Topic: The Legend of Satoshi Nakamato, FINAL STEP PUBLISHED.... 4.87 BTC GRAND PRIZE! - page 44. (Read 108519 times)

Merry Christmas everyone! Do not miss the christmas by solving these puzzles, remember your loved ones, make this time happy.

https://i.imgur.com/NB5gfi0.gif

Might be interesting - the first 'flame-bits' up to the first leaf (from the top-left corner) are 0110110110 = 438 = 0x1b6 - a coincidence?

I see what you mean, but do you mean that real flame is IR flame or they are different, i was thinking that real flame is what we can see. and i found two IR flames which are small with white inner flame (in upper edge), the other IR flames without inner flames.

but i don't see the other game.. deck of cards?!

BTW i found some chinese letters inside the binary strings,, one of them 檵 which means: Loropetalum chinense... 流 Stream..  and even in the white image i see some chinese letters encoded the image file... maybe one of the developer is chinese   

I think it is safe to assume she can count and that placement of the flames was more deliberate than the process you describe. It is a puzzle and was not likely thrown together haphazardly.

8.7339E+11 in hex = CB5A19C780. Do you think similar ten digits number is so large? Until crax0r came with this theory everybody was looking for much, much larger number hidden in the picture.

crax0r and itod, the problem with this theory is that since it will take around 8.7339E+11 keys to find a 1FLAMEN6 vanity address you're now looking for some way the author encoded a ridiculously large decimal number in the image.

crax0r, you are a genius. Never heard of this type of vanity address generation, and it can easily be the case. Now that I think about it, there's far more then "almost 0% chance" this is the way puzzle key is generated, knowing how previous puzzles worked and author's love for words it is likely she used this unusual kind of vanity address generation just to make it more interesting and harder then simply painting the key in the picture.

Allow me to make some confusion, do not you think that leaves could be hearts?

In addition to chess, there is also a different game, what are the figures in the deck of cards? Are there hearts?

Have you tried to check which flames are real? In infrared or night-vision you can see them, you thought that some of the flames plus all the rest is the whole jigsaw puzzle?

You focused on one

It's a wonderland, nothing is like you see

Flames encode the key. The only entropic data is within the flames, hence this is where the key is. The rest, board, dove, phoenix, knight, bishop, ribbons, are "clues" how to interpret the flames properly. There are no words for brain wallet or anything like that, that would require too much "guesswork" that can very easily end up going the wrong way. I mean, it is possible the authors intended it to be like that, and made a solution that involves some words and hashing, but that would be "overestimation" of players-capabilities versus the total count of possible solutions around such path, making the puzzle it self, well, unsolvable. Such mistake is often seen at schools, where teachers assume something is known, or "evident", so to them a task given to students seems straightforward, while in reality, even a single wrong assumption of what is evident/known can make a seemingly solvable case, unsolvable. Similarly here, it is quite possible that in the closed-circle of people that developed the puzzle,  task of solving it might seem doable, ie "hey guys, they don't know this or that, in some time they will figure it out", cause they see A+B+C=D, not so hard right. In reality though, outside of their closed-circle, the equation might be A+(B or X)+(C or Y)+Z=D, where we cannot make some assumptions because B and X are equally plausible, same as C or Y. This turns seemingly doable task into an impossible one, due to solution-path being too big (without knowing things the closed-circle party takes for granted).

Sometimes it's funny how people can do anything from nothing. To be sure, - no white rabbit - no picture -the picture was peeled off from the glued on twitter.

Flames are not a solution, but this is a part of it. But not like that.

Nobody sees anything except flames?

I must correct you, it is easily possible to make such key. Like I explained in my post, all you have to do is take some string, for example your name, "JohnDoe", sha256 it repeatedly, each time taking the hash as a "private key", then calculating a public key out of it, if the public starts with "1FLAMEN6", you succeeded. Save the number of hashes you had to do to get it, and thats your compressed "key". Make a painting related to yourself, encode that compressed key on it using some flames, done. How many times you would have to do the SHA256? Probably (58/2)*(58^6) times (on average, because 7 base58 and 50% chance). So no, there is no mathematical formula that would let you to calculate such key, but bruteforce it? Sure, same as with vanitygen tool.

For example, take your nick "itod", sha256 it 3620 times and you will get a private key 5KGJqWiaPWss3QDZHF9FBkmqc9HwzQnJ4VqtUP37uiaQgsFopJv for which there is a "cool" uncompressed public key: 1AAAxTtHStWdHg2pyDqHaw7oo6DKPbP3S1
So technically you could carry around "itod-3620" note that would be enough to unlock your cool-wallet. What I'm getting at is that there could be "TurtledovePhoenixHeartsInFlames-524324523254" note, so "TurtledovePhoenixHeartsInFlames" sha256*524324523254 that makes some priv key that ends up being public "1FLAMEN6" - but like I said I really doubt thats the case

etc.

