Topic: Bitcoin Quest - a brain twister, by solving it you get bitcoins! (Read 947 times)

As I wrote before:

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If you haven't seen the 10th anniversary art contest yet, you may like it

This competition is over, but we are thinking other one for the beginning of the new year.
Did you like this contest?

But quickly guessed.

I have to say that it looks like a complete random mindfuck
When I looked at it first, I was certain that the arrows will point towards the next word and it has to be nearby, but it seems that second word can be half a picture from the first one and to get there you have to skip/ignore a bunch of words that are in the way. If you add them together you end up with a very large number of possibilities.  
For instance, the chain that OP showed as found has, for instance, words pizza and advance. Between these two there are at least 3 other words that had to be skipped.

From telegram group of quest:

not totally bruteforce but by narrowing down possible combinations using certain techniques
one I can think of (but didn't manage to do yet) by first finding all word-pair connections and building words tree,
then we can run a program to traverse each possible branches and check the derived address

for example, from some of my notes:
N1-shed rich piano ...
(piano, [velvet, nominee, erosion])
(velvet, [table, where])
(nominee, [erosion, castle*, food])
(table, [hollow])
(hollow, [share, train])
(share, [train, burst, industry])
and so on

then it will produce:
N1-shed rich piano velvet table hollow share train ...
N1-shed rich piano velvet table hollow share burst ...
N1-shed rich piano velvet table hollow share industry ...
N1-shed rich piano velvet table hollow train ...
N1-shed rich piano velvet where ...
N1-shed rich piano nominee erosion ...
N1-shed rich piano nominee castle* invalid, reaches starred word on 5th word
N1-shed rich piano nominee food ...
N1-shed rich piano erosion ...

you get the idea...  

I highly doubt that! Even if you assume you know the first and last words, you're left with approximately 100^10=10^20 possibilities, which will take forever to brute force.
It could have worked if you knew about 10 out of 12 words though.

did anybody try it with "brutforcing"? the first words were know and the last words too. sometimes i really hate that i dont know how to program well enough to do such calculations.

Look again, all prices were now claimed  
Seems like after the discovered seeds got posted, the others became too easy to connect by crossing out the used words (that has no "x2" mark), especially for the 5x consecutive solo winner, but hiding the words is also to his advantage.

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Connecting them is too tricky because the arrows aren't exactly pointing to the direction of next word.

Theoretically, judging from the total number of words, someone can write a software to bruteforce the possible seeds based on the words from the image. 120~ish, that's a very small library compared to BIP39's or even Electrum's Word list.
Just a possibility, never mind.

Ready for the second round!

Seems like only one seed left https://blockchain.info/ru/tree/348451340
But i dont have other words yet.

100 usd found:

If only I would have seen this sooner! I've spent quite a lot of time on it today, and found several "N1" words that haven't been found yet, but I always end up at a dead end. A very big printer and red pen would help, but all I have is the red pen.
I love hunts like this!

New plan: red and green paint in the image, scroll and zoom, until I've reproduced all existing winners first

wow... another 5 found in a very short time, less than a day... leave 1 for me please
would you tell us the other 5 seeds that has just been found/claimed?
that would greatly help others to find the last 5 seeds

7 seeds found at the moment https://blockchain.info/ru/tree/348451340

thank you. i already have difficulties to find the starting points.
all the seeds i tried so far dont match. electrum does not allow me to klick on next.

I like how it's drawn. It's so detailed, OP had to spend a lot of time on it. It's so hard though. I tried but it looks like the words are mixed up so much that it's easy to skip something or choose the wrong one. I give up, good luck to you all.


