The PRE game fun...

By Rob
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Grand Master

Rob Veteran

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Posted (edited)

This thread is now closed, and is continuing HERE.

---------------------------

Neowin - Help us solve The Vanishing Point Game at www.vanishingpointgame.com

Thanks to bobp for creating this thread, of which I've now taken ownership for easy updating!

See here for the initial front page news item and more details.

So far, we know that it's probably a marketing campaign by 42 Entertainment for Microsoft (as the initial teaser image was first seen on the Internet Explorer Development Blog, and the Flash login page is seen connecting to the 42 Entertainment domain). 42 Entertainment were behind the highly successful Halo viral marketing campaign.

I'll be updating this post with the codes we find and the puzzles that are given as a result of that.

  • Initial image as reported on Neowin front page - solved as wh0isl0ki
  • Also solved as iw4nttwinyou from a blog post on HeavenGames.com
  • Also solved as 3scap3grav1ty from an edited post by the mystery lokivanishes poster
  • Also solved as imm0rtaliz3m3 thanks to a key from Doug Stockwell
  • Also solved as wh3r3t0g0 thanks to the guys at unfiction
  • iw4nttwinyou - gives US phone number (when called asks for PIN) - solved with PIN 35813, prompting the user to THIS webpage
  • 3scap3grav1ty - gives different grid-based puzzle - solved, leading the user to THIS webpage
  • 3akix3ozidd1b - identical to the above - solved
  • wh0isl0ki - gives grid-based puzzle - solved, leading the user to THIS webpage
  • imm0rtaliz3m3 - gives an mp3 file, the waveform of which looks like this and is solved like this (thanks go to Ehsan from Unfiction), leading the user to THIS webpage
  • wh3r3t0g0 - gives some html-escaped data. Putting this into a basic html page reveals a word, leading the user to THIS webpage

post-32224-1167957177_thumb.png

post-32224-1166916723.gif

The sudoku-like puzzle is solved with the following numbers:

592 487 613
817 563 924
643 921 875

428 156 739
135 749 286
769 238 541

256 374 198
371 895 462
984 612 357

Edited by Rob
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TommyRush

Posted
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The source code has

<input type="hidden" name="__VIEWSTATE" id="__VIEWSTATE" value="/wEPDwUKMTUxMzcyMjQyN2RkbyO7jpOtE1Mb07Hm2nrpSyWWoQo=" />

I don't know if it is normal for the value to be like that, I don't know HTML

and <!-- PIN=5813 --> towards the bottom

Neither are the password

Grand Master

Rob Veteran

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  • Veteran
Posted

The Viewstate is a standard ASP.NET variable that's put in to most pages, nothing to do with that. The PIN, on the other hand, is interesting.

A raw dump of the HTTP session the Flash script uses when sending the password 'neowin' is quoted below.

POST /PreCodeHandler.ashx HTTP/1.1

Accept: */*

Referer: http://www.vanishingpointgame.com/login_s.swf

x-flash-version: 9,0,28,0

Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded

Content-Length: 49

UA-CPU: x86

Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate

User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 5.1; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; .NET CLR 3.0.04506.30)

Host: www.vanishingpointgame.com

Proxy-Connection: Keep-Alive

Pragma: no-cache

Cookie: vaakokie=H3hOXjhzqeAzFtwGjbmmkCk7iMQ9w0z7oFBF0vETARCMV9ar9uwf4f7MNA47-_L-eTIoPoeJSVzbgrilYyVumfERJlhCZ4MvkcG6uGOfP2A1; ARPT=MMWQKNS192.168.1.128CKMYM; ASP.NET_SessionId=iyr5jxraoxvg5j55zg0t1255

var1=neowin&var2=989DCA4C56923144F848F12F6D49C484

Veteran

Kraftman

Posted
Posted

Yeah, I'm sure.

42entertainmentpa1.th.png

What is that packet sniffer that is open source and the name starts with an "e"? This has been killing me trying to find it. It's a good sniffer :p

Maybe I'm wrong about the "e" thing. Or the open-source thing. But it definitely does not run the native Windows GUI. Uses an "overlay" (much like Java, GTK, etc)

Grand Master

Rob Veteran

Posted
  • Author
  • Veteran
Posted

Ethereal is what you're thinking of. But I think Fiddler is better for this kind of analysis anyway as it deals with HTTP traffic specifically.

Think perhaps we're thinking along the wrong lines though. We should be trying to work out what these mean.

rpf6ncada34wget32-84

kvezz1x6cfp0egnyvm32

z3o6qj-o3ddwn3;u-loe

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Beastage

Posted
Posted

from 42's website - "Who hacked the website of a Napa Valley beekeeper, leaving behind a series of GPS coordinates? Why were pay phones at the Empire State Building delivering installments of a sci-fi radio drama? � As these questions gripped tens of millions of Web surfers last summer and fall, the answers led to a viral marketing campaign created for Microsoft by Seattle-based 4TwoEntertainment to promote Halo 2, the long-awaited sequel to the Xbox videogame hit."

I'm thinking GPS stuff too...

Veteran

Kraftman

Posted
Posted

what is going happen on that day

Nobody knows which makes this whole thing even more interesting. I have a feeling that we didn't learn anything at all, and that Microsoft just did this to add to the excitement... and that we need an actual code to gain access to another part of the site :shifty:

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