Nice summary, so many things included and everything true except:


This is not possible. If 256-bit key is given by "1FLAME(N6)" address generator, and it is, there is no mathematical process to convert any number of bits to that exact key. So, not "almost 0% chance" but "0% chance" for this option.

One other possibility: Some people think that "swirly-squares on the corners", as you cal them, do not imply QR code, but indicate the directions in which flames have to be decoded. It sounds logical to me, but you can never be sure.

389, without static data (3 squares 8x8 each, alignment pattern 5x5, and others) - with that you can encode 32bytes on a 25x25 QR, version 2, with L-level ECC.

Thanks for reply.

Damn, it could be everything.

The whole image reminds me a QR Code, maybe the flames could supply all the bits needed to generate a QR Code with a private key inside or something else.
How many bits for a QR Code with a private key? 400?

1. Good question...

2. It looks like the funds were moved into that address just a few days after this thread was updated. I don't think this discredits the possibility of finding a private key.

3. Yes to all of those, except maybe the text (I have not tried converting anything directly to text yet). I have generated many many, empty, addresses of various forms from data generated from the picture to no avail. Honestly though, I don't think we are simply just looking for a private key.

I haven't seen anyone point out the ampersand "&" between the phoenix and blue knight, it's there. Suggests the "Phoenix &" solidifying the poem as a lead.

Nope, it isn't. Like crax0r wrote, it must be in flames somehow. No QR code.

I don't really have time to bother with this but yeah my first impression on the painting is that it is a QR code with some random noise added. Filter out the noise, decode the QR, and I bet that gets you your private key.

If you do an SHA-512 hash on it instead of SHA-256 you get a private key that resolves to address "1BBUXKMopDs6B36XYTykHddmy9gz4U2c62".

Maybe they are just trolling us! "BIG BUX"

100% troll confirmed. The flames are the only entropic data that can encode anything meaningful. Since it's the last piece, it is unlikely it would lead yet to another piece via some encoded URL. There must be an actual key in here.

Let's play a logic game on the whole creation process:

1) Artist with a friend start making the final puzzle. They decide an oil paint is the best way to go.
2) Artist/friend likes Shakespeare poems, one about the "The Phoenix and The Turtle" gets selected.
3) For unknown reason yet, Yari Shogi 7x9 chessboard gets selected to the the internal background.
4) Artist select target size for the painting to be "18" x 24" and 21" x 27" with the frame". Note: All dimensions are divisible by 3 into 6x8 & 7x9.
5) As a connection the the poem, internals of the painting contain Turtledove, Phoenix and fire (among other things).
6) The previous piece was titled "WHIT3R4BBI7, hence the artist aligns the actors to look like a rabbit when the painting is flipped 90'. Possibly to indicate a proper orientation that somehow is more useful when decoding (). - Or simply as a connection to earlier piece(s) - we were "following the white rabbit" and now we have it (the final piece).
7) The Key - here we have several options but before exploring them lets get one thing clear: It will be random. It will not be a repeated string of "I LIKE PANCAKES", even after doing a couple of SHA256 rounds on it. The public key contains a non-random part, which had to be brute-forced. This can only happen if the input data, whatever it was, had enough randomity to support such eventual result. For example "I LIKE PANCAKES"+7random-bruteforced-bytes or "I LIKE PANCAKES" hashed somewhere between 0..4503599627370495 times.
  a) 256bits -> Vanitygen was used. To get 1FLAMEN6 key, so (assuming the N6 was not a happy-accident), the author had to go through around 4503599627370495 private keys (random 256bits). Those bits would be difficult to encode on the painting.
  b) 173-176bits -> Custom vanity-gen like tool was used. Such bit size might ring a bell to some - it is related to a length requirement of a mini-privatekey. In this case, authors of the puzzle make 2 tools - first one generates random 30-base58 char string, hashes it with '?' added and if the first byte of its sha256 is NULL (should happen about 1 in 255 times), rehashes the minikey alone and writes the 256bit-hash to a file/pipe/socket/whatever. Second tool constantly polls the file/pipe/etc for fresh 256bits of data, and converts it to a public key. If the key starts with "1FLAMEN6", saves the input/output & quits. Since the 2nd tool is the bottleneck (private->public conversion is slower than SHA256*257), and is basically same in speed as regular vanitygen, whole generation process of minikey like that would take about same time as in option A above.
  c) any number of bits -> authors decide to make either fully random or keyword+random data that i supposed to be sha256-hashed to get 256bits private key. Optionally, it could be "Yari Shogi, The Phoenix and The Turtle" sha256-hashed N-times, where N number (at least 7bytes, so 7*8=56bits) is encoded somewhere on the painting, it would be crazy I know, but its not impossible (there is almost 0% chance that they did it:).
  d) 296/304bits -> Variation of the A but with compliant WIF-formatting being added (so we could verify the bits, would be cool...). It is basically 296bits:[0x80][256bitsprivatekey][32bits sha256-sha256-cut] or 304bits:[0x80][256bitsprivatekey][01][32bits sha256-sha256-cut].
Next, having bits set, the Artist begins painting. Still unsure about the final encoding, she paints about 200 orange/white flames all around the central art.
9) Meanwhile, the friend finishes the mangled bit layout and encodes it into 152 flames and a marker (fully-red flame at the bottom?).
10) The encoding needed several extra values:
   a) 6 ribbons (6bits, either 011 010 or 011 100 or 100 101 or 100 011)
   b) 5 spikes on Phoenix head (5bits, either 11110, so 30 in decimal (length of a minikey?))
   c) 7 x 9 board
   d) 3 either as rabbits tale or spikes of a melting Bishop
   e) 8 light rays coming out of the lock (indicating 6bit encoding of 8bits (byte)?)
   f) 17 leafs (1+7=8?)
   g) 152 flames:
       50+28 red flames
       48+26 yellow flames
       51+24 green flames
       47+30 blue flames
       35+24 short flames
       63+30 long flames
       ~41 "dull" orange/white flames
  