OP responded to this already and gave the link. You're late

here is the current quest page http://bitcoin-quest.com/the-quest-begins/
you can download the full hi-res image by doing right-click on the image then save link as...
have fun!! start your quest

edit: ah... kursexpert has replied when I was writing this post

here is

i would really like to try my luck. but i have to admit that i dont know where the right picture can be found....

is it the blue/grey one? but where can i download a HD-version?

second seed 12UJ1GUueCNLcdip2d5jEJWRj7g1RoC688

first prize went to someone https://blockchain.info/ru/tree/348451340

I remind you, this quest does not require participation fee thanks to the sponsor - our service RatesGuru 

I'm pretty sure they are not BIP39 compatible and we need Electrum for this
I tried the seeds from previous Bitnovosti 2017 New Year Quest, none are working with iancoleman BIP39 mnemonic tool page
anyone know another way or js tool that can work with Electrum seed (I can't get electrum installed on my pc)

if it is too easy, it won't be called "Bitcoin Quest - a brain twister"
but I think this is fairly easier than other puzzle I have seen before
you can try bitcore puzzle, reward is 101 BTX which is 0.05 BTC at current rate

Yup that makes it an incredibly hard task as I found it rather easy to spot the words, but some of them don't have arrows nearby. Some aren't being pointed at all and some are pointing in the general direction of a number of words.
I've read the main post, but it's still incredibly difficult thanks to the arrows not pointing at words but often in the empty space between 3 or more words. This makes the number of possible chains quite high. I wonder if somebody will find the time to go through all the possibilities.

The arrow points to the direction of the next word to complete the seed phrase.

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It was stated in the main post that sometimes other tips are used instead of the arrows. That being said, it will not be easy.

Also stated in the main post that the arrows are pointing in the direction where you can see the next word. If there are several words in that direction, most likely you should take note all of them and try one by one later.

The main problem that I had while looking for words is that some of them don't have arrows near them. Does that mean that they are there as a distraction? All words that count should have arrows. right?
Now, even the words that have arrows sometimes point in the general direction of 2 or 3 other words, which makes it extremely hard to find a chain. You find the words with arrows, follow them and end up not knowing if the next one is this, that, or maybe both of them in order.

Maybe the author could clear it up a bit, like if the arrows are pointing at the word or just in the direction of the word, which can mean that the target may not be the closest word to the arrow.

12 prizes:

50 usd X 10
100 usd X 2

cool... so I need to find 12 word-seed, arrange in the correct order to get access to one of 10 prize addresses
about the arrow points to the next seed word, is this mean the arrow is the clue for the word order/sequence?
or the arrow is for pointing out the next 12 word-seed?

oh, im not participating. Im sponsor of the quest.

Actually, I almost found all of them (even the hidden ones like "rotate").

Try this:
Using Photoshop, create two transparent layers for markings and another one for connections. That way, it will be easier to organize.
The real problem is following the arrows or finding the right arrow-like shapes nearby each words, fake words and guides are tricky.

Seems like, yes.
Some words' strokes are similar to the unedited drawing, it could be those.

I think not all words on picture could be in keys. You can ask author in telegram group. 

No one has solved yet. All prizes are waiting https://blockchain.info/tx/8d10e6d82565c668c08761c08c2c80e65d7fdf18139147495dc4f26f949f2932

Started - http://bitcoin-quest.com/the-quest-begins/

I am waiting impatiently this new awesome idea !

I love this kind of game, since each time i play them on facebook so you have here a good concurrent

Quest starting today 18:00 GMT

Hey there, chosen ones! Yesterday, 26th of April, we supposed to begin the first Quest where you search my well detailed pictures for the SEED words and obtain coins on the corresponding addresses.

I will not be uploading the Quest picture with the seeds, because I figured out that I need to draw entirely new picture for the Quest to start. I need  some time to make this new picture, so the Quest date has been moved to 15th of May. Also, our partners from Rates.Guru have added additional 100 USD to the prize fund to achieve favour of the public.

Important Updates:

1. Delta image scanning

Thanks to the audience of one of the two Bitcointalk threads dedicated to the Quest I found that one can use image editing software to compare the scan I showed to the public since the beginning of the project on 1st of April, 2018, and the end scan where the SEED words are added. This will obfuscate my measures of hiding the words, allowing few smart persons to easily grab coins while others keep searching in a hardcore manner.

