The Ransom/spoilers
From Wikiboom, the official Rocketboom wiki
This is the discussion and a list of currently found clues and any spoilers for The Ransom an alternate reality game taking place within the web video show Rocketboom.
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[edit] Summary
The game began with the first video on March 2, 2007 and discussed extensively in the comments for that episode. Since then, three new videos were found at Vimeo, Blip.tv, and YouTube. In 2008, a new video appeared on Rocketboom titled 'Crypto(e)' This video had blipverts of the four original videos and a message at the end that was deciphered to be a post on the blog elspethjane.com with a cryptic comment that linked to an image on Flickr.
[edit] Video 1 "Ransome"
Video 1 Message
"Hmmm looks like a ransome note right"
Video 1 Tags, captions, and other contextual clues
story links: story: vimeo 163464
Vimeo is a video sharing site. Mike B. discovered that the number turns out to be a Vimeo user id http://www.vimeo.com/user163464 for a user named 'ransom.' User ransom has posted a single video. This clip is regarded to be Ransom Video 2.
[edit] Video 2 "ransome34 is next with an e"
The second Ransom video was posted on March 2, 2007 to Vimeo by user ransom. The title of the video is ransome34 is next with an e Like Video 1, it showed someone's hands assembling a ransom note. The music was identified as "My Blue Heaven" by Vaughn De Leath
Video 2 Message
"Whose hand does this factotum serve and by what proxy"
Video 2 Tags, captions, and other contextual clues
Video 2 [http://www.vimeo.com/clip:148101]: Title: ransome34 is next with an e User: Ransom, female, France Tags: ransom, ransome34 Music: "My Blue Heaven" by Vaughn De Leath?
[edit] Video 3 "Randsom"
A link to the third Ransom video was found in the Rocketboom comments for the first Ransom episode, possibly by someone at Rocketboom. The comment read:
ano http://www.blip.tv/file/160170/ I found another Rocketboom ransom video, this must be part 3?
Video 3 shows hands assembling a ransom message.
Video 3 Message
"And used to get a message to a mass audience"
Video 3 Tags, captions, and other contextual clues
Video 3 [http://www.blip.tv/file/160170/]: Title: Randsom Caption: ransom randsome34 ransom34 ransome34 ransome43 ransom43 User: ransom Genre: Travel
[edit] Video 4 "ransom"
Video 4 was discovered and posted to the comments of the first Ransom video by viewer The Good Reverend on March 5, 2007. It was a YouTube video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhQNtp3qs_Q
There is speculation that Video 4 is actually Video 3 since the message of Video 4 seems to be the first part of a sentence concluded by the message of Video 3.
Video 4 Message
"Wouldn't be the first time a website was hijacked"
Video 4 Tags, captions, and other contextual clues
Video 4 [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhQNtp3qs_Q]: Title: ransom Caption: intag Category: Travel & Places User: ransome34 (Joined: March 02 2007 Last Login: 12 hours ago Videos Watched: 3 Subscribers: 0 Channel Views: 3 Age: 20 Country: United States)
[edit] Video 5 "Cryptoe"
Video 5 "Cryptoe" was posted to rocketboom.com on February 17, 2008 (although it's publish date is 2/15/2008) has references to Videos 1-4 (short blipverts spliced in), and then at the end displays "post:elspethjane:26359387" which seems to correspond to the web address of a blog post http://www.elspethjane.com/post/26359387
Video 5 Message
"Lock (look?) to the past to determine the future"
Video 5 Tags, captions, and other contextual clues
post:elspethjane:26359387 (in the end credit roll)
post:elspethjane:26359387 There is an image on the elspethjane.com blog post of a LOLcat from the website ICanHasCheeseburger with the caption "Purrito". Underneath the image is a comment by Yatta (both ElspethJane and Yatta work for Rocketboom as seen in the Know Your Meme episodes.)
The following comment links to a picture of Lisa Nova (a YouTube blogger) on Andrew Baron's Flickr site:
yatta: Haha! That's ridiculously funny. You know what else is funny? Lisa Nova. Did you see Andrew's pic of her from the YouTube party? It's too bad the orig is so low res. Someone should run stepic through some sort of Utility Mill. http://flickr.com/photos/andrewbaron/2264492296/
According to user Leadhyena Inrandomtan:
The "stepic" clue refers to steganography. See the Wikipedia page on steganography for more info. At the bottom of the page there is a link to a decoder utility that is on www.utilitymill.com. :D
In fact, if you visit the Lisa Nova Flickr page, you'll find one of the tags for the photo reads 'steganography'.
Leadhyena Inrandomtan continues: Decode the Flickr picture and you will get the following message (posted to this wiki by Steve Woolf)
Find the fore that came befour. For the first, choose every first. For the second choose every second. For the third, pick the third unless the number is two or less. For every fourth, the fourth, of course, but like the words in the rule of the third, please do ignore places numbered less than four.
The decoded message from the Lisa Nova pic seems to reference the original four ransom notes ("the fore that came befour"). I believe it tells us which letters to "choose" from the original notes -- which, when descrambled or decoded, probably form a new message or clue. e.g. take the first letter of every word from the 1st note, the second letter from the 2nd, and so on. --Rick Rey
Note 1: HLLARNR Note 2: HAOHAENYHR Note 3: DETSSD Note 4: LSESA
[edit] "Ransom - The lost episode" from Feb 29th, 2008
Video has a link within the text to http://tinyurl.com/yt36l9 which points to Cesar cipher encoding tool. URL is immediately followed by +22 which probably means the value for the cipher parameter (number of letters to shift).
