The Guide v.X: LockJaw
by Steve Peters
|
Introduction - Recap 1 - Recap 2 - Recap 3 - Recap 4 - Recap 5 - Recap 6 - Recap 7 - Recap 8 - Epilogue
Another Monday update for the horoscopes at Grrl-E-Grrl. Many of the correlations
are being solidified, but there are some
that still don't make sense:
On March 20th, the source code for http://www.10101-10010-110.org/forums.asp changed:
-------------------------------------------------------
<input type="text" name="textfield1"
size="16" maxlength="99">
<input type="submit" value="admin">
<!-- when he exclaims "run,"
everyone goes in fear -->
<br>
<input type="text" name="textfield2"
size="16" maxlength="99">
<input type="submit" value="downtime">
<!-- /where the grass is
greener -->
<br>
<input type="text" name="textfield3"
size="16" maxlength="99">
<input type="submit" value="events">
-------------------------------------------------------
This seemed to tellus that someone is on
the right track, with where.gif, but we need
to be entering the password into the admin
field, instead of the events field. Arrgh!
March 20th also brought us some new emails
on Barbie and Vad's Underground. Seems they're missing each
other an awful lot, but still beating around
the bush (ah, young love!).
The most notable item in these emails is
a "date" to play Euchre online at the Yahoo
Euchre game tonight! Could we see our friends
Vad and Barbie live and in person?? If so,
what do we do? Keep quiet and watch? Try
to pry information out of them?
Also listed is an earlier email from Creeper
to Barbie. Dated 3/19, this message talks a lot about fashion, as lists some
fashion designers:
louis vuitton
gaultier
donna karan
clinton hummel
gucci
missoni
balenciagas
A day later, balenciagas was updated to be
balenciaga. This would lead us to conclude
that this list is a clue of some sort. Hmm,
fashion designers.
The Iduna newsletter also gave us an update, introducing us to the Mayor's wife, Nadine
Devenish, complete with picture.
Nadine seems to be very interested in gardening,
as she goes on and on about flowers and herbs
and gardens. She does include a rather interesting
list of blossoms: Cinquefoil, Buckbean, American
Starwort, Balm of Gilead, Lotus, Trumpet
Flower, clippings of Pitch Pine. Some rather
interesting connections were found with these.
Cinquefoil: Maternal affection/Beloved child
Buckbean: Calm, Repose
American Starwort: Welcome to a stranger/Cheerfulness
in old age
Balm of Gilead: Cure, Relief/I am healed
Lotus: Eloquence/Forgetful of the past
Trumpet Flower: Fame/Separation
Pitch Pine: Philosophy/Time and faith
If the speculations about some sort of fountain
of youth are true, then these seem to all
point to that sort of thing. There also seems
to be a lot of numbers in her article. Here
it is in it's entirety:
Spring is the season of hope, and what could
be more filled with hope than the empty flower
beds and gardens of Moreland? Each flower
pot waiting for its flower, each empty patch
of lawn waiting to be filled with blooms!
Spring has not yet sprung, of course. I'm
sure we'll get a few more cold nights, a
few more grey mornings. Dreams of beautiful
flowers, missed during the winter, are still
just dreams. But the wind is warm, the trees
are green, and a robin is building her nest
outside my kitchen window.
I don't know about you, but I love this time
of year. Everything is filled with hope and
excitement. The seed catalogs have arrived
in the mail, and the last grey days of winter
fall away as I flip through those pages.
Just look! Cinquefoil, Buckbean, American
Starwort, Balm of Gilead, Lotus, Trumpet
Flower, clippings of Pitch Pine. So many
beautiful blossoms to choose from. I've planned
out my flower beds a half dozen times already,
and despite the chuckles I get from my husband,
I'll probably plan it another ten times before
I'm done.
Why not plan your garden along with me? Flower
pots come in all shapes and colors, and in
a range of prices. In fact, you can browse
through the shops downtown and find a hundred
different options without half trying! Ask
the helpful salesperson in the gardening
department about easy to grow flowers, or
plants that will accentuate your home style.
Of course, herbs are always a good choice
since they require little care beyond water
and sunlight, they add a wonderful scent
to your kitchen area, and they make a lovely
addition to your family's supper table (try
adding fresh basil to a salad or pasta dish,
you'll be amazed at the delicate taste!).
You might find yourself inspired to join
our local floral club, or to try growing
a few vegetables on your porch (tomatoes
are easy to grow, take up little space, and
taste wonderful fresh from the vine!). Let
us all welcome the Spring with open arms,
knowing that sunny mornings and bright flowers
are waiting for us in this season of new
life!
Nadine Devenish
On the night of March 20th, we had our first
live contact with in-game characters! Vad
and Barbie met on Yahoo to play a little
game of Euchre. While playing, many Jawbreakers entered
the room to watch. This didn't go unnoticed
by Vad and Barbie, and some conversations
were started. We did learn some interesting
information, though nothing really earth
shattering. Besides learning how to play
Euchre, we also learned the following:
* Jo Burgess may not be the brainchild of
Moreland like we are being led to believe.
She said during an orientation that she'd
been handed the Moreland projects, at which
point Vad interjected, saying he thought
it was her idea. Jo then got very flustered,
and then said that's what she meant. Here's
a partial transcript of the chat:
(here, vad is talking to the JawBreakers
about his boss again.)
vadindc: Well, that's the thing.
vadindc: all of her company's promo stuff
lauds her as the head
desinger. I mean, she created this place,
as far as I am concerned
ozymandias_y2k_in: but?
vadindc: well, she says the other day, during
this long orientation
meeting how she got handed the project
vadindc: so i correct her, you know, as best
as i can, trying to show
off that I've read the circulars and reports
SpaceBass98: heh, correcting the boss rarely
goes over well
vadindc: i know
ozymandias_y2k_in: never hurts to sound prepared
vadindc: but it just seemed weird
SpaceBass98: what did she say?
ozymandias_y2k_in: did she say if she's reporting
to/responsible to
someone?
vadindc: well that's just the thing. she
recovered and then said
something like Well, that's what I meant
ozymandias_y2k_in: never too early to learn
to play good office
politics. you want to know who you're really
working for
ozymandias_y2k_in: sometime's it's more important
to impress the boss'
boss, know what i mean?
vadindc: she actually stuttered for a few
minutes, and then did lots of
smoothing of her clothes and stuff.
vadindc: weirdest. ever.
