Winter / Summer Bash 2022

Panda

00:00

I stand by this:

@Catija My working theories:
Shakuntala Devi is for completing 10(?) *First Q reviews* over 3 days (no need to consecutive) where the majority of voters agreed with you
Gregorio Y. Zara for completing 10(?) *Low Quality Posts reviews* over 3 days (no need to consecutive) where the majority of voters agreed with you

James Risner

@starball I'm trying everything I can think of... I've never done these, is there something from previous year sparkle hunts that I should know?

Rob

@JamesRisner Me too, I've asked for a hint on the announcement.

starball

@JamesRisner this is my first too :P

Criggie

Is it okay to discuss sparkles here or move it to another chatroom ?

nobody

@Criggie I think we're not supposed to discuss this until WB is over :) That said, I tried that and other combinations, and none of them make any sense to me either...

Criggie

00:08

I don't want to spoil anything, but I;m also stuck

nobody

I sure hope this doesn't turn out to be an anagram...

Criggie

ooo good thought - hah google suggests "Rob Somerfield Roses" thanks autocorrect.

starball

@Criggie This is different that what I have *confused face

nobody

@JamesRisner Last year was simple. A substitution cipher that lead to a quiz page.

@CDJB There is this

<!-- What *rotten* luck! Not only is Sparkles missing, but it looks like you'll have some unscrambling to do if you want to defend the unicorn. -->

James Risner

I'm warming up, but there are 2 of the 43 I know with Zara that didn't have LQP queue access - or I don't think they were over 2k at that point:
https://math.stackexchange.com/users/702715
https://math.stackexchange.com/users/14047

@nobody seen that, can't unscarmble

nobody

00:17

@JamesRisner I think that is just a hint for the first part, so not very useful for us :(

James Risner

@Panda nevermind, they both had 2k+ but have very little rep since Bash began

@panda VTand:
Low Quality Looks_OK 1x15 1x16 2x22
First Question Looks_OK 1x17
Edits Approve 1x15 1x21

So 3 days of LQP

starball

@Criggie GOT IT thanks in vantage :)

Criggie

@starball errr ... cool ? I'm still stuck, but if that helped you, well done !

nobody

@starball Is there another step in the puzzle after this?

starball

00:33

@nobody yeppers

nobody

And was the answer to this step a url?

Machavity

For everyone doing the unicorn thing, I don't think it will be too dissimilar to the 2021 unicorn quest

James Risner

@Machavity that presumes we get the second step to get the url

@Panda are you trying the LQP review yourself?

starball

@nobody hm :D you will see

nobody

00:59

Doesn't look like it :)

starball

01:16

who else is done unscrambling?

RedzMakesErrors

@starball i have

Smitop

01:31

@starball i've gotten to the second page

Machavity

@Smitop Is the next part related to the offset?

starball

I don't know what to do second half of page 2 >:( trying to look at past puzzles to see if there's anything I can learn

Smitop

@Machavity yes, the second half of /visit-sparkles uses the offsets

U12-Forward

02:26

Any theories for the robot hat?

James Risner

@U12-Forward If you fail to find Sparkle, Robot. Succeed, Defender of the Unicorn

@Smitop I can't get past the second part.

U12-Forward

Ah

Smitop

@JamesRisner i kinda cheated on that one since the space of possible URLs for the next stage is pretty small

i don't think writing a script to try 100 possible URLs was the intended solution 🙃

James Risner

@Smitop Small? I've had a program running to guess and I'm in the millions...........

and still going

starball

@Smitop they did not think that one through I guess?

I haven't got it but I considered trying that. Guess that's what I'm doing now

Smitop

02:36

@JamesRisner you definitely do not need to make millions of requests

James Risner

@Smitop Not requests, calculate the only valid ones... but sounds like I'm totally wrong if you think there's like obviously only 100

I'm thinking my program could run all night long (no internet queries needed) and find nothing.

Smitop

oh I didn't try to solve anything past the second paragraph

James Risner

We working on the same problem?

cause I'm on the decoded 14 lines

I have the english, and it's saying millions of combinations possible.

Smitop

@JamesRisner oops, nope

I'm on the stage after that stage

James Risner

I'm close to spent. Clearly it's simple and I'm not ever going to see it.

the first stage was literally 20 seconds to solve. So I was thinking this might be fun

Smitop

02:40

yeah that part is harder

Criggie

yep - I have the 14 lines too, and the number that was needed for each line, but not sure what to do with it from there.

