Semiotics

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In the video Jonas Sucks Daniel finds a package in their car. It includes a set of Nancy Drew books and a note from Tachyon. From the start, Daniel suspects that this package contains some kind of clue to guide them in figuring out the password to the encrypted disk Tachyon had left Bree.

Semiotics background

Semiotics is the study of signs and symbols, both individually and grouped in sign systems. It includes the study of how meaning is constructed and understood. It can represent a methodology for the analysis of texts regardless of modality, which is the particular way in which the information is to be encoded for presentation to humans. For these purposes, "text" is any message preserved in a form whose existence is independent of both sender and receiver. Naming the file "semiotics" could signify that the password to the file already exists in what Tachyon sent Daniel. In this way, Daniel and Tachyon need know nothing about each other to be able to communicate what the password is.

The note

Tachyon's note reads

xxxxxxxxxxx
  Where it all started
the answer is before you
  a subtle clue I Drew
        xoxo, 
          T
                    yyy

When Daniel read the note aloud in Jonas Sucks he mentioned that it was a haiku. A haiku is a short poem consisting of three lines. It must have five syllables in the first line, seven syllables in the second line, and five in the third. Tachyon's note had five, seven, and six syllables respectively, so it was not actually a haiku. This proved to be significant when solving for the password of the file.

Another important feature of the note was the x's and y's written at the top and bottom of the message. On the top-left corner there were 11 x's, on the bottom-right 3 y's.

The Books

The package contained five books from the Nancy Drew series, including

  • No. 1 The Secret of the Old Clock
  • No. 7 The Clue in the Diary
  • No. 10 Password to Larkspur Lane
  • No. 19 The Quest of the Missing Map
  • No. 52 The Secret of the Forgotton City


The Nancy Drew series was created and outlined in detail in 1930 by Edward Stratemeyer, founder of the Stratemeyer Syndicate, which continued the series after his death.

The file

In the video description to Jonas Sucks, Daniel posted a link to the file, http://tinyurl.com/33s4w2. The file has been uploaded here. It is a password-protected .rar file named "53454d494f54494353.rar", which is hex for "SEMIOTICS".

The password

The note from Tachyon pointed to "where it all started" and capitalized "Drew" in "a subtle clue I Drew". This led to the first part of the password, which was "stratemeyer" because the Nancy Drew series was started by him. Stratemeyer is an 11-letter word--11 was also the amount of x's in the upper-left corner of the note. The number of y's on the bottom-right of the note was 3, so the second part of the password was 3 characters long.

Another "subtlety" in Tachyon's note led to the second part of the password. Daniel had incorrectly noted that it was composed like a haiku, with the numbers of syllables per line being 5, 7, 5, respectively. Her note actually had 5, 7, and 6 syllables. These numbers, "576" were the second part of the password.


Password (case sensitive):stratemeyer576

Contents

The disk contained two images and a text file. These contents are explained in detail at Bree's disk.


External links