In brief, it works like this:

image 1 minus image 2 = changes (10% or so)

This is the reason Im drawing a new picture which will be shown only on 15th of May. Yay!

2. 750 USD quest fund

However, we got a plenty of very good news, including that we have found an investors and partners from RatesGuru service. They put a total of 600 usd into the quest prize fund, which now equals 750+ usd (it will depend on the Bitcoin price fluctuations, as usual). Rates Guru analysts help us to develop a network of trust within the dominant Bitcoin communities, many thanks to them!

Current prize fund.
https://blockchain.info/address/1NnAYGJhppSNNeRhRpTgyiKVyacRec8PTf

3. Promotion

Till 15th of May, we will extensively promote the Quest. If you want to help, reach out to us with your proposals. We will pay bounties in exclusive pics, inside info and BTC \\ MFC coins - to the authors of the best shock and traffic generating forum topics \\ articles \\ reviews about the Quest.

ENGLISH BTCTALK:

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/bitcoin-quest-a-brain-twister-by-solving-it-you-get-bitcoins-3309853

RUSSIAN BTC-TALK:

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/750-usd-3313953

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/--3310453

BITS.MEDIA
https://forum.bits.media/index.php?/topic/81546-oтгaдывaй-cиды-пoлyчaй-биткoйны-пpизoвoй-фoнд-500-usd/

4. As for now, we've managed to drag attention of around 1000 people from accross the globe to the Quest project. Site age is 1 month. All this without paying to the mainstream outlets for pr.

Bitcoin press article:
https://bitsonline.com/bitcoin-quest-picture-contest/

Thank you guys at Bitsonline for letting me publish the Quest related article with ease and fun!

5. I will be adding new Bitcoin avatars, stickers, wallpapers in near future to the UPDATES section.

6. Soon: a video of me drawing the new quest picture.

Our service paid a prize fund 500 usd. So fee is not required for participation in the quest which will be held on April 26.

I have seen some people created the thread on services section on this forum alone like bitcoin quest for merits. Happy to see the website with the btc payment for answering the quest.

I will be waiting the next quest to answer. As you mentioned your last post. I didn't go to your website before that please confirm is there anything I should pay for playing this quest.

Quest will begin on April 26.

Is it possible to do a survey here? Will you participate in the quest?

Yes Im on it. What is the message I should sign using taht address? This may take up to 12 hrs.


There are no SEEDs hidden in the main quest pic right now. You can tratin yourself to find some seeds using the old pic from my old quest.

https://bitcoin-quest.com/Bitnovosti2017.jpg

Considering that the reward is not escrowed, a signed message can somewhat ease skeptic members's doubts of the legitimacy of your project.

Just add something like this in the OP and you're good.

I haven't spent a lot of time on this picture, but I have to say the words are well hidden. 5 min of scanning from side to side and I haven't been able to find a single one (not counting those that are huge or not full English words). I hope that we aren't supposed to use some photoshop filters and such to reveal the text written somewhere in different shades of black.
Anyway, I have to find my early drawings when I was in primary school because I used to draw similar apocalyptic scenes. Of course not as detailed, but the main theme was almost identical.

Yes I can sign a message using that address, but why? As for the picture, whats your price?

There are already words in the picture, were those for misguidance?
An Automated software can't be tricked by that.

Yes but, it's better if you/team can provide a signed message to 1NnAYGJhppSNNeRhRpTgyiKVyacRec8PTf address (for verification purposes).

The painting looks well detailed, someone will pay big bucks for a framed original version of that image, but not me.

Why wouldn't someone do it? it takes literally 3 lines of code to get the difference image:
-read image1
-read image2
-result = (image1 - image2) > 20
this will result in a binary image (black/white) for all pixels that have difference higher than 20.