Have no idea which text to apply it to. However, if you put in the text from the former clues (HLLARNR HAOHAENYHR DETSSD LSESA) with a displacement of 22, you get dhhwnjn dwkdwajudn zapooz hoaow. Maybe an anagram-solver might lighten this up.
There is a date in the text. 02-08-08 - the only rocketboom video from that day is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXtLmFA3deE (EDIT This video is logged on YouTube as 2/8/08, but on the Rocketboom archive page, there is no video for Friday, 2/8/08. The above linked video is actually for Thursday 2/7/08.)
There is actually a comment by "soparu" referring to the number 322 (or 3 to 2 - like the experiment). if you look for 322BC, wikipedia will give you an article including Ptolemy I: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ptolemy_I_Soter (not the same Ptolemy that's pictured in the video though! Possibly a red herring.)
Full text of the ransom-video:
HA HA HA. IF YOU DONT DELETE MY POSTS / YOU WILL NEVER SEE YOUR PRECIOUS TAPES / AGAIN. WE WILL CONTINUE TO HOLD IT FOR / RANSOM UNTIL YOU TAKE US SRSLY. ORLY? / SRSLY. HAHAHA. I KNOW YOU GOT OUR INSTR / UCTIONS. WE SAW YOU FOLLOW OUR INSTRU / CTION. (PTOLEMY FTW!) YOUR CALL TO THE / PPL TO HELP YOU FIND THE TAPES WILL DO / NOTHING! IT WILL NOT RETURN YR PRECIOUS / TO YOU ANY SOONER. WE WILL NOW PROVE / TO YOU THE RESOLVE OF OUR GREAT PRES / ENCE. ######### # ## ### ##### ######
Note: The first time that "TAPES" is written, it is not spoken.
Notice that there are 26 #s. I speculate that this corresponds to the 26 letters of the alphabet, and that this string corresponds in some way with the Caesar cipher linked later on.
- Here the actual video starts, followed by another text -
You thought we were lying. You though / t our first message wasn't for real. we / have your tapes. We were THERE. We / were closer to you. This is not a game. / We got you and showed our great / ness. 2-08-08. Nevar forget. Ha ha ha. / Rocketboom. Rocketboom. Rocketboo / m. tinyurl.com/yt36l9 +22 Rocketboom. / Rocketboom. Rocketboom. Rocketboo / m. Rocketboom. Rocketboom. Rocketbo / om. Rocketboom. Rocketboom. Rocket / boom. Rocketboom. Rocketboom. Rock / ---
notice, that "Nevar" is misspelled.
Both Ptolemy and the Ransom are also referenced in last tuesday's episode. Possibly a clue in there. (EDIT: The Ptolemy from last tuesday isn't the same as the one from the era of alexander found via the 322BC article. we now have two different ptolemys to deal with.)
Listening closely to the Feb 26 episode, you hear a reference to Ptolemy and the era of Nabonassar. Looking at Ptolemy and Nabonassar in wikipedia I found out that:
The Greek astronomer Claudius Ptolemaeus started an era, i.e. a start point for chronological calculations, in the first year of [Nabonassar's] reign, on New Year's day in the Egyptian calendar: Wednesday 26 February 747 BC in the proleptic Julian calendar.(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nabonassar)
Note that it's the same date as the episode. Note also the text "today was the beginnings of a new era" appeared during the ransom segment which refers to Ptolemy's era of Nabonassar. the strange thing is the spelling of beginnings (with an s)...
and this led me to the right page of Wikipedia referencing Ptolemy with the same picture that's popped up before on the Feb 26 show: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ptolemy.
[edit] Currently Unsolved
What are the fore that came befour?
[edit] Complete Known Message so far
Although it seems we're missing part or parts of the message, this is what we got so far... Video 1 [http://www.rocketboom.com/vlog/archives/2007/03/rb_07_mar_02.html]: "Hmmm looks like a ransome note right" Video 2 [http://www.vimeo.com/clip:148101]: "Whose hand does this factotum serve and by what proxy" Video 3 [http://www.blip.tv/file/160170/]: "And used to get a message to a mass audience" Video 4 [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhQNtp3qs_Q]: "Wouldn't be the first time a website was hijacked" Video 5 [http://www.rocketboom.com/vlog/rb_08_feb_15/]: "Lock (look?) to the past to determine the future" post:elspethjane:26359387 (There is also clips of the first four videos spliced into Video 5)
[edit] More speculation
- From [The Ransom/spoilers] talk page
Here are some clues that might or might not be significant:
1. Videos 3 and 4 both fall under the category "Travel" on their respective video sites.
2. "Factotum" and "proxy" are both programming terms used in the operating system Plan 9.[1]
2.a Plan 9 was named after the sci-fi B-movie Plan 9 from Outer Space, directed by Ed Wood.[2]
3. One earlier time that a website was hijacked and used to get a message to a mass audience was in June of 2000, when a group of Australian activists hacked Nike.com to broadcast the message "global justice is coming--prepare now."[3] --TheGoodReverend 21:59, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
4. The title of Video 2, "ransome34 is next with an e," seems to reference the username of Video 4, ransome34, and the title of Video 4, ransom, is the same as the username of Video 3.--TheGoodReverend 22:13, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
5. The "stepic" clue refers to steganography. See the Wikipedia page on steganography for more info. At the bottom of the page there is a link to a decoder utility that is on www.utilitymill.com. :D Decode the Flickr picture and you will get the following message: "Find the fore that came befour. For the first, choose every first. For the second choose every second. For the third, pick the third unless the number is two or less. For every fourth, the fourth, of course, but like the words in the rule of the third, please do ignore places numbered less than four."
Good luck getting that to work though. ;) --Leadhyena Inrandomtan
