Community Event Potato Cipher Solved

orange0404 · Feb 17, 2018

how does this relate, cause i think we've seen this be4

e! · Feb 17, 2018

ccccccccccccccc said: ↑
https://wynncraft.com/hellotherenicedayforapotatoisntit
your welcome

i want to die

How we did it:

Ingame potato hunt yielded the encoded text:
Code:
p+`Vr6TOZEn-TZiBJh#lR,4i5hun4<B%/kzP0*:Ns^:Vz@2VgMp0izZ-W?V7ZxNRI+:jIZ6W/cxq%m)v)Q4IrD[,
Incase someone wants to do the Selchar Potato puzzle up to the code:
You get the Rare potato from Potato Island, which has a potato imp that drops it rarely. You only need one. Coords to Potato Island- X: -470, Z: -3240 Talk to the Selchar potato, then bring a rare potato to Almuj potato. Take 12 normal potatoes and the rare potato to Detlas potato. Take 13 regular potatoes and the rare potato to the Nemract potato. 21 Regular potatoes and the rare potato to Nesaak potato. 7 regular potatoes and the rare potato to Troms. You can not have any other potatoes in your inventory when you talk to the potatoes. Only the required ones. Also if you switch worlds at all you have to restart from Selchar. Have fun.

"DE@T*qbfp+:)kOfP2jHgpdl" was posted and deleted instantly on discord

Image was posted briefly to the discord, showing a section of code:

"TG1OdmJTOXVaV1ZrWVdKcGRHOW1hR1ZzY0E9PQ" was posted and deleted instantly on discord; howtozombie used a base64 decoder twice and got the link to this second image of censored code:

These images together make up the encryption code.

The code involves 3 variables that are used to encode the text-without all 3 variables it is impossible to find the solution. We took to guessing at hints and taking stabs in the dark as to what the numbers could be (# of potatoes in the world divided by 3, height from the sky to the selchar potato, 42, etc)

Other hints:
Jpresent repeatedly told us that "2 ^8 is not the limit"
Jpresent repeatedly told us to look at the big picture, rather than the little details (not a quote, not the bigger picture quest) of jp.jpg

Jpresent told us to think about what the thing in the image was, and how the potatoes were turning into it
Red gave us hints regarding the current standing interpretation of the encryption code, including the % and the 4 letter function in "result = _ _ _ _(result);"
More random stuff on wynnapps.tk/potato/

People also tried to map where all the potatoes on the server were pointing. There are over 300.
Almost all of them cross over Selchar (the start and end position), with a few exceptions like the potato near the Dernel Jungle Mansion --> the Maltic Plains potato (which then crossed Selchar).

thanks everyone in discord; it has been a ride

encrypter/decrypter:

Apparently it has to be run in a javascript console line, because the atob() and btoa() functions are picky.

In the end, I solved for the variables by brute forcing the solution to something that made sense

input =
Code:
p+`Vr6TOZEn-TZiBJh#lR,4i5hun4<B%/kzP0*:Ns^:Vz@2VgMp0izZ-W?V7ZxNRI+:jIZ6W/cxq%m)v)Q4IrD[,
solution vars: numCount = 2, numStart = 22, addEachNum = 43
Code:
//encryption (taken from clues, censored pictures, etc):
Number.prototype.mod = function(n) {
    return ((this%n)+n)%n;
}
function encode1(str, numStart, addEachNum) {
    var result = '';
    for (var i = 0; i < str.length; ++i) {
        var num = (numStart + i * addEachNum);
        var n = str.charCodeAt(i) - 33 + num;
        result += String.fromCharCode(33 + (n.mod(90)));
    }
    return result;
}

function encode(str, numCount, numStart, addEachNum) {
    var result = str;
    for (var i = 0; i < numCount; ++i) {
        result = btoa(result);
    }
 