We also learned that:
* Barbie is planning to visit Vad in Moreland,
possibly over Easter weekend. Vad is suitably
overjoyed. ;)
* According to Barbie, Cave_Bear is still
not doing terribly well.
* Vad was reluctant to talk too much about
his job because of a complex nondisclosure
agreement they made him sign.
* Vad has respect for his boss, (Jo Burgess)
he just thinks she's kind of energetic and
strange.
* Vad, in his words, moved from "the
land of sports bars [he was ribbing Barbie
all night about dragging him to them against
his will, especially in the context of being
forced to watch Orioles games] to the land
of Swedish furniture showrooms".
On thing of note, was that Barbie got disconnected
early in the game. Vad got rather worried,
and okay, so did we. Could she have been
abducted mid-game?? Did she meet the same
fate as other crawlers?? Tune in next week.
The next day, Barbie had some new email from
Creeper. In the email thread dated 3/21, we learn a little more about Vad's boss,
Jo Burgess, as Barbie relates her conversation
with him about how weird she is. Barbie keeps
insisting to Creeper that she and Vad are
"just friends" (the two worst words
to come out of a woman's mouth). She also
references a scrap of paper that Vad found
that he's scanned and sent to her that apparently
has some sort of password on it. Hmm.
Creeper also gives a refers to the recon2
document, saying she accidentally uploaded
to her own page instead of Platform. Grr,
this sees to make finding her password all
the more important. Curiously, creeper lists
a few things that's she'll bring to Barbie's,
which is kind of odd:
Scissors (thanks for letting me borrow them
the other day, sorry I walked out with them)
Alligator belt (it will look fabulous with
that outfit you just bought!)
Rusted Root cd that Bear borrowed (he knows
which one, correct?)
Recon printout
We've looked at this list from all angles,
but haven't come up with anything. Creeper
sure likes lists, though, between this and
the earlier list of fashion designers.
Okay, looking for the paper Barbie talks
about leads us to a new file on Platform:
This is a scan of a ripped up piece of paper with some
kind of message on it. After some manipulation
in photoship, and some folks actually printing
it out and cutting it up, it was pieced together
to reveal the following message:
3:19pm
IT department
password reminder
(scratched out bit)
Some Chinese Characters
4:05pm
Call Aleks back,
re: weather patterns
meteorological reports
It was discovered that the characters are
pronounced "chang lung" in Mandarin
and means "auspicious, prosperous".
It's a phrase usually used to describe a
successful business.
Aleks probably referrs to Aleks Canzovich,
who's the department lead of the Ecology
Department at TerraShape. So we know the
writer of the note isn't him, at least.
So, Jawbreakers set out to the TerraShape
email login page to start trying different
usernames and passwords related to "chang
lung." It didn't take long to crack
this one:
Username: jburgess. Password: prosperity.
Ding! Now we're looking at Jo Burgess's email account. Sweet!
A load of interesting information here, found
in 6 messages:
Web Mail-Just a pretty standard message about the
email system.
Order Confirmation-A confirmation of a purchase from a place
called Bodhisattva's Lunchbox in San Francisco.
We checked for related sites, found nothing
RE: Fwd: Plans-Things get a little interesting here. Seems
Jo had sent some plans to a Robert Marshall-Hardcastle
that had something to do with a "House
of Leaves." Mr. Hardcastle needed to
get the plans signed off by the "client,"
but after waiting and waiting for that to
hapen, Jo finally cancels the whole thing
altogether. Robert is not pleased. Looks
like this may have been plans to something
the "client" didn't know about,
that Jo was trying to sneak in somehow, or
perhaps just something the "client"
changed their mind about. Or, maybe Jo discovered
something sinister in the plans and put the
kabosh on things herself. Lotta maybes
It was discovered that House of Leaves is
a fictional book written by Mark Z. Danielewski,
in which the presentation of the novel and
its contents lends readers to believe that
it is true (somewhat akin to the Blair Witch
Project). The books is supposedly about dark
urban legends.
Notes from this morning's meeting/conference
call-Typical staff meeting stuff. One thing of
note is the mention of a software audit.
It might not be a good idea for someone to
have something "unauthorized" on
their computer.
Conference: An invitation to speak at a conference
on Feng Shui and Tactile Living.
Notes: Early conceptual notes on Moreland. Interesting
points include the use of a security system
on both homes and the sewer system. Seems
a little odd that a Utopia like this would
need such tight security, and that Vad would
have a little bit of a challenge exploring
uderground there. Also a bit about sunshine
being allowed to fall seems a bit odd. No
mirrors? Plus, it seems she's putting off
a write-up needing lots of metaphors. Could
this be referring to the Moreland History
page, which is full of them?
| March 25th brought another update to the
where.gif image. A Seems like the PMs are
mocking us just a little bit! A nice animated file showing us lots of pie, and hitting us over the head with very direct clues. The clues were pointing us to something being in pie (or pi), backwards. Or a backwards version of something found in pi. Following that line of thought, it looked lik the pic was also pointing us to 8x8, or 8 number eights. Searching for 88888888 in pie brought us to the 46663520th place in pi. 46663520 backwards is 02536664. 02536664 entered as the password in the Admin box at URF works! We've finally solved this puzzle! Looking back, it seems it was in fact a fair puzzle that could conceivably been solved from very early on. The very first images gave us enough to go on, and in fact, the answer was found earlier, just never entered backwards! Well, thus ends the JawBreakers most embarrassing episode of the game. Where.gif will be forever immortalized as the most hated puzzle ever! Urban Zombie posted a hilarious summary of our frustration at this one. Okay, so entering 02536664 into the Admin login takes us to the Admin Inbox: |
![]() (hit "refresh" to see the animation) |
Here we find 4 email messages that are very interesting.