James Risner

If you thinking numbers, then I'm definitely not seeing any possibility that the 14 english lines leads to numbers.

Criggie

okay thank you

James Risner

@Criggie To clarify, I think you are right. I'm just not seeing it.

Criggie

03:04

Not an answer, but my egrep-fu say the only single word in /usr/share/dict/words that matches one char from each of the 14 line text is inconveniently and that's not a place.

James Risner

@Criggie I'm using john the ripper password db

But I'm pretty sure whatever we'd get would be wrong, as it's the wrong approach.

Criggie

yeah - its two words

James Risner

@Criggie yes, but I'm staring at 14 lines of English with instructions and to get to two words. No idea how. because the way it says how involves guessing from letter combos.

Criggie

@JamesRisner yeah I found a list of placenames and massaged it, the single placename that matches one letter from each character is "antoniocardoso" but that's very likely a coincidence

Looks more like a person's name than a place to take a unicorn

simplemaps.com/data/world-cities was where I downloaded a CSV with lots of place data, then used egrep again.

I bet whoever wrote this puzzle is laughing their arse off at our bumbling.

Even wikipedia isn't helpful.... en.wikipedia.org/wiki/…

James Risner

03:25

I think we are just wrong, everyone else zoomed past this point.

A J

03:42

@Catija 9 flags on the same site or can it be on multiple sites?

starball

who's past page 2?

James Risner

Can't get past 14 words

er lines

(in English)

starball

03:59

When I was on page 1, I wondered if the answer was specific page common to one of the network sites like /404. I won't say whether that's the right direction though.

James Risner

@starball so just tried several along that path, no luck

starball

04:40

> Congratulations, you have freed the unicorn! Unfortunately, the hat could not be awarded, because the user already owns the hat.

meirl :|

WHAT

nobody

04:57

@JamesRisner I'm starting to wonder if it actually means 3 words (2 words + the name of a place)

James Risner

@starball second way to gain defender of the unicorn

@nobody I’ve out for tonight. I’ve exhausted my ideas, the program to guess words failed, I tried a couple hundred shots in the dark. No ideas. Can’t get past the 14 English sentences.

nobody

Yeah same

starball

compared to what you guys are doing I feel like I cheated :P

nobody

@starball I tried that...

starball

tried what?

James Risner

05:02

Funny enough, my partner being a puzzle nut. They spent 5 hrs on it and is all sad now as it’s uncommon for them to find a puzzle they can’t solve.

starball

@JamesRisner sad :(

nobody

@starball Visiting a specific page. Was the first thing I tried. Didn't seem to help

James Risner

@starball wrote a program to look for words from the large John the ripper password db by anagramming a letter at a time = failed

tried lots of location names (2 word).

starball

are we allowed to discuss? The MSE post says to keep the details of our visit to ourselves until Jan 4th 21:00

James Risner

I take that as don’t tell how.

But I guess it’s also don’t talk

starball

05:06

@catija are we allowed to confirm the details of this unicorn puzzle's hats with you to update the hat index? Or should we keep those hats secret until the end of WS bash?

nobody

@starball You've made the visit, so I guess you're not. But we haven't made the visit yet so that can't possibly apply to us :)

starball

I think by "visit", it means the whole challenge :P

James Risner

Either way I think I’m done. This is totally not fun it’s so hard and this is from someone who has slept less than 4 hrs average since the start, and only worked 8 hrs not on winter bash since the start trying to puzzle out triggers

starball

I hope you feel better after some rest!

nobody

Its probably not hard, its probably just misleading us somewhere, wasting our time

James Risner

05:12

It was ok when I just had 5 hat triggers (E/Ru/S/R/G) that no one (including me) know how to trigger. That’s been fun trying to work them out.

@nobody I totally this this is it. Every else just jumped to the answer

RedzMakesErrors

i got the cipher and now im stuck trying to find the words combination XD

for 5 hours

James Risner

Same

Cipher was done in 20 seconds

RedzMakesErrors

yeah that was easy

everyone who solved it laughs

nobody

Wow. Accidentally did it. Tried something that seemed ridiculous and it worked.

U12-Forward

05:28

Cipher was so easy

Now I am stuck on finding the two word place

nobody

Good luck, I just lucked upon it.

Also, automated online tools will probably help.

RedzMakesErrors

wow, need a lot of luck for that

which automated tools by the way?

nobody

Well... tools for taking a bunch of scrambled letters and suggesting English words made from them.