    return encode1(result, numStart, addEachNum);
}
//decryption (I reversed it)
function decode1(end, numStart, addEachNum) {
    var start = '';
    for (var i = 0; i < end.length; ++i) {
        var m = (end.charCodeAt(i)-33)
        var mum = (numStart + i * addEachNum);
        var starta = (m - mum)%90 + 33;
        if (starta < 0) { //just to be safe
          starta = 90 + starta
        }
        if (starta < 33) {
          starta = 90 + starta
        }
        start += String.fromCharCode(starta);
    }
    return start
}
function decode(end, numCount, numStart, addEachNum) {
    var result = end;
    result = decode1(result, numStart, addEachNum)
    for (var i = 0; i < numCount; ++i) {
        result = atob(result);
    }
    return result
}
//brute forcer
var coded = "p+`Vr6TOZEn-TZiBJh#lR,4i5hun4<B%/kzP0*:Ns^:Vz@2VgMp0izZ-W?V7ZxNRI+:jIZ6W/cxq%m)v)Q4IrD[,"
//ranges were determined based on what each variable actually controlled (running the base64 more than 5 or so times didn't make much sense and just created long winded strings, looping numStart past 90 did nothing because of the mod, etc)
for (var numm = -10; numm < 90; ++numm) {
    for (var nummm = 1; nummm < 5; ++nummm) {
        for (var nummmm = -10; nummmm < 90; ++nummmm) {
            try {
                var ccc = decode(coded,nummm,numm,nummmm);
                console.log(ccc, nummm, numm, nummmm);
            } catch(Exception) {
                console.log("nope");
            }
        }
    }
}
 
console.log("encrypted:",encode(new String("wynncraft.com/hellotherenicedayforapotatoisntit"),2,22,43));
console.log("decrypted:",decode(new String("p+`Vr6TOZEn-TZiBJh#lR,4i5hun4<B%/kzP0*:Ns^:Vz@2VgMp0izZ-W?V7ZxNRI+:jIZ6W/cxq%m)v)Q4IrD[,"),2,22,43));
also input =
Code:
(DE@T*qbfp+:)kOfP2jHgpdl 
solution vars: numCount = 2, numStart = 43, addEachNum = 8
gives
Code:
= delet this
yay...
Click to expand...
oh

CyrenArkade · Feb 17, 2018

Nice!
10char

yosteric5 · Feb 17, 2018

Cruuk said: ↑

Hmmm.
View attachment 126545
Click to expand...

Thanks me.

redx475 · Feb 17, 2018

Little bit of a write-up since I know most people involved aren't too familiar with code and I figure at this point it's only fair to show how the cipher worked.

The first thing to note is that the cipher obviously does not just deal with alphanumeric characters. The exact selection of characters is characters 33 to 126 in the ascii table which, for those not aware, are all letters (uppercase and lowercase), numbers, and a few symbols but no whitespace. This selection was chosen both to throw off any use of online cipher tools (which mostly deal with alphanumeric ciphers) and because it's the largest block in the ascii table that doesn't include whitespace or control characters (backspace/delete/etc).

Now, the cipher is made up of two parts - a modified rotation and a number of base64 encodes. First, base64 is run a number of times on the starting string. This is done for two reason - base64 increases the length of the string, making it impossible to analyse based on length, and also because base64 is fairly recognizable (this is important if someone figured out the rotation step).

Rotation is a modified caesar cipher (sometimes known as rotX - rot13 would be a caesar cipher where each character was rotated 13). The modification is that there is an additional rotation for each index of the string.