Two messages from Serpent, one from Moot
and one from a z-6. The emails are presumably
to Hermes, since he runs the site.
In 'bread crumbs' Serpent is pointing Hermes to Ganmed. This
message is dated February 26th, just before
the calling card hack was found there. It
also mentions something about Hermes keeping
his cover among the other hackers, leading
us to believe he may be a plant or a mole
somehow. Or maybe he's not even the real
Hermes any more.
In 'tilting' we see a side of Moot we haven't seen before.
A side with a vocabulary! This is an interesting
read, comparing himself to Don Quixote. Seems
Moot's a leader after all.
Finally, the message from z-6 yields the most. At first, it looks like
a simple "yeah, I'm in" response
to being asked to help in the hack, but looking
at the pasted replied-to message gives us
some startling info. The big one is a reference
to another company, General Telometrics.
A little trial-and-error, and we find another
new in-game site!
General Telometrics, or Gen-Tel, as quoted from the Research page, "strives to develop unique solutions
to common problems".
Gen-Tel's main focus is Telometry, a study of telomeres, the protective caps
at the ends of chromosomes, but, also linked
from the research page are their research
into the fields of Oral Vaccines, Genetic Crop Enhancement, Anti-Cancer Pharmaceuticals, and Robotics.
The 4 main products made are iSee4U (robotic optical implants), Hydroclaritix (a form of anti-aging skin care therapy),
FreezeQuick (bandages), and Noctylent (prevents night terrors, very strange).
Four others are in development: Vicent, Inephamine,
Preciprospermalin, and Lobaxtin.
An email addy is supplied on the Company Info page, interested@general-telometrics.com, for company info seekers, and a basic run-through
of what they do is on the What We Do page. Emailing them returns the following response:
Thank you for your interest in General Telometrics.
We are currently unable to provide the information
you are looking
for on our website. To continue your research,
we ask that you please
send an email to Lauren Woods (lwoods@general-telometrics.com)
including a detailed question, and your mailing
address. We will do
our best to respond to each email personally.
We are always glad to
hear from interested GenTel customers.
Thank You
Sending email to Lauren Woods has resulted
with no response of any kind, yet.
All of the pages are linked up to Net:Sight,
at the bottom of each page. Also, GenTel
appears to be a Leo, from the sqiggle in
its logo. So much for my spec that Leo represents
JawBreakers!
On the home page, there's an interesting
little paragraph on the left:
"Employee Updates:
Please remember to format your research logs
for the ODES"
A little snooping around seems in order.
What exactly is odes. Trying http://www.argn.com/archives/lockjaw/www.general-telometrics.com/odes.htm, we find a typical error page....or is it?
For one thing "unavailible" is
spelled wrong. A view of the source code
exposes the meaning of the acronym:
<!-- ODES= Online Data Entry System-->
Perhaps it's not active yet, or we have to
hack our way in.
So, telometry is the study of telomeres.
Since the somatic cells in the human body
do not produce telomerases, those cells'
chromosomes (as well as those of their descendents,
if they're stem cells) gradually lose their
telomeres as time goes on. This is thought
to be a central cause of aging, and as such,
research into telomeres would be right up
Ganmed's alley.
Also worth noting is their expertise in oral
vaccination, where they've genetically engineered
fruit to produce antigens for various diseases
that can be fed to people as an extremely
cheap way to vaccinate them. This is suspiciously
reminiscent of the "Iduna apples"
spec that theorizes that Ganmed is feeding
the people of Moreland its youth drug through
Moreland's apple orchards.
We don't know exactly what part Gen-Tel is
playing in all this, but I'm guessing that
they're the "good-guy" bio-tech
firm, as opposed to Ganmed and the questions
surrounding them. The Leo horoscopes seem
to indicate this, also.
After much discussion in #JB, it was decided
to go ahead and try to ally ourselves with
the hackers at URF by sending them our translation
of the 2nd Ganmed memo. It was decided to
send it to Moot, as he seemed the most level-headed
of the bunch. After opening a Yahoo email
account under the name Jawbreakersgroup,
we sent Moot the following message:
Date: Sun, 24 Mar 2002 17:14:48 -0800 (PST)
From: jawbreakersgroup@yahoo.com
Subject: Ganmed Translations
To: moot@10101-10010-110.org
Your friends are certainly taking their time.
Mine have a little more
experience with this kind of thing. I hope
we have been of assistance. Look
forward to hearing from you:
[following was the text of the translated
Ganmed memo #2]
We pretty quickly received the following
reply:
Date: Sun, 24 Mar 2002 20:11:39 -0500
From: "moot" <moot@10101-10010-110.org>
To: jawbreakersgroup@yahoo.com
Subject: ?
?
!
It seemed to be a very favorable response,
sort of translating in Moot-speak to, "Huh?
What's this???.......Holy crap!" It
seemed we could make a good impact and impress
URF with our hacking/decoding prowess, and
therefore maybe get access to other things
they may have found at Ganmed. But except
for that initial response, they've been silent.
Another Monday comes, another update:
Seemingly out of the blue, Creepers password
was finally discovered. Running with the
fashion clues in her emails to Barbie, the
password was found to be: vogue.
Doing some reverse-engineering on the nocars
map, we find that "V" is the first
letter in "Van Dorn"; "O"
is the second letter in "College Park";
"G" is the thrid letter in "Foggy
Bottom"; "U" is the fourth
letter in "Columbia"; and "E"
is the fifth letter in "Clarendon".
It just so happens that these positions correspond
to the same positions in the word "Vogue."
Van dorn
cOllege park
foGgy bottom
colUmbia
clarEndon
This puzzle solution illustrates how easy
it is to let yourself get trapped by previous
successes. Anyway, we enter creeper/vogue
in the boxes at the Platform, and we're whisked
away to.......
