Did anyone notice the line, “Update: I have been arrested”? Chekhov’s gun is just hanging there.
When you browse Instagram and find Tony Abbott's passport number
201–210 of 354 posts
Re: When you browse Instagram and find Tony Abbott's passport number
#202Earlier quoted context omitted.
Same. Sounds like the author thinks he's way funnier than he is.
I laughed out loud multiple times reading this and sent it to some friends whose senses of humor I respect and the consensus is this is funny.
I shared this with some of my friends, and we all agreed it was obnoxious.
So, where do we go from here?
Re: When you browse Instagram and find Tony Abbott's passport number
#203Earlier quoted context omitted.
A similar anecdote from my family. My uncle (a sheep farmer) and I discovered that: 1. I was afraid to touch anything in a car engine, but happy to muddle through unfamiliar computer issues 2. He was afraid to click unknown buttons on a computer screen, but comfortable pulling apart and rebuilding an unfamiliar car engine. In both cases, we were confident because we knew whatever mistake we made we'd be able to rever…
That's basically how I taught my father to use a computer. It came down to two things: 1. He was terrified of breaking it, so I told him that there was nothing he could possibly do to it that I couldn't fix. I made sure to sound overly confident -- almost like I was challenging him to break it. That gave him the confidence to do whatever. 2. Every time there was a problem with it, I would Google the answer in front o…
Yeah it's nice and everything but don't tell that to your boss or bosses in general otherwise most of us will be unemployed in a few years /s
Re: When you browse Instagram and find Tony Abbott's passport number
#204Great post, thoroughly enjoyed reading it.
BTW, on a side note, when you try and visit the blog's homepage[0] and scroll down to the bottom, you find a link to an actual (password protected) PDF file called Mango.pdf[1]. The author 'Alex' says the password for the PDF has been embedded in the page and it didn't take me a lot of time to figure the password out from the HTML source[2].
But when I opened the PDF, I was hit with this random string of characters:
cGJhdGVuZ2h5bmd2YmFmLCBsYmggZmJ5aXJxIHpsIHlodnR2IGNobW15ci4gQCB6ci BiYSBnanZnZ3JlIGp2Z3UgbGJoZSBzbmliaGV2Z3IgcXJmZnJlZyBnYiB0cmcgbGJo ZSBlcmpuZXEuIFZnJ2YgeXZ4ciwgYWJnIG4gaXJlbCB0YmJxIGVyam5lcSBmYiBodQ o=
I tried to decode this using every available decoder, but it only throws up random result. Was wondering if any of you smart people here had any idea about this code.
[1] https://mango.pdf.zone/mango.pdf
[2] view-source:https://mango.pdf.zone/
EDIT: SOLVED IT!
As the commenters who replied to me mentioned, this puzzle is double-encoded. I think the trick is to figure out which decoder to use first.
Re: When you browse Instagram and find Tony Abbott's passport number
#205Nice. Here's a similar personal story with a PSA that sometimes blurring is NOT sufficient. A friend of mine posted on Instagram a picture of a U.S. visa (or something similar; it was probably five years ago) to announce her trip to the U.S., and she took care to blur out sensitive information such as her passport number. But a Gaussian blur is easy to reverse and I successfully unblurred it and told her my discovery…
The thing to remember here is that the only way to hide (real world) data in an image is to reduce the amount of data in the picture... a blur or swirl leaves most if not all data just in the picture (although distorted) Any filter that removes data (such as pixelate or blacking out / whiting out) can be used to safely hide this data... Just remember to also strip out any unwanted meta data (Exif-data) and do not use layers but a 'flattened' version of the picture.
Re: When you browse Instagram and find Tony Abbott's passport number
#206Nice. Here's a similar personal story with a PSA that sometimes blurring is NOT sufficient. A friend of mine posted on Instagram a picture of a U.S. visa (or something similar; it was probably five years ago) to announce her trip to the U.S., and she took care to blur out sensitive information such as her passport number. But a Gaussian blur is easy to reverse and I successfully unblurred it and told her my discovery…
My all-time favourite recommendation is "print, cut out the sensitive parts with an exacto knife, rescan". Firstly because it's a nice mix of analog and digital, and secondly because it's short enough to fit in a tweet - yet extremely secure.
"Information to be withheld should be black highlighted using a tool such as the word highlighter tool like this ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ and then printed off. This print out should then be scanned in and saved as a PDF."
Ministry of Defence redaction policy, https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...
Re: When you browse Instagram and find Tony Abbott's passport number
#207Great post, thoroughly enjoyed reading it. BTW, on a side note, when you try and visit the blog's homepage[0] and scroll down to the bottom, you find a link to an actual (password protected) PDF file called Mango.pdf[1]. The author 'Alex' says the password for the PDF has been embedded in the page and it didn't take me a lot of time to figure the password out from the HTML source[2]. But when I opened the PDF, I was…
Hint: try ROT13.
Re: When you browse Instagram and find Tony Abbott's passport number
#208I found his advice to Tony on how to get better with computers remarkably insightful: > I said there probably was a book out there about “the basics of IT”, but it wouldn’t help much. I didn’t learn from a book. 13 year old TikTok influencers don’t learn from a book. They just vibe. > My mum always said when I was growing up that: > There were “too many buttons” She was afraid to press the buttons, because she didn’t…
A similar anecdote from my family. My uncle (a sheep farmer) and I discovered that: 1. I was afraid to touch anything in a car engine, but happy to muddle through unfamiliar computer issues 2. He was afraid to click unknown buttons on a computer screen, but comfortable pulling apart and rebuilding an unfamiliar car engine. In both cases, we were confident because we knew whatever mistake we made we'd be able to rever…
This reminds me of a trick I would do when I was the teenage “computer guy” for my family and neighbors back in the nineties.
When I was doing upgrades, I would make the person in question replace a few parts themselves. Usually I would pull out one SIMM chip or PCI card, explain what it did and how it was retained, and then ask them to pull out and replace a similar part themselves.
I found that getting their elbows dirty went a long way toward perceiving computers as things that could be figured out.
Re: When you browse Instagram and find Tony Abbott's passport number
#209Great post, thoroughly enjoyed reading it. BTW, on a side note, when you try and visit the blog's homepage[0] and scroll down to the bottom, you find a link to an actual (password protected) PDF file called Mango.pdf[1]. The author 'Alex' says the password for the PDF has been embedded in the page and it didn't take me a lot of time to figure the password out from the HTML source[2]. But when I opened the PDF, I was…
I decoded it probably in the same way you tried, but I wouldn't call the result "random" in the space of possibilities. A random result of that kind of decoding would likely involve binary data that can't map cleanly to letters the way this did. You've just gotta go deeper!
Re: When you browse Instagram and find Tony Abbott's passport number
#210Great post, thoroughly enjoyed reading it. BTW, on a side note, when you try and visit the blog's homepage[0] and scroll down to the bottom, you find a link to an actual (password protected) PDF file called Mango.pdf[1]. The author 'Alex' says the password for the PDF has been embedded in the page and it didn't take me a lot of time to figure the password out from the HTML source[2]. But when I opened the PDF, I was…
Hint: try ROT13.
Thank you. Tried that as well, still throws up a string of letters and numbers. But the frequency this time seemed a bit more consistent, so the trick is to apply some sort of frequency analysis, I guess. Still on it.
BTW, are there any more of such 'puzzle hunt' websites where you could play around and sharpen your decoding skills? Thanks!