As for changing colors, it's a fine solution, if the color transformation is non-linear, otherwise it'll be possible to revert the image back easily.


Exactly, the delta image is a valid attack this time only because he shared the original image.

If you're concerned with that delta image thing, then don't share the original image anymore and just give the image with seed words on the exact date of the quest. Since you're sharing the original image on the site which is supposedly for the 26th of April, you need to change it with a totally different image (with seeds already) on the 26th so you will not worry if someone prepared about that pixel change.

You think someone will do this? And what if change colors of the picture?

My original concern is about locating the location of characters, reading the characters is then a minor problem that doesn't have to be automated. Even if they're captcha style, once you know the location you can type them in manually.
Kindly see my previous post to see how someone with some simple code (available online) can do this.

Assuming your 12 words in the picture are actually expressed in a way that resembles captchas, Severos concerns - while are plausible and valid - are not likely in this specific scenario so I wouldn't worry too much.  Software would be pretty useless because not only are captcha solvers way less than 100%, they are terrible at finding captcha riddles in the first place in non-discreet contexts.  And I doubt anyone would bring out the big-gun NSA image analyzers for 500$USD of bitcoin.   However, if your words are plain text  then yes - someone with software will be the winner and it will happen minutes after you open it.

The delta thing is simply the technique that would be used to shorten any processing time you might try to introduce by changing the image at the last minute.

Hope this helps,

I'm not sure they call it delta image in literature, but here's a brief explanation of it:

An image is essentially an array of pixels, each pixel is a vector of numbers that represent the Red/Blue/Green (RBG) components (or any other representation format).
I have the current image that you uploaded without the characters, when you upload the new image, I'll download it and now I have 2 images, subtract the values in each pixel in image 1 from the values of the corresponding pixel in image 2, now you have an image (array of pixels) that contains the difference between the 2 images, so you can see exactly which pixels were modified.
Pixels with low modified values (that can't be distinguished by human eye) can be zeroed out to reduce the "noise" of the image, this results in an image with only pixels that have significant change between the 2 images, all that's needed is to run some algorithm to detect those small characters locations (group of neighbor pixels)
-Drop any group with small number of pixels (ex: drop all groups with less than 9 pixels since you can't possibly write a character with them), so far the user only knows the location of the characters and can inspect them visually to extract the seed. This process can also be automated by simply adding another component that takes those pixel groups and perform character recognition algorithm on it.

That is how I'd go around scripting this contest, but I'm just an amateur in this and have used the naive approach, pretty sure anyone with decent knowledge in image processing can do much better job and explain in better technical details on how this is carried.

However, it's not impossible to defend against those "attacks", I have couple ideas that I'll PM you about (so others won't be prepared for them), as I said I'm not a professional so it's given that my defenses are week and will only stall algorithms. Also, the resulting image will loos some quality (due to changed pixels).

I'm afraid it's the first time I've heard about MFC, I'll make sure to read about it.

Wow man,

Can you please specify this delta image thing? I really want to make everything as honest as possible. I can reward you with MFC currency if you have a wallet for this tip.

I really don't think this is a fair competition to be honest, specially that you've announced it this early.
Why? because someone out there is writing AI code that does character recognition in images and will sweep the whole thing within couple minutes.
Even without it, since you've posted the image without the modifications, it's possible to create a delta-image (difference between 2 images) using the current image and the one after adding characters which will reduce the amount of lookup to do.

Don't get me wrong, the idea is awesome in theory, but in practice it's hard to implement in a fair way.

Even though some people already do similar things, it's great to see someone make a dedicated website and even got a sponsor. I'll try this quest later when i have time.

Our service RatesGuru is general sponsor of this contest.

Good LUUUCK!