Creeper's Underground page. Here we find what we've been looking for!
A copy of the article about the 2nd Recon crawl, along with a
photograph.
The recon document details a crawl back on
August 11th, in which the crawlers stumble
upon a several locked doors, and a secret
passageway that leads them to some sort of
lab. It also hints at other pictures that
have apparently been misplaced, hopefully
temporarily.
The lab looks pretty nondescript, but it's
obvious that something's going on down there.
It also is alluded to that the lab was recently
occupied or in use. Hmm, looks like this
was the beginning of the end for some of
our intrepid explorers.
The only other thing of note on Creeper's
page is some emails with Barbie about having a girls' night
together watching the Academy Awards. Seems
Cave Bear is becoming a little too much to
take, and they just need a break from him.
Can't say as I blame them.
Barbie also still seems undecided about going
to visit Vad at Moreland. She even mentions
some of us who were in the Euchre room with
them the other night as talking about how
difficult long-distance relationships can
be. Looks like we may have some match-making
to do soon.
March 27th turned out to be a busy day! Just
about as soon as we solved Creeper's email,
the nocars sit updated again, giving us a
new map plus some new emails in the DCMC
Underground. Starting with the map, we see
the following:
Un-linked Stations are:
Columbia Heights
Addison Rd
Van Ness-UDC
Eastern Market
Braddock Ave
East Falls Church
Anacostia
Rhode Island Ave
As we expected, these stations spell out
CAVEBEAR using all of the first letters.
Linked Stations are:
Glenmont
Arlington Cemetary
Branch Ave
Archives-Navy Memorial
U St.- Cardozo
Looks like we have three "memorials"
(Cemetary, African-American Civil War Mem.,
and Navy Mem) and two "ends" (Branch
and Glenmont form the ends of the green and
red lines). Seems to be pointing us to some
sort of literal Dead End, somehow.
Now, looking at the new emails, we find out
that Vad and Barbie have another Euchre date tonight!
On that same afternoon, the Iduna Newsletter updated to give us an entirely new page
with another article about flowers, and another
interesting article about a new shop in town.
First, looking at the flowers again, and
searching for meanings, we get the following:
Iris -- Zinnia
I have a message for you -- I mourn your
absence
Sorrel -- Cardamine -- Pink Verbena
Affection/Thoughts of absent friends/parental
affection/wit ill-
timed -- paternal error -- family union
Red Rosebud -- Indian Cress -- Spruce Pine
-- Evergreen Thorn -- Wood
Sorrel
Pure and lovely/you are young and beautiful
-- resignation/warlike
trophy -- farewell/hope in adversity -- solace
in adversity --
Joy/Maternal tenderness/parental affection
Hmm, perhaps these are little messages from
Vad to Barbie, since Vad's working on the
Moreland website now.
Now, looking at the new shop, it's interesting
that Vigenere, the name of this shop, is
also a polyalpaphabetic cypher. There are
many places on the web with info about this
particular encryption technique. So far,
we can't see anyplace obvious that it would
be used, though.
Also, we find a link to a photos section, that shows us some pictures from the Mayor's
exciting Valentine's Day Party.
Okay, March 27th had some more in store for
us.....
Once again, a crowd gathered to watch in
awe as Vad and Notadoll (Barbie) rendezvouzed
in the Yahoo Euchre Game Room for a little repartee. Transcripts of the
conversations can be found on the Yahoo Message
Board. Basically, what we learned was that
Vad found another interesting document while
rumaging through Jo Burgess's trash, but
security is so high he can't send it out.
We suggested lots of ways of sneaking it
through, but he brushed them all off. Well,
he seemed a little interested in hiding the
image on the Moreland webpage, but ultimately
said he definitely couldn't, even though
he would be working on the page late that
night.
Also, by the end of the night, Barbie was
talked into going to visit Vad over the Easter
weekend. It's so fun to be Cupid...All in
all, the JawBreakers are getting better and
better at casually extracting information
from Vad and Barbie without weirding them
out. This has definitely been one of the
highlights of this, so far.
Well, things weren't over for the day, yet.
As we were all comparing notes on the Euchre
game, somebody decided to stop by the URF site and made an amazing discovery: It was gone!!
Everything, totally, absolutely gone! Attempting
to access the root index yeilds a flash animation
of typhon.gif swirling and fading into a
negative-image of a 404. Very, very cool!
Of course, if you've tried any of the previous
links to URF in the Guide, you've already
discovered this!
So, it seems that the Serpent has gotten
in and deleted the entire URF site! Why?
Was there some info about him/her or somebody
else that he/she didn't want made public??
Or was he/she just ticked at the lack of
progress the Rat-Faces were making with Ganmed?
Or was he/she just flexing his/her hacker
muscles?
There was also something a little out of
the ordinary about the 404 error, beyond
the spinning typhon, that is. If you look
really carefully, there are some italicized
letters in the original error message, before
it turns to black. These letters are:
ehensgiewge
Initial anagrams, etc. have yielded no results
in English, but we can get a German phrase: "Gehen
Sie weg!" which means "Go away!"
But wait, there's more! As we were all ready
to go to bed after a full day of very satisfying
Lockjaw updates, hacks and puzzle solutions,
we watched another unfold. Poking around
the Moreland website, we started discovering
little hidden messages appearing in the source
code. It seems that Vad took our Euchre advice
to hide messages in the source code of his
website:
<!-- m --> "frame" source
<!-- j --> NewsLetter (current)
<!-- o --> Mayor's welcome
<!-- p --> Town History
<!-- e --> Town Statistics
<!-- m --> Employment Opportunities
On a hunch, someone assumed we were missing
a 'g' somewhere, (which was in fact later
found on the page that is returned when your
application is accepted) and found...