@RedzMakesErrors I've been trying for hours. And I didn't luck upon the whole thing. I guessed one word, and used online tools to find the second word for me.

U12-Forward

Is it really one letter from every sentence?

RedzMakesErrors

jesus

which letter?

nobody

05:37

@U12-Forward 1 letter for everyone sentence, not necessarily from the sentence itself.

RedzMakesErrors

hm.

i don't get it

nobody

Someone actually shared all of them here.

RedzMakesErrors

WHERE

nobody

Scroll up into the older messages :)

RedzMakesErrors

aaaaa

need to find

was it from criggle

RedzMakesErrors

05:49

h i n t i f p o s s i b l e

AAAAA

found it

Slate

Puzzles are harder than anticipated. It's really cool to see folks solving both anyway, but not as cool to see folks frustrated and not enjoying themselves. Will look into adding a clarifying hint to each puzzle tomorrow (might not be added tomorrow, we'll see).

RedzMakesErrors

well, its all fun to get frustrated adds happiness to getting it

and i got a hat! :D

Slate

Yeah. It's a tricky balance to strike!

RedzMakesErrors

love the bird cookie by the way

Slate

For now, please accept this hint. I've encoded it in rot13, so you're not nudged if you don't want to be: Bapr qrpvcurerq, gur abgr qbrf abg yvr nobhg gur jbeq pbhag. Gurl'er abg, ubjrire, cynprf va na ngynf, ohg vafgrnq, jbeqf lbh'q svaq va n qvpgvbanel.

(I'm seeing a lot of folks here getting really close but not quite there.)

@RedzMakesErrors Thanks!

RedzMakesErrors

06:01

maybe i should have mentioned, but i already passed that bit haha

anyway decent hint

nobody

06:19

lmao, now i'm stuck at the next page.

I even tried manually brute forcing all the possibilities

RedzMakesErrors

ehehehe

thanks for the tip

i guess it might have something to do with the way POUNDS is ciphered?

if you cipher them all they all spell pounds

nobody

it probably does

RedzMakesErrors

yeah

starts brute forcing all numbers from 1 to 99

nobody

lemme know if it works

RedzMakesErrors

yeah... but

i wont tell you which number XD

only 99 numbers... how hard can it be?!?

nobody

06:24

that's fine

I just need to know if I have to try again or find another way

RedzMakesErrors

yeah

up to 50

nah

no dice

AAHAHAHAHAAAAAA

CDJB

Stage 2 is definitely more fun than stage 1, fewer possibilities for red herrings :)

And it's not that hard if you solve it properly rather than brute forcing it, plus much more satisfying

RedzMakesErrors

yes but BRUTE FORCE NO WORK

so doesn't matter anyways

or have i missed something

nobody

If brute force no work, that means I don't know how to test my guesses if I try it the proper way

RedzMakesErrors

hmMmmMmm.

i feel like something is going wrong here

the clue means that it has to be some form of two-digit number

BUT ALL TWODIGIT NUMBER NO WORK

brain screams

Or...

iZ DA CLUE WRONG?

SCREM

i feel like a new user on so

@CDJB is the number actually between 1 and 99 though

wow, i have witnessed people dropping out of the chat

looks so sad

i believe i have brute forced the numbers 0-99 approximately 5 times already

this is fun :D

6th cycle

nobody

06:50

@Slate Did you implement brute force detection, or are we doing it wrong?

RedzMakesErrors

i felt like i saw a flash of white on one page butim not sure

Slate

@nobody Well, I didn't write the code for the site, but so far as I know there's no brute-force detection. So I suppose you could brute force it if you knew what to look for, but I really wouldn't recommend it.

It doesn't require brute force to solve.

RedzMakesErrors

yeah...

can you confirm it is a two-digit number?

20th cycle

on autopilot now

@Slate

nice, got rickrolled by a unicorn XD

nobody

So I don't even know what I'm looking for :(

CDJB

I think you're wasting your time if you try to brute force it

RedzMakesErrors

07:05

hmmm

ah yes... TIME TO BRUTE FORCE UP TO 1000! wooOOOo

jkjk

nobody

But Smitop did bruteforce it

RedzMakesErrors

WAAAAAAAIT

WHAAAAT?

hmmmmm

TIME TO ACTUALLY BRUTE FORCE UP TO 1000

nobody

Noo, they said there were only a 100 possibilities

RedzMakesErrors

ok

oh

wait

does that mean it can only be from 0 to 99 or is it something else

nobody

5 hours ago, by Smitop

i don't think writing a script to try 100 possible URLs was the intended solution 🙃

RedzMakesErrors

07:08

i don't see how that is related or am i missing something

nobody

Sorry, I wanted to link to the message before this.