I’m an artist and journalist who likes to draw, and want to unite two of my great passions: art and bitcoin. That’s where the idea of “Bitcoin Quest” appeared. It’s a competition where I draw pictures with hidden bitcoin wallet seeds in them, and you keep whatever BTC you find. Sound like fun? Try it out and play for keeps!

http://bitcoin-quest.com/BitcoinQuest.jpg

What’s a seed? It’s that string of 12 or so words many bitcoin wallets use to generate their keys. If you have the seed phrase, you have the wallet, and its BTC. The words to the seed phrases will be hidden in the picture. Find the words, figure out the seeds, check if you’re correct by entering them into a wallet app, and the BTC in them is yours.

There aren’t any words hidden in the picture yet. I’ll add them in later and make an official update.

You’ll be able to see exactly how much money is going into the main prize fund — isn’t Bitcoin’s public ledger great for transparency?
https://blockchain.info/address/1NnAYGJhppSNNeRhRpTgyiKVyacRec8PTf

[Update April 10th, 2018]: A gracious sponsor: Exchange analyzer Rates.Guru, has just contributed to the quest, bringing the current prize fund to $500 USD worth of bitcoin. Subscribe and be the first to join the seed search at the end of April! Currently I plan to add ten of the seeds to the picture, holding $50 each.

The quest date is 26th of April.

Alongside the seed competition, an auction will take place to sell the artwork itself — if it succeeds, half the money earned will go towards the prize fund. Investors can add money to the quest fund and appear in a special section of the site, as well as within the quest page.

I welcome you to join this outstanding event!

bitcoin-quest.com

Press:
https://bitsonline.com/bitcoin-quest-picture-contest

Russian Bits.Media Forum:
https://forum.bits.media/index.php?/topic/81546-oтгaдывaй-cиды-пoлyчaй-биткoйны-пpизoвoй-фoнд-500-usd/

For participating:

• Please, install the Electrum wallet onto your computer (I do not reccomend you to use a mobile version of the wallet, because it has been created not so long ago and has some performance issues on weak phones);
  
  Create a new Wallet (aka new wallet account) and then write the given SEED on a paper (if this is your first experience with this wallet, don’t worry — you have a chance to learn how to use the SEED and see for yourself their true destination and how they work);
  
  Copy one of the addresses given by the wallet into a separate text file.
  
  For now, this is it. If you experience troubles with this particular wallet, which is highly questionable to happen, please, use search in order to find more info or just don’t hesitate to write your questions to my e-mail.

 Next:

• Press the left mouse button on the quest-picture, which you’ll find within the special page on the quest date, its 26 of April. In the newly opened tab there will be a full-resolution JPG image (just wait for a bit while it loads)
  
  Press the right mouse button on it and choose ”Save picture as…”, your PC will prompt to save the file somewhere on your hard drive;
  
  open the picture using Krita, Photoshop, GIMP, MyPaint and similar ”professional” analogues of such software (you can try other ones but they can be laggy with that large JPGs)
  
  Use zoom (Ctrl + or Ctrl and the mouse wheel) to search for words;
  
  Every first word of every SEED has a ”N1” mark somewhere around;
  
  Every last word of every SEED has a STAR mark somewhere around;
  
  The picture may contain more than 120 words;
  
  By zooming the picture to the appropriate ”depth”, you can observe ”arrows”, they point the direction to where you should look for the next SEED word;
  
  Such arrows can be of a different shape and size, be a part of the surrounding scene or contrast with it;
  
  Some arrows are not so easy to find, so be attentive and patient;
  
  Sometimes other tips are used instead of the arrows. For instance, some words are marked ”X2” which means such word is a part of two separate seeds and you should choose your path carefully.

The amount and the size of the one each prize depends on the quest fund. Anyone can become the sponsor and appear within the quest picture and here on the site. You can discuss the terms with us via e-mail (at the bottom of the site).

The next quest starts at the end of April. If you would like to get a notification 24 hours before the quest begins, please, sign up.

Also dont join our private Telegram group:
https://t.me/joinchat/BsRpRg9QzKqmCOhH16LYOA