   (bonus values): 347, 18, 24, 21, 27
11) The artist begins the flame-paintwork. She had painted 200 flames but only 152 are needed, hence a bit over 40 are left "untouched". The 152-data-carrier-flames are clearly painted-over the original orange+white flames.
   a) Pro Inner to outer theory: I assume she didn't want to inner side look dull, hence every flame was painted-over. Next, when she moved to the outer-side, she more or less tried to leave equal number of unused flames on all outer-sides (about left=15,bottom=10,right=10,top=6). I assume she continued painting from the left side. Perhaps overshot the count initially (by skipping too many, 15), she later did 10 twice and finally only 6 at the top.
   b) Pro Outer to Inner theory: The Artist knew that the inner side has 98flames, so she left them for later. The paint-work was actually started from the outer top, she knew 152-98=54 flames had to be put on the outer side, so she left 6 flames on the outer top side, then 10 for right and bottom, finally being left with 15, had no other option but make the left-outer side the must dull, with 15 dull-flames against only 8-data carriers.

The encoding
1) The painting was titled "Torched H34r7s" (Torched Hearts). Logical conclusion is that we have 152 hearts on fire (?).
2) It is unknown at the time how is Yari Shogi board related to the encoding. Perhaps value (1A) encoded on the ribbons is somehow a "tip" hot to number the board? (personally I don't buy this idea)
3) The key contains 6 ribbons encoding 6 bits. 8 rays leave the keyhole. Logical conclusion is that 6bit chunks will encode 8 bit stream? Or perhaps these 6 bits will somehow "unlock" the data and the 8-rays are irrelevant?
4) The Turtledove, Phoenix were supposed to target players into the "The Phoenix and The Turtle" poem. Since players kind of failed, The Artist tweeted a verse from it. Now, the Shakespearean-English is a regular English, but due to some words being replaced or having their meanings changed of the 400+ years, I recommend using this "translation": https://web.archive.org/web/20140405053414/http://www.geocities.com/athens/troy/4081/PhoenixandtheTurtle.html
   a) "The poem tells the story of a variety of birds assembling to mourn the passing of the deceased Phoenix and Turtle (Turtle-Dove)"
   b) "Love and Constancy is deceased" + "The Phoenix and the Turtle-Dove have left us" - implying Love=The Phoenix, Constancy=Turtle-Dove.
   c)
- implying Turtle-Dove(Constancy=constant?)+The Phoenix = New Bird. Flamebit+constant=goodbit? FlameBit+PatternedFlameBit=goodbit?
   d)
- "No range nor gap was there Between the hearts" = No gap between the flames? Read by pairs of 2-combined flames (hearts) unless there is a gap?
   e)
- what we already know 1+1=1. So either 2bits into 1 or 2 flames into 1.
5) The 152 flames are encoding 3 bits-each. Height (H), Inner Color (I), Outer Color (O). We do not know the order on how to read those.
   a) do we read in one of 6 permutations of HIO? (HOI HIO OHI OIH IHO IOH)
   b) do we first read all of H, then O then I? In one of 6 order-permutations?
6) If we count flames from 1..152, every uneven-flame (if starting from inner-top) or even-flame (if we start from outer top) encodes a pattern via its Height. For both start-location cases, pattern is 011 and is consistent from start to end. 011 is also encoded in the first 3 flames, 3 times in inner top and on the key-ribbons.
7) The painting has swirly-squares on the corners, implying QR-related content. Assuming at least 32bytes (256) bits data package, a QR of 25x25 (version2) with ECC Level L would have to be used. ZigZag readding pattern and/or occasional bits skipped (for ECC) might be a way to read this.

Bonus Trophy: While decoding the Long-flames (93*2=186 bits) I've found that if you mask the 186 bits with "0 011 010" you will end up with 176 bits of data that encodes to a proper minikey  
SdY53vYvfLhPvGJYLmR5Wc5R438kme    -> Sha256 = 006a89e0558a946647190b8cccdd873745dd4e44228e55b2196020a10dd1e79c bitmask(0011010) - heart attack confirmed, but it does not resolve to 1FLAMEN6 of course