Let's say our initial (caesar) rotation is called x (, and the additional rotation is called y. I'm only going to use capital letters here for simplicity's sake, not the full subset of ascii as explained above.

x = 2
y = 2
Input: A B C D E F G - the initial input string (ignore spaces, they are there for formatting reasons)
ROT2: C D E F G H I - this is the basic caesar rotation (in this case it is rotated 2 characters, hence ROT2)
Index: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 - The index of each character.
Index*y: 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 - Multiply y times the index value. This is the additional amount the character will be rotated.
ROT2+i*y: C F I L O R U - Add the Index*y rotation to the result of ROT2

Therefore, ROTPLUS(ABCDEFG, 2, 2) = CFILORU

In the full algorithm, (let's call it ENCODE(input, bcount, x, y)), ABCDEFG would be encoded with base64 a number of times, and characters other than
alphanumeric would be used as well. Therefore:

ENCODE(ABCDEFG, 5, 2, 2) = Xq$icbg.fl$l!Npu!xlE'r@++F*52P&0AT:YE8JKE>g

An interesting property of the modified rotation is that undoing it just requires passing negative parameters. ROTPLUS(CFILORU, -2, -2) = ABCDEFG.

Now, for those more technically inclined here's the original code used to create the cipher (in javascript): https://pastebin.com/3kLdRnCa

I will say that the use of base64 probably made this harder than it should have. It was intended to both obfuscate the length of the original string and also to make brute-forcing possible, but it also cut out anyone trying to solve without writing code. Including the base64 encoding in my original hints probably would have helped a bit. That said, I'm not sure anyone would have figured out the modified rotation without doing so anyway.

Overall I think this cipher might have been unfair to some, but it also brought out a bunch of members of the community I didn't know we had and I was impressed by quite a few individuals.

This was the first time I've personally designed a cipher for this community, so it was interesting seeing how people responded. There are definitely some things that should have been done differently, though it worked out in the end.

EDIT:

Oh, as for the "delet this" cipher it was partially a joke, partially to give a shorter cipher to play around with. It was encoded in the same way with different parameters, but I guess it didn't end up helping.

Plymouth · Feb 17, 2018

whoa that's pretty good

WynnChairman · Feb 17, 2018

redx475 said: ↑

Little bit of a write-up since I know most people involved aren't too familiar with code and I figure at this point it's only fair to show how the cipher worked.

The first thing to note is that the cipher obviously does not just deal with alphanumeric characters. The exact selection of characters is characters 33 to 126 in the ascii table which, for those not aware, are all letters (uppercase and lowercase), numbers, and a few symbols but no whitespace. This selection was chosen both to throw off any use of online cipher tools (which mostly deal with alphanumeric ciphers) and because it's the largest block in the ascii table that doesn't include whitespace or control characters (backspace/delete/etc).

Now, the cipher is made up of two parts - a modified rotation and a number of base64 encodes. First, base64 is run a number of times on the starting string. This is done for two reason - base64 increases the length of the string, making it impossible to analyse based on length, and also because base64 is fairly recognizable (this is important if someone figured out the rotation step).

Rotation is a modified caesar cipher (sometimes known as rotX - rot13 would be a caesar cipher where each character was rotated 13). The modification is that there is an additional rotation for each index of the string.

Let's say our initial (caesar) rotation is called x (, and the additional rotation is called y. I'm only going to use capital letters here for simplicity's sake, not the full subset of ascii as explained above.

x = 2
y = 2
Input: A B C D E F G - the initial input string (ignore spaces, they are there for formatting reasons)
ROT2: C D E F G H I - this is the basic caesar rotation (in this case it is rotated 2 characters, hence ROT2)
Index: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 - The index of each character.
Index*y: 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 - Multiply y times the index value. This is the additional amount the character will be rotated.
ROT2+i*y: C F I L O R U - Add the Index*y rotation to the result of ROT2

Therefore, ROTPLUS(ABCDEFG, 2, 2) = CFILORU

In the full algorithm, (let's call it ENCODE(input, bcount, x, y)), ABCDEFG would be encoded with base64 a number of times, and characters other than
alphanumeric would be used as well. Therefore:

ENCODE(ABCDEFG, 5, 2, 2) = Xq$icbg.fl$l!Npu!xlE'r@++F*52P&0AT:YE8JKE>g

An interesting property of the modified rotation is that undoing it just requires passing negative parameters. ROTPLUS(CFILORU, -2, -2) = ABCDEFG.