Just to show they bruteforced it.

But, yeah, looks like the search space should be a 100 urls

But 0-99 doesn't work

RedzMakesErrors

ouch

U12-Forward

I'm still at the first step

I am trying to brute force to 100, but no luck

nobody

@U12-Forward Brute force is for when you get to the second page

CDJB

Have you tried solving the actual puzzle? 👀

nobody

07:30

Yes.

CDJB

Sorry, I know that sounds really annoying 😂 it's not that bad of a puzzle, honestly. Definitely easier than bruteforcing.

U12-Forward

I am stuck on the first page.

Lol

starball

@U12-Forward hehe brute-forcing can actually be done in a matter of minutes

nobody

@CDJB If that's the case, I want to bruteforce it :)

@U12-Forward Did you see slate's hint in chat?

U12-Forward

@starball I deciphered all the sentences, but cannot get the two wordr

*words

CDJB

07:39

@Panda I did 20 on one day, that's it though. I'll try doing some more today

U12-Forward

@nobody Yeah, but I dont really get it yet

starball

@Slate I'm going to make a security jab/joke first thing when WS bash ends :P

U12-Forward

Do I need to check some decipher number to index each sentence?

starball

oh wait- just to be clear, I'm talking about brute-forcing page 2

U12-Forward

I am on page 1

nobody

07:41

@U12-Forward You don't need to index the sentence, but you're on the right track with the decipher number/key...

Panda

Hmm I understood the red herring in the first step but still don’t know what to do with it

U12-Forward

Which is the decipher number key? Their are 2 only dcode site

*on

RedzMakesErrors

actually, someone posted it in chat

which is where i got it >:)

but its removed now

U12-Forward

No

Nooo

I wish I saw it

Panda

I saw that message but still clueless

lol

As in I’m able to obtain what was in that message

U12-Forward

07:56

Is it related to the alphabet with those numbers?

Panda

I don’t quite see the point of the key. :/

RedzMakesErrors

@U12-Forward ehehehehehe.

@Panda i mean like

scroll up i think nobody posted something about it

lollll

RedzMakesErrors

08:12

screm

what was that?

hm

Panda

Misinterpretation :)

Anyway I think I got the hint by Slate but I don’t see what’s there to do with that key. :/

Probably going to try a few more tools later

RedzMakesErrors

scramble

Panda

words → numbers →??? words

RedzMakesErrors

do you think /##£ means it has to be in some format of that>

also it says two words

Panda

I’m still on the first page

RedzMakesErrors

08:23

yeah

try unscrambling

Panda

Hmm I’ll take a deeper look

RedzMakesErrors

okay, i've been repeatedly brute-forcing two-digit numbers for 3 hours now

still no dice

if i do it enough it should work... right?

interesting, i broke winterbash site

go to /hat and it returns 404

Panda

rate limited

RedzMakesErrors

yeah

still stuck on page 2

James Risner

09:05

@Slate read your rot13, I’d been operating under the hints understanding from the start. When that failed I switch to the things you hint discouraged

RedzMakesErrors

@Slate got any more clues? :)

Big Brother

09:22

I think I know where you people may be going wrong but not sure if I can disclose that.

Though a piece of advice: try solving the puzzles instead of brute forcing to get the answer.

nobody

I tried solving the puzzle too...

Now I don't really know if any of the attempts I make are actually incorrect or if I'm just trying the incorrect url format.

RedzMakesErrors

yeah...

i tried solving as well

nobody

Umm, I think you just gave the answer for part 1 away...