Memo.jpg, which shows us a crumpled TerraShape Memo,
with really, really awful handwriting. After
much effort, it was transcribed as:
"Sender: Robert Marshall-Hardcastle
(Architecture)
Recipient(s): Ciaran O'Kerrigan (Construction)
Date: 19th March
Ciaran,
When I was looking over the materials requisition
____
this morning, I happened to note that you
have asked
for an additional 6000 ____, 4000 concrete
bricks and ten
tonnes of cement - on top of the original
allocation, and
earmarked specifically for the medical center.
Sir, I demand an explanation for this immediately.
My
original calculations were exact in every
detail. They were
checked, double-checked and cross-checked
thoroughly, in accordance
with policy. The only conclusion I can possibly
draw,
therefore, is that you are colluding with
parties unknown
to embezzle this company. You would not be
the first to
try this. Do not forget with whom you are
dealing, sir.
Robert Marshall-Hardcastle"
Well, looks like we have another piece of
communication with our old friend, Robert
Marshall-Hardcastle. He seems to be a very
easygoing and pleasant chap! Well, we'll
be watching him very closely, to see if he
gets his due. But in the meantime, is there
anything we can glean from this that might
give us the password to his email account?
I have a feeling that would be an interesting
account to access.
Serpent was either dissatisfied with URF,
or needing to cover something that may have
been posted there, as he/she hacked into
and destroyed their site completely. We're
still not sure who Serpent is, but there
is strong speculation that Serpent is Jo
Burgess, though I remain unconvinced. We
have not as yet discovered what has become
of Hermes, Moot and friends, nor have we
heard back from them about the 2nd Ganmed
memo we sent them.
Barbie is going to visit Vad over Easter
weekend. Will a romance bloom? Will they
make some sinister discovery while on a moonlit
walk around the lake? Will either of them
find the courage to reveal their true feelings
for one another? (cue organ music). Bruce
(Vad) is enjoying his new job, but is beginning
to notice strange things, and is forwarding
photos of some things he's found to Barbie.
It turns out that Jo Burgess may not be the
brains behind Moreland after all. Even though
all the public brochures and documents point
to her as being the visionary behind it all,
seems she's indicated she's just been following
"orders" from some other entity.
Something strange is definitely going on
at Moreland. We're finding increasing evidence
of some sort of drug or something being delivered
to the population via the Iduna Apples that
are always being pushed on everybody everywhere.
Jo Burgess, may either be in the dark about
any of this, or has discovered some things
that she's trying to make public somehow.
General Telometrics (our reward for solving
where.gif) seems like it may be the "good
guy" in all of this, but it's very early
to tell, yet.
The crawlers discovered a lab complex of
some sort while exploring around an underground
Metro construction site. All we have right
now is a description of that recon crawl,
and one picture of a lab. It was soon after
this initial discovery that crawlers started
dying.
Sites we've visited: General Telometrics
Sites we haven't visited:Seems there is at least one more undiscovered web-site.
Things that are unsolved:
At just after Midnight GMT, April 1st, Net:Sight's
home page was updated to read as follows
(plus <!hidden source code text>):
OXFORD, UK: Oxford-based software house Net:Sight
Solutions today announced it was stepping
down from its hard-fought position in the
web browser market, and - in a move that
surprised many - has outlined plans to move
away from the industry altogether.
"Software is kind of boring" said
CEO Jan van Holt at a press conference today,
outlining his new strategy. "You know,
for geeks. So I just thought, sod it: let's
do something we believe in for a change!"
To that end, van Holt is shifting the company's
focus away from software development and
into interpretive dance.
<!-- Well, if you've got the legs for
it...>
"Dance is an art form that, I feel,
has been greatly overlooked in recent years;
I simply felt it was time to redress the
balance. My key staff are already taking
masterclasses to improve their steps. I was
initially concerned when Eric decided to
specialise in the Time Warp, but that's turned
out surprisingly well. <!-- Now that's a truly terrifying image
--> I tell you this, when Seb and Harry do the
Lambada it's every man for himself."
Geh. Well, it's good to know the PM's have
a sense of humor, er, humour.
The site returned to normal the next day.
Rather than just the weekly Horoscope update,
Grrl-E-Grrl had some additional updates due
to April coming around. Now, seeing as this
is April Fool's Day, we're not exactly sure
what can be considered a real update and
what is a prank, but most likely all of these
updates are April Fool's jokes, except possibly
the Horoscopes.
Editorials has been updated to read simply:
?
Could this be a hint that Barbie may be Moot??
Nothing is found in the source code, so we're
just left to wonder, for now.
In the Love and Dating section, we find a
new article entitled, "How to Make the Catch." This is a rather interesting article
on how to get the relationship you want,
and includes such helpful tips as: Play Mind
Games, Don't Be Yourself, Be Needy, Avoid
Communication, and Move Quickly. Pretty funny
reading, actually!
In House and Home, we find a nice recipe
for Apple Sugar Crisps. Looks pretty good until you realize that
two of the ingredients are vinegar and baking
soda. Don't try this at home. (It was noticed
that this is a "recipe" that was
originally distributed to various newspapers
by the Las Vegas magicians Penn & Teller).
In the Entertain section, Drew Taylor has
written a very nice article of the Mariah Carey movie "Glitter."
Here's a quote from this marvelous review:
"When the film slows down a gear to
allow us a glimpse into Billie’s state of
mind, one can easily imagine lesser performers
like Dustin Hoffman, Anthony Hopkins or Elizabeth
Berkley who would have used this opportunity
to showcase an array of thespian tricks and
flourishes. In Mariah’s hands, we have no
such artifice, as she manages to take those
quiet moments and fill them with an inner
life."
Cinema experts, indeed....
Um, okay, moving right along. The article
"A Respectable Pet" gives us new insights on the value
of owning, caring for, and loving the ultimate
pet: The TROUT! Nice to know that Trout is
a pet of respect.
If there were any doubt as to whether these
are joke pages, notice the common letter
"f" in each article's URL.
The updated Horoscopes page has no such letter,
however. But the horoscopes this week are
rather different than they have been in the
past (Bold text for emphasis of the differences):
Aries (Ganmed)
Today you woke up on the wrong side of the
bed. The morning will go by very slowly.