Now, for those more technically inclined here's the original code used to create the cipher (in javascript): https://pastebin.com/3kLdRnCa

I will say that the use of base64 probably made this harder than it should have. It was intended to both obfuscate the length of the original string and also to make brute-forcing possible, but it also cut out anyone trying to solve without writing code. Including the base64 encoding in my original hints probably would have helped a bit. That said, I'm not sure anyone would have figured out the modified rotation without doing so anyway.

Overall I think this cipher might have been unfair to some, but it also brought out a bunch of members of the community I didn't know we had and I was impressed by quite a few individuals.

This was the first time I've personally designed a cipher for this community, so it was interesting seeing how people responded. There are definitely some things that should have been done differently, though it worked out in the end.

EDIT:

Oh, as for the "delet this" cipher it was partially a joke, partially to give a shorter cipher to play around with. It was encoded in the same way with different parameters, but I guess it didn't end up helping.
Click to expand...

wtf

CountBurn · Feb 17, 2018

so about a weeks progress, a target and some boxes with people in them and still no answers to anything

euouae · Feb 17, 2018

JP is teasing us now

what if we do all these puzzles and it ends up being a dead meme update like bloomi

NotAFish · Feb 18, 2018

MarioYoshiBoo said: ↑

JP is teasing us now

what if we do all these puzzles and it ends up being a dead meme update like bloomi
Click to expand...

Considering JPs latest posts this is all a setup for a massive Rick roll...

frendly_creeper · Feb 19, 2018

honestly if this is as much of a troll as people make it out to be i wouldnt be suprised that the potatoe in selchar saying up and the arrow of the guys face in the picture pointing up is basicly saying up-date coming soon. and its probably going to be an up-grade and lag reduction, aswell and maybe guilds being made better and more fun with actual game"play" benefits, like custome guild stuff, mostly decorative but maybe some funtionality.

i just hope we get some new quests that give you something other then grinding to do

one_ood · Feb 19, 2018

I wonder if this is supposed to be a startingcity for like dern
cuz in ragni and somewhere else maybe there were combat dummies for damage testing and archery ranges like this

ccccccccccccccc · Feb 26, 2018

redx475 said: ↑

~solution
Click to expand...

So is another stage of this going to happen? When? It's been quite a while since we solved the last puzzle, and jpresent hasn't told us anything (not even a "you're done, gj").

Discord is slowly losing its mind

check the pins check the pins check pins pinns pins

Zandirian · Feb 27, 2018

ccccccccccccccc said: ↑

So is another stage of this going to happen? When? It's been quite a while since we solved the last puzzle, and jpresent hasn't told us anything (not even a "you're done, gj").
Click to expand...

You should check the pins in discord to find out.

WynnMerchant · Feb 27, 2018

Wow props to you guys for solving this. Those codes, it just fries my eyes lol.

________________________________

redx475 said: ↑

Little bit of a write-up since I know most people involved aren't too familiar with code and I figure at this point it's only fair to show how the cipher worked.

The first thing to note is that the cipher obviously does not just deal with alphanumeric characters. The exact selection of characters is characters 33 to 126 in the ascii table which, for those not aware, are all letters (uppercase and lowercase), numbers, and a few symbols but no whitespace. This selection was chosen both to throw off any use of online cipher tools (which mostly deal with alphanumeric ciphers) and because it's the largest block in the ascii table that doesn't include whitespace or control characters (backspace/delete/etc).

Now, the cipher is made up of two parts - a modified rotation and a number of base64 encodes. First, base64 is run a number of times on the starting string. This is done for two reason - base64 increases the length of the string, making it impossible to analyse based on length, and also because base64 is fairly recognizable (this is important if someone figured out the rotation step).