Better get a mod to delete that

starball

flagged

RedzMakesErrors

dam

ouch

nobody

09:34

Flag it for mod attention

Not spam/offensive

Too late. Redz got suspended

Tinkeringbell

fixed that too

RedzMakesErrors

thanks

died for a second there

uhmmm does that count towards anything

anyways

its brute force time

(again)

starball

AA sorry about that. today was my first time using chat flags and I didn't know there were two places to find flags, or that there were different flag types, or that one of the flag types had a suspension penalty

thanks @tink

@CDJB I found stage 2 harder. I got the first half and had no idea what to do for the second. I knew how to be smart about brute forcing and actually found that satisfying :P

RedzMakesErrors

yeah the chat flags are really janky

@starball howw???

starball

how what? If you mean how to brute-force smartly, I can't say it without giving too much away I think :P

RedzMakesErrors

09:45

can i has a h i n t ?

starball

actually I probably can. Just use a certain JS web API

RedzMakesErrors

what is a js web api

starball

time for you to learn some web dev! :D

RedzMakesErrors

aaah

starball

okaay here's a hint: 62424958

RedzMakesErrors

09:47

hmmmmm

starball

hehe my hint is a mini puzzle too

RedzMakesErrors

dam

nice hehe

Panda

Anyone can give a hint for the first page after unscrambling?

starball

do you mean after deciphering?

Panda

is punctuation of any significance?

Yes, I can read the text now

starball

09:50

maybe ping slate?

RedzMakesErrors

no punctuation does not help

Panda

Oh right

RedzMakesErrors

mhm

i hope im not giving too much away

Panda

hmmmm

Criggie

This reminds me so much of the initial startup time in a new job, where everyone knows stuff that you don't know, uses words in ways that mean something different.
Its like having nothing to hang the initial learning on.... does that make sense?
I'm just frustrated, expecting its something blatently obvious but only if you know something completely different as well.

time to sleep on it.

"Just use a certain JS web API" <-- well frob the fizangle, obviously.

BUT NOT ON FRIDAYS!@!@!!

2

Everyone knows its never on Fridays.

yeah - feel like a noob all over again.

In short - good work for not making the clues blatently obvious, you're all doing it well.

RedzMakesErrors

09:58

jesus, not me

also thanks for the tip in chat :D

@Criggie i actually honestly googled frob the fizangle

Panda

finally on the 2nd page

RedzMakesErrors

STILL on the 2nd page.

Panda

I'd say this is definitely much more difficult than last year

@RedzMakesErrors :(

RedzMakesErrors

yeah

i wasn't around for it last year tho so I can't really tell

or at least i didn't do the sparkles

last year was simple

Panda

Last year was much simpler

RedzMakesErrors

10:07

yeah

Panda

2 years ago was fun too, those who managed to cheat the hat dash game would get awarded the hat

and a +50 bounty from Yaakov too

the hat dash game was just a reskinned version of the chrome dinosaur game

RedzMakesErrors

yeah

it was nice

starball

@Criggie "BUT NOT ON FRIDAYS!@!@!!" lmao

Criggie

(its friday at 11 PM here -)

RedzMakesErrors

nice

its friday at 9 for me

starball

11:00

@Criggie DON'T FROB THE FIZANGLE!! :DD

XaC

11:40

@JamesRisner same, decoding was easy, not sure what to do with the decoded text

James Risner

12:19

@BigBrother tried for 5 hrs to solve the puzzle with my partner helping

Still stuck with decoded trying to unscramble

pinckerman

Is it possible to fill 100% for the second riddle? Or am I missing something?

CDJB

12:35

It sounds like you're thinking on the right lines

Panda

99% seems to be the most hmmm

pinckerman

@Panda yep but total weight is wrong

James Risner

@Slate Got a hint that isn't what I spent hours doing already before I switched to brute force (that also failed)?

Panda

12:58

OH WOW I GOT IT

pinckerman

@Panda Step 2?

Panda

@pinckerman Yep I've reached the quiz

pinckerman

Great!

Any hint? :D

Panda

Can't believe I'm stuck on the quiz question now

@pinckerman "Though on page 2, don't forget what you first did on page 1"

pinckerman

@Panda yeah I already did that, I don't know the percentage amout I have to reach

Panda

13:11

Lol what I was wondering out aloud just now was in fact helpful

U12-Forward

13:31

I need a hint for page 1, I am back:)

pinckerman

@U12-Forward the key to solve it is not in the words used, but in the way you decoded them

James Risner

@Slate This was a hint, a critical hint for me. chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/62628200#62628200

XaC

@pinckerman I get a list of numbers, but I haven't managed to get something useful out of them

pinckerman

@XaC you have to transform them in letters

XaC

13:48

@pinckerman and then solve a two word anagram? I've been trying on this for a while with no luck

Bani

im here for the chatterbox hat

thank for the start too!

James Risner

Winter/Summer Bash Starring room

chat room for placing a star on users comments, some years it ...

Bani

that chat room kinda empty tho

U12-Forward

@pinckerman will try

Winter/Summer Bash Starring room

Transcript for