You will have a small snack to break the
boredom. Lunch will be a great if you avoid
quiche. The excitement of your afternoon will be
counting the tiles in the ceiling. After a brief nap, you will attempt to
cook dinner. It will burn. You will spend a couple hours working on
your taxes only to realize that you threw
your W-2 away with the junk mail.
Taurus (Net:Sight)
Today you woke up on the wrong side of the
bed. The morning will go by very slowly.
You will have a small snack to break the
boredom. Lunch will be a great if you avoid
sushi. The excitement of your afternoon will be
waiting for a phone call. After a brief nap, you will attempt to
cook dinner. It will burn. After cleaning the dishes, you’ll take a
nice long soak in the tub.
Gemini (Moreland)
Today you woke up on the wrong side of the
bed. The morning will go by very slowly.
You will have a small snack to break the
boredom. Lunch will be a great if you avoid
the salad bar. The excitement of your afternoon will be
listening to your friend tell the same story
for the millionth time. After a brief nap, you will attempt to cook
dinner. It will burn. You’ll settle into bed with a good book,
only to fall asleep while reading the first
page.
Cancer (URF)
Today you woke up on the wrong side of the
bed. The morning will go by very slowly.
You will have a small snack to break the
boredom. Lunch will be a great if you avoid
split pea soup. The excitement of your afternoon will be
your visit to the dentist. After a brief nap, you will attempt to
cook dinner. It will burn. You will spend the evening doing the laundry
you’ve put off for far too long.
Leo (Gen-Tel)
Today you woke up on the wrong side of the
bed. The morning will go by very slowly.
You will have a small snack to break the
boredom. Lunch will be a great if you avoid
pasta. The excitement of your afternoon will be
playing the William Tell Overture with your
fingers on your desk. After a brief nap, you will attempt to cook
dinner. It will burn. You will spend the evening hanging up on telemarketers.
Virgo (Barbie)
Today you woke up on the wrong side of the
bed. The morning will go by very slowly.
You will have a small snack to break the
boredom. Lunch will be a great if you avoid
potatoes. The excitement of your afternoon will be
counting the jellybeans left in your Easter
Basket. After a brief nap, you will attempt to cook
dinner. It will burn. Your evening will be filled with a rousing
game of checkers.
Libra (TerraShape)
Today you woke up on the wrong side of the
bed. The morning will go by very slowly.
You will have a small snack to break the
boredom. Lunch will be a great if you avoid
the tempting tuna melt. The excitement of your afternoon will be
watching an ice cube melt. After a brief nap, you will attempt to cook
dinner. It will burn. You will spend the evening calling people
that you haven’t talked to in months and
realizing why you haven’t talked to them
in so long.
Scorpio (Serpent/Pythia)
Today you woke up on the wrong side of the
bed. The morning will go by very slowly.
You will have a small snack to break the
boredom. Lunch will be a great if you avoid
pizza. The excitement of your afternoon will be
timing the second hand on your watch to prove
that it is running slowly. After a brief nap, you will attempt to cook
dinner. It will burn. You’ll spend the evening making Apple Sugar
Crisps.
Sagittarius (DCMC/Nocars)
Today you woke up on the wrong side of the
bed. The morning will go by very slowly.
You will have a small snack to break the
boredom. Lunch will be a great if you avoid
tacos. The excitement of your afternoon will be
counting the number of red cars that drive
by your window. After a brief nap, you will attempt to cook
dinner. It will burn. You will spend the evening going for a drive
to look at the stars, unfortunately you will
only see five due to light pollution.
Capricorn (Grrl-E-Grrl)
Today you woke up on the wrong side of the
bed. The morning will go by very slowly.
You will have a small snack to break the
boredom. Lunch will be a great if you avoid
hamburgers. The excitement of your afternoon will be
watching a cat clean itself. After a brief nap, you will attempt to cook
dinner. It will burn. You’ll watch some stupid show on tv and go
to bed early.
Aquarius (Unknown)
Today you woke up on the wrong side of the
bed. The morning will go by very slowly.
You will have a small snack to break the
boredom. Lunch will be a great if you avoid
the chicken salad. The excitement of your afternoon will be
waiting for a watched pot to boil. After a brief nap, you will attempt to cook
dinner. It will burn. You will waste the evening chatting with
friends online.
Pisces (Vad)
Today you woke up on the wrong side of the
bed. The morning will go by very slowly.
You will have a small snack to break the
boredom. Lunch will be a great if you avoid
fruit. The excitement of your afternoon will be
watching the grass grow. After a brief nap, you will attempt to cook
dinner. It will burn. You will spend the evening reorganizing your
closet. Where did those jeans go?
There are a couple references that stand
out immediately. The mention of 5 stars in
Sagittarius is a direct reference to Cave
Bear's email to Vad. Seems to be a clue to Cave Bear's password.
Perhaps a dead 5-star General? A constellation
made up of 5 stars? A 5-star restaurant?
Well, it would turn out the next day, April
2nd, would be very busy, indeed. Where to
begin? Okay, we'll stop by our good friend
Pythia's place first...
Well, it's been a while since we've seen
anything new at The Pythia, so it was a pleasant surprise to find something
new there early in the morning on April 2nd.
Above the serpent, we were presented with
a small picture of a constellation (Scorpio).
This picture clicked us through to a page
entitled ECCLESIASTIC, which was an image of a snake with the
message, "woe to him that is alone when
he falleth; for he hath not another to help
him up."
This quote is from the Bible, Ecclesiastes
4:10. Ecclesiates is also known as "The
Preacher."
It was also noticed that there was a short
message in the source code:
<ring.
ring.
ring.>
Hmm. Well this definitely seems to be pointing
at some Biblical reference, but there's not
a lot to go on here. But hold on, looks like
something's new at Ganmed, too......
Seems there's some new news at Ganmed. The
News Update page gives us the following message:
"
Important Update
The Express Messenger system is once again
available.
You may begin using the service at any time.