Rotation is a modified caesar cipher (sometimes known as rotX - rot13 would be a caesar cipher where each character was rotated 13). The modification is that there is an additional rotation for each index of the string.

Let's say our initial (caesar) rotation is called x (, and the additional rotation is called y. I'm only going to use capital letters here for simplicity's sake, not the full subset of ascii as explained above.

x = 2
y = 2
Input: A B C D E F G - the initial input string (ignore spaces, they are there for formatting reasons)
ROT2: C D E F G H I - this is the basic caesar rotation (in this case it is rotated 2 characters, hence ROT2)
Index: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 - The index of each character.
Index*y: 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 - Multiply y times the index value. This is the additional amount the character will be rotated.
ROT2+i*y: C F I L O R U - Add the Index*y rotation to the result of ROT2

Therefore, ROTPLUS(ABCDEFG, 2, 2) = CFILORU

In the full algorithm, (let's call it ENCODE(input, bcount, x, y)), ABCDEFG would be encoded with base64 a number of times, and characters other than
alphanumeric would be used as well. Therefore:

ENCODE(ABCDEFG, 5, 2, 2) = Xq$icbg.fl$l!Npu!xlE'r@++F*52P&0AT:YE8JKE>g

An interesting property of the modified rotation is that undoing it just requires passing negative parameters. ROTPLUS(CFILORU, -2, -2) = ABCDEFG.

Now, for those more technically inclined here's the original code used to create the cipher (in javascript): https://pastebin.com/3kLdRnCa

I will say that the use of base64 probably made this harder than it should have. It was intended to both obfuscate the length of the original string and also to make brute-forcing possible, but it also cut out anyone trying to solve without writing code. Including the base64 encoding in my original hints probably would have helped a bit. That said, I'm not sure anyone would have figured out the modified rotation without doing so anyway.

Overall I think this cipher might have been unfair to some, but it also brought out a bunch of members of the community I didn't know we had and I was impressed by quite a few individuals.

This was the first time I've personally designed a cipher for this community, so it was interesting seeing how people responded. There are definitely some things that should have been done differently, though it worked out in the end.

EDIT:

Oh, as for the "delet this" cipher it was partially a joke, partially to give a shorter cipher to play around with. It was encoded in the same way with different parameters, but I guess it didn't end up helping.
Click to expand...

Okay I don't understand anything in this lol, but thanks for summing it up. It will surely help those people who wanted to know how this was siphoned more thoroughly.

Violet Knight · Mar 10, 2018

So... is it solved? If it is, then why are the Mysterious Potatoes still around?

ghost of wynn · Mar 10, 2018

Red-Eyed Knight said: ↑

So... is it solved? If it is, then why are the Mysterious Potatoes still around?
Click to expand...

still no :(

Mistrise Mystic · Mar 15, 2018

Soooo
Are we just waiting?

ghost of wynn · Mar 15, 2018

Nona said: ↑

Soooo
Are we just waiting?
Click to expand...

Yes, for our savior jp.

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Community Event Potato Cipher Solved

orange0404 corkus is actually here HERO

e! ⁣e HERO

CyrenArkade Well-Known Adventurer HERO

yosteric5 The Builder of walls VIP+

redx475 SysAdmin HERO

Plymouth Why do you read this CHAMPION

WynnChairman Chairman of Wynn HERO

CountBurn Hackysack? HERO

euouae euouae VIP

NotAFish An evolved jungle slime Discord Moderator CHAMPION

frendly_creeper Well-Known Adventurer CHAMPION

one_ood c lown VIP

ccccccccccccccc horse failure

Zandirian Melon VIP+

WynnMerchant Skilled Adventurer

Violet Knight Aspiring front-end developer HERO

ghost of wynn Ghost of wynn

Mistrise Mystic Surfing winds and chasing windfalls HERO

ghost of wynn Ghost of wynn