Chickyboo

Solution to Chickyboo’s crypto riddle

1st Clue: Youtube Video

When i first saw the video, i was like “wtf is this video?”, but then reading the comments, someone told something about a encrypted text at the end of the video, when its fading out. So i checked, and it was true!

This is the encrypted message:

pjhpf oyvpm ytpad idsaa

I tried with many combinations and many ciphers, but i wasn’t getting any plaintext. After reading more comments, someone posted the it was QWERTY related.

QWERTY for those who doesn’t know is just the organization of the keys in our keyboard. So checking the possible combinations i found one that worked:

QWERTY (English Keyboard), left key (alphabet chars only).

ohgod itcon trols usall --> oh god it controls us all

2nd Clue: The QR image.

So… this was posted in the @rocketjumptweet twitter:

First we scan the QR Code. The QR code sends us to the following url: http://imgur.com/a/Z41xK

It’s another image with the following caption:

YOUHAVE EVERYTHINGTHAT YOUNEED

I believe the image is using Gmask. Lets try it! There is a Windows program called Gmask, as an OS X user, i used wine to run it in my OS. Normal unmasking didn’t work so i supposed there was some password or something more.

• Download Gmask

I tried many combinations ’til i got the clear image. The trick was using what we got in the 1st clue!

There were 3 masks, each one with a password: ohgod, itcontrols and usall. It doesn’t matter if its uppercase or lowercase. The clue to this combination was YOUHAVE EVERYTHINGTHAT YOUNEED. 3 words

And finally the decrypted one!

There was another ciphered message in the image! It was time to use CrypTool which is very cool to break ciphered messages or just analyze them.

• Download CryptTool

The message is only in one line.

gigng tilxf igter ndlpk gxxte larpm zefte phoeq pekhx lbhit bkmre wmzws umpxu wrrhi mewdg ayefs hveel njeft ixehr bfiom msnxp

I did many tests after analysing it, i was 80% sure it was a Vigenère cipher. So i started analysing it again, so after that i got the following password:

TASANPE

But it wasn’t decrypting the ciphered message.

So i had to try shifting the keys, til’ one combinations worked (there was a little trick, oh my…)

And we got it!!

And this is the clear text:

UP ON THE ZENITH A FULL CYCLE BEYOND THE SHADOWED DAY OF LOVE HIS MESSAGE SHALL BE REVEALED TO US MA HIS AZURE SHELL PROTECT US ALL

Getting the Vigenere Key Organically

This was solved by u/SchleepyTV

There was another possibility to get the key to decrypt the message. This was posted in RocketJump’s facebook:

Chick-EEE-Boo Story Time! Once upon a time ChickyBoo’s nest was empty! It felt so strongly about this beguiling situation that it took a photo of itself and wrote an essay, and posted it for all to see. But nobody could understand it, not even ChickyBoo’s enemy. ChickyBoo laughed - “There’s only room for Seven, and the key is you have to shout the magic words!”

What stands out?

• “Chick-EEE-Boo” is spelled oddly
• The end quote: “There’s only room for Seven, and the key is you have to shout the magic words!”

In this story, ChickyBoo takes a photo (the one you see after following the QR code in the Instagram post) and writes an essay on it. Nobody can understand it because it’s been encrypted and graphically scrambled.

This post unscrambles the CP Mask with the decoded phrase from the end of the video (Oh god, it controls us all). This yields some cipher text.

Now, we need to find the decryption key. Luckily ChickyBoo hints to us that it’s key to shout some magic words. How do we find the magic words? – We noted the odd spelling “Chick-EEE-Boo” in the Facebook post previously. Let’s find the three words in the post starting with the letter ‘E’: empty, essay, even, and enemy.

By shouting the magic words (saying them out loud):

• empty = MT
• essay = SA
• enemy = NME

We spell out the seven letters of decryption key “MTSANME”

3rd and final clue. A new youtube video:

According to the clear message we got in 2nd clue:

• A cycle: The moon orbits the earth every 27.3 days, but completes a phase cycle every 29.5 days, so ~1 month.
• The Shadowed Day of love: is Black Friday. Friday is the day of the goddess of love, Frige.

So in theory, a message will be revealed us on 25 of December!

Maybe is something related to the Chickyboo’s haiku (check video above):

A montain of money All alone… In a dark room

So for now, we have to wait!

@fwong cool stuff man :)