If you have forgotten your user name or password,
please contact Information Systems.
Thank you for your patience."
Really? Well, sure enough, looks like the
Employee Login Page is now active, giving us directions, a BRIEF OVERVIEW, and a couple of user name/password boxes.
Just what this game is missing, a user name/password
puzzle. Well, considering we have no clues
to any passwords yet, let's take a look around
some more.
Well, whaddya know? I guess they were April
Fool's jokes after all. There are new horoscopes
and more showing up at Grrl-E-Grrl, and it's
only like 7:00 a.m.
Well, let's start with the new horoscopes (didn't I just do this, yesterday??):
Aries (Ganmed): "See, all your friends were
right. You clean up quite nicely...when you
want to. Stay on top of your appearance and
people may be persuaded to change their minds
about you. Remember, Aries, it's not how
you FEEL..." Looks like Ganmed may be embarking on a little
PR campaign to help them look good.
Taurus (Net:Sight): "You're dreaming big,
Taurus, and while that's a laudable trait
you have to match your dreams to your abilities.
Can you really achieve all you set out to?
You can, if you're careful, and keep working
at it." Does it look like Net:Sight might have bitten
off more than they can chew with some projects
they have promised?
Gemini (Moreland): "The ground is beginning
to thaw, Gemini, so plant your feet firmly
on the earth and your hands into the soil,
so that you can take advantage of the foundations
you've built. Try not to be discouraged by
any illusions you perceive: life is what
you make of it, after all." Is there something being built underground
at Moreland?
Cancer (URF): "What a week! You have come
to a wide river and it’s time to sink or
swim. Well, there’s always the option of
building a bridge. Once you get to the other
side, how will you approach your life? Will
you will emerge with a new outlook?"
Poor URF hackers may have a comeback of some
kind.
Leo (Gen-Tel): "Opposites may attract,
but for you, nothing could be farther from
the truth. You will find a trustworthy friend
in someone with similar interests and goals,
but watch for an enemy in the guise of a
friend from the past." Gen-Tel will be betrayed by a former employee
or associate?
Virgo (Barbie): "Now that you have some free
time, maybe you should do a little gardening.
It’s great to get out, dig a few holes, plant
a few seeds, and see what grows. The only
problem is that you get yourself dirty. Maybe
you should just focus on work instead."
Probably a reference to her "friendship"
with Bruce/Vad.
Libra (TerraShape): "It's probably time you
took stock of where you are. If you think
people are being overly judgemental about
your past decisions and indiscretions, you
may be right. Have you considered that they
may have a valid point?" What is it in TerraShape's past that we're
supposed to find?
Scorpio (Serpent/Pythia): "Difficult situations
call for bold action, Akrabh, and any one
you make will upset somebody. The old adage
rings true--you can't make an omelet without
breaking some eggs." Hmm, nice way of saying "the ends justify
the means." Akrabh was found to mean
"scorpion." Looks like Serpent
is going to take drastic action of some kind.
Sagittarius (DCMC/Nocars): "You will be given opportunities
to prove your abilities. Clear out the noise
and confusion and then focus on the task
at hand. Remember to shoot for the moon.
That way you can miss and still be amongst
the stars. That is what you want isn’t it?"
Okay, more hints at cracking Cave Bear's
password, still nudging us toward stars.
Capricorn (Grrl-E-Grrl): "Have you been having
fun lately? Too much fun? It’s time to buckle
down and show what you are made of. On the
other hand, try not to take yourself too
seriously. All work and no play makes for
one unhappy grrl." Probably a reference to yesterday's April
Fool's pages.
Aquarius (Unknown): "The party starts now! Time
for fun, frivolity and merry-making. Break
out the wafers and pour the wine. Some of
your guests may be under the impression that
this is a masquerade. Should you lead them
on? Everyone likes a good laugh." Wow, looks like it's time for us to find
this new site, but how? There's another Biblical
reference here, with the wafers and the wine.
We're on the verge of something, I can feel
it!
Pisces (Vad): "I know that it is difficult,
but remember that curiosity killed the cat.
If you must get involved, keep your mouth
shut. Nobody likes a busybody." Some advice for Vad to keep his eyes and
ears open and his mouth shut.
Well, the connections are solidifying even
more, but what is that mystery site that
Aquarius represents??
Well, looking around, there are some other
very interesting things to be found at Grrl-E-Grrl
this month. Let's explore.....
Editorial-A Tale of Friends: An editorial by Brooke about the challenges
of keeping in touch with friends who aren't
on-line.
Grrl in the News-Kathy Jarrett: A very interesting article about Kathy
Jarrett, who happens to work at Ganmed! Tons
of clues about her background and likes here.
Perfect material to glean a password from,
now that the Ganmed login is active. Let's
remember to get back to that.
Love and Dating-Miles Apart: Hopefully Barbie will listen to her own
advice about long-distance relationships.
Entertain-The House of Interpretations: Hmm, a review of the book, House of Leaves.
References such as "a house that looks
perfectly normal from the outside, but holds
expansive physically-impossible secrets just
inside its doors" seem to be referring
to Moreland here.
Home LIfe-Bath Salts: An article about home-made bath salts.
Lip Goo: An article about home-made Lip Goo.
The Web-Is Your Soul Wired: Well, well, well. Looks like the wafers
and wine reference in the horoscopes was
pointing to Rev. Lee and his website, WiredSouls.org, our latest new in-game site!!
First thing we notice is the font used in
the logo. Seems to be the same font as can
be found on the ECCLESIASTIC page on Pythia, so looks like Pythia is
either related to this site somehow, or pointing
us here the same way he/she pointed us to
Ganmed early in the game.
WiredSouls is a site run by a Reverend Dan
Lee, a charismatic narcissist if ever there
was one. Apparently, they've been waiting
on Net:Sight to deliver the product to enable
the Reverend's messages to be made available.
Rev. Lee has been to England to meet with
Eric Wyndgarde himself.
It also seems he's very opposed to cloning,
so that might give us a hint as to his leanings
when it comes to what's seemingly going on
at Moreland.
