 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
::I don't know, I feel like purloined has got to be a reference to the Poe story. The pun that letter means single character rather than item of correspondence is cute and funny. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.16|108.162.221.16]] 22:30, 6 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
:I like this explanation --[[User:Lackadaisical|Lackadaisical]] ([[User talk:Lackadaisical|talk]]) 22:28, 6 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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: This get's my vote. There's no reason for the "mash" password to be repeated twice in the puzzle with no clue for one of them except to say "this is a commonly used password" (as shown by the abc and password1 entries). Common password with an l (or el etc.) missing from the end, a purloined letter(!), plus "mash" as a clue is oblique but not crazyily so [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.223|141.101.99.223]] 17:37, 7 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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: I think this is the best wrong answer yet. That is, I don't see how you can plausibly clue "ASDFGHJK" with "purloined" (that is, the hint doesn't work on its own, it requires the rest of the puzzle to make sense at all, which is against the rules of the puzzle). But it's a good story. Definitely wrong, but wrong in a really interesting way, and the most interesting wrong answer yet. ;) [[User:Cscott|Cscott]] ([[User talk:Cscott|talk]]) 19:41, 7 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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:: I disagree. Even without the context of the rest of the comic, ASDFGHJKL is such a common password that it makes sense to imagine a hint that simply refers to a variation on it. In the same way, I can imagine someone using "purloined" to hint at a password of PASSWOR. Of course, with only 7 letters that wouldn't work for the comic. You would need a common 9 letter password to make a workable puzzle in the comic, and it's hard to think of anything better than ASDFGHJKL in that context. I appreciate the symmetry of the reference as well, in The Purloined Letter, the trick is that the police are all overthinking things and overlooking the obvious. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.16|108.162.221.16]] 21:58, 7 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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Why the restriction on the ending of the Pokemon to el, l, etc? There could be an adjective before (i.e. redkingle), so the Pokemon name could extend more into the second frame. The adjective might be some abreviated synonym for favorite, or whatever fav (or fay) stand for. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.215.34|108.162.215.34]] 22:07, 6 November 2013 (UTC)rbnm<br />
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;The last clue<br />
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Regarding it being actually Fay water-3 pokemon, have a look at this: http://www.serebii.net/e-reader/battle/08.shtml<br />
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The trainer is named Fay, and has a Starmie, which is a Water-3 Pokemon according to http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Water_3_(Egg_Group)<br />
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However, its only 7 characters. Not sure if it means anything, but just putting it out there.<br />
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EDIT: FayStarmie takes us to 10, leaving 9dca1d79d4dec6d5 meaning 'ie'<br />
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EDIT 2: I believe there is a Fay in Pokemon X and Y, but I can't find any information on her. Also Fay could refer to fairy, which is the new type added in Pokemon X and Y, but there doesn't seem to be any fairy Water-3 Pokemon, or any pokemon that reside in both groups. [[User:Haelbarde|Haelbarde]] ([[User talk:Haelbarde|talk]]) 00:24, 7 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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It's not "FAY", it's "FAV". Check how "FAVORITE" is written in the middle of the picture, and look at the Y's. The vertex is clearly below the mid-point of A, which is where it is in Y. --[[Special:Contributions/199.27.128.119|199.27.128.119]] 09:45, 7 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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;Another theory on last part<br />
Numbers and dates. Other passwords had numbers, why not this one? <br />
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A birthday is an easy thing to remember, so it's bound to be someone's password. So lets say a birthday was August 25, 1962. One can write that as august2562, which just so happens to be when Monster Mash was released, as per Wikipedia. In addition, August is quite similar to C. Auguste Dupin, from The Purlioned Letter. Lastly, one can add the Pokedex number of the Pokemon to the end of its name, but Poliwrath62 is too long, and is a water 1 Pokemon, not water 3.<br />
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This theory doesn't fit perfectly, but I haven't seen it posted yet. Maybe it'll give someone that eureka moment...[[Special:Contributions/199.27.128.188|199.27.128.188]] 10:11, 7 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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On the "purloined" and "monster mash" things: this is an incomplete theory but might give someone else an idea. Poe's "The Purloined Letter" contains this line: "He is the monstrum horrendum, an unprincipled man of genius." So perhaps the "purloined" clue is a reference to this line somehow. "Monstrum horrendum" is Latin for "horrendous monster" (although in Latin "monster" technically means "something to be pointed out and marvel at"). So if the password is "monsterm", this could be a misspelling of "monstrum"; if it's "monster " it could be a translation, though that begs the question as to why it ends with a space. [[User:Darthkiwi|Darthkiwi]] ([[User talk:Darthkiwi|talk]]) 15:50, 7 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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Could purloined be a pun for a stolen persistant URL? [[Special:Contributions/199.27.128.113|199.27.128.113]] 18:32, 7 November 2013 (UTC)rbnm<br />
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I did some copypasting with v's y's and a's in paint and i now know for certain that it's fav pokemon, not fay. Althogh i did think about fay referring to fairy. But i now find this very unlikely. Personally i think it has some relation to water-3 egg group because that is just that obvious to any pokemon player, although it may be some weird distant connection. i usually do a few cryptic things with the password that i can probably remember but makes it as hard as possible to guess. so i might make something like that my hint if my favorite pokemon trainer used a pokemon once who shared the same colors as a water 3 pokemon. so my guess is that it is water-3 but maybe not a pokemon directly in it. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.231.53|108.162.231.53]] 18:57, 7 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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I'm wondering if the mash comment could refer to the Mashed Potato dance. From the wikipedia page about said dance, a slightly modified version of it was one of the dances that people danced to the Monster Mash.<br />
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---<br />
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One technique for creating strong passwords is to take the first letter of each word in a passage from a book/movie quote/song/etc. as seen at http://www.mrsware.com/2/post/2013/06/passwords-revisited.html - "I was working in the lab late one night" would turn into "iwwitllon". If we take the next lyrics from the monster mash after "he did the", we get 'mmhdtmiwags'. The first eight words of The Purloined Letter would spell 'apjadoge'. Not sure how helpful this is.<br />
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Another thought is that in the story of The Purloined Letter, the letter is hidden in plain sight. Also, the story starts out with "Nihil sapientiae odiosius acumine nimio" - Nothing is more hateful to wisdom than excessive cleverness, which may be relevant here.<br />
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Finally, I was thinking about punctuation. "mon*m#" could be pronounced like "mon-star-m-hash". [[Special:Contributions/199.27.130.146|199.27.130.146]] 23:02, 7 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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It's also possible that Monster Mash means combining (mashing) the names of two Pokemon. I believe you guys have only been looking at single pokemon names. Regarding Purloined, could that word be the opposite mashup? So a Pokemon called (I'm making this up, don't hate on me) Purfect and another one named Charloined could mash into Purloined or Charfect.<br />
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'''Not 1, but 3 Pokemon'''<br />
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What if the Pokemon clue wasn't a single favorite from the water-3 group, but a favorite group of three water type Pokemon? This is less intuitive from the hint, but do people really pick out favorites from egg groups rather than types? [[Special:Contributions/173.245.54.8|173.245.54.8]] 01:41, 8 November 2013 (UTC)</div>173.245.54.8