Along the bottom of the page (above the "divine"
link to Net:Sight and a static counter permanently
set to 45912, heh!), there are links to the
following four pages:
Wired Souls Club - $1000 (!) buys you membership to the Wired
Souls Club. Once a member, you get a t-shirt
(Beefy T's you love to slouch around the
house in when nobody can see you), discounts
on WS merchandise, exclusive invitations
to swanky meet-and-greet sessions, with the
fabulous Rev. Lee, and best of all, E-Abolution
(confession/absolution on line - woo hoo!).
Now, it's interesting to me that, in the
g-e-g article, Dr. Lee mentions that the Wired Souls Club
just welcomed its 1000th member in the first
quarter of 2002. Where have I heard that
before? Of course! Moreland also welcomed
its 1000th member (Gina Genet) earlier this
year, as mentioned in the first edition of the Iduna Newsletter. Hmm, now that's an odd coincidence.
Could Dr. Lee be a recruiter of sorts for
Moreland?? Could signing up for the Wired
Souls Club also put you at the top of the
list at Moreland? Senior Citizens do flock
to evangelists, and at $1000 a pop, he'd
know they're not on a fixed income.
Also, notice that Gina Genet's name looks
susupiciously like "gene" or "GENETics."
It sure looks like there's some sort of connection
here, between LostSouls and Moreland.
Search the Sound Archive! - An archive where you can search for and
download Rev. Lee's messages. Unfortunately,
it's not working as Net:Sight has not delivered
on the required software.
Whispers Discussion Board-This link takes us to a new, empty discussion
board called Whispers. It's apparently a
place we can actually communicate with the
good Reverend, and discuss all things spiritual,
not to mention give out our contact information
one more time. Hmm, why didn't he use Yahoo
or MSN for this???
Anyway, within an hour, Reverend Lee posted
some personal replies to our messages, so
it should be fun trying to see what kind
of conversations we can get going.
Previous Update - The front page from January. Apparently,
their webcasts had been up and running, but
due to Net:Sight's "legal snag"
had to be discontinued. Rev. Lee definitely
shows a penchant for loving to gossip ("...you
KNOW if there's any dirt to be had, you'll
hear it from me first...") and a strange
obsession with fashion ("The only thing
that spoiled it for me was that moment in
Taiwan when I noticed the shop girl wearing
white shoes. Hello?? It's months after Labor
Day, missy. Didn't your mother teach you
anything about style? I nearly had to go
lie down after that episode."). Very
funny. I picture - well, never mind who I
picture.
Lee also mentions visiting the Sistine Chapel
and seeing Michaelangelo's "Creation
of Man" painting on the ceiling. I guess
now we know where 211cw on Pythia came from.
He talks again about joining the Wired Souls
Club, mentioning that 1000th member again.
Interesting that the $1000 required to join
is NOT tax-deductible.
Noting Rev. Lee's mention of an around the
world trip, combined with stopping at the
Sistine Chapel, it makes me wonder if the
series of images at ThePythia.net are somehow representing or chronicling
his trip. Trains and stations from all over
the world, plus the Creation of Man, ending
up in DC, and we know from the LS home page
that he stopped there.
The biggest question here, though, is what
to make of our little message from Serpent,
"The holy man is your friend."
First, is Serpent referring to Rev. Lee and
not Bruce Hollman after all? Second, and
most importantly, whether or not we can trust
the "holy man" depends entirely
on whether or not we can trust Serpent. If
Rev. Lee is the "holy man," then
he can only be trusted as a friend if we're
positive Serpent can be trusted. Right now,
I'd not so sure about Serpent.
Later that afternoon, someone stumbled upon
one of the passwords at the Ganmed Employee Login page. On a whim, the password "kingsmen"
was entered as Louis (lewisl) Lewis' password (The Kingsmen recorded the
song "Louie, Louie"). Voila! Eureka!
There, for all to see, was the pivotal information
we'd all been waiting for:
Sender: coombsl
Subject: Virus Alert
Sent: 4 Feb 2002 8:08 AM
Attention all employees: Please be very careful
when you open e-mail, particularly from unknown
senders.
We have been experiencing a rash of virus
attacks of undetermined origin and the Express
Messenger system has been on and off line
for the last few days.
We are looking into the issue now, and hope
to resolve it within the next day or so.
Bear with us.
Some things to look for in an attempted virus
delivery: Incorrectly spelled words, unknown
senders, and attachments ending in .vbx,
among others.
We can only defeat this nusiance if we all
work together.
Thanks,
Larry Coombs
Information Systems
Okay, well it was a start. After all, he's
just the accountant. Then, it was noticed
that there was an odd pattern to the URL
of the email account, Lewisxxxxl.htm, where
xxxx was an multiple of 10 in the 1000's.
So other combinations were tried, and the
following email account pages were found
through this "back door":
http://www.ganmed.com/jarrett1000k.html (Kathy Jarrett)
http://www.ganmed.com/doan1070c.html (Chet Doan's account!!)
http://www.ganmed.com/thomas1140d.html
http://www.ganmed.com/wolfe1210a.html
Okay, so you've probably clicked the links
and discovered that they don't work. Well,
there's a reason. Seems Ganmed's "Security
Experts" got wind of what we were doing
and changed all of the URLs of all the email
accounts. Pretty on top of it, those guys.
So, we got a glimpse of some very tantalizing
emails, that explained a lot, but now we
only had access to the email account we'd
actually found using a password, Louis Lewis'
acount, which can incidentally be found at
http://www.ganmed.com/lewismelody101.html.
Or so we thought! Heh heh. After putting
out the call to all JawBreakers to check
their caches to try to rescue what we'd originally
found, we recovered ALL of them! They're
now archived in the JawBreakers Group File
section, as complete as when we found them:
Chet Doan (Clinical Services, Head Honcho)
Kathy Jarret (Clinical Services/Pathology)
Dan Thomas (Clinical Services/Drug Development)