So it's a hoax, let's get over it and WORK ON THE SECOND TEST!!

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ManiacB said:
Why won't we mail Gabe and ask him for a clue \ whether the test is currently solvable?
(I know this has already been done, but the mail was sent to someone who - it seems - didn't have a clue about the test...)
Click to expand...

It's not every fun if we are guided along.
 
wonkers said:
It's not fun now.
Click to expand...


It's not fun now indeed...
If I'll have the time, I will write Gabe. But if any of you have the time, please send him a mail... :rolleyes:
 
Seriously, this is getting annoying and redundant. I'm almost 100% positive the answer lies in the whiteboards, considering a VALVe employee told the visitor to take a picture of them. I will help anyway possible, but have tried ALOT of methods so far.
 
Ok, here's my piece on this. Look at some similarities between stuff that we've seen in this "secret" stuff. I'm just going to say look for the bird. Nobody has figured out why they had the bird in the source yet. That could definately be a crucial clue to solving this. The first one contained the bird and gman in ASCII, the second one Gordon and the bird. Maybe Alyx and the bird this time? Also, wouldn't it be awsome if they were waiting for us to solve this for HL2 to go gold. When someone accesses the answer, it launches press releases and stuff. :-D
 
the bird is there because at the same sorta time as the first test, there was a 'show off your ascii art' thread in the art forum, in which greg coomer (from valve) posted that little picture.

thats my memory of the events anyway.
 
(and the ascii bird was taken from someones site with just a - on its head changed to a +)
 
Someone posted this on another thread....

Has anyone noticed the OTHER things said in the "second test" metadata?

Things Like:

"http://www.iec.ch"

"Reference Viewing Condition in IEC61966-2.1"

"Adobe"

"Photoshop 3.0"

I dont have photoshop or a good version of Adobe but maybe someone should try opening the picture or the metadata in one of those programs.

Also if you go to "http://www.iec.ch" and search "IEC61966-2.1" some kind of program comes up and it looks like some kind of data translator or something.

But i could be wrong about all this.

Hope it helps...
 
Yea that was my post. I dunno, all that stuff is in there. I think its got something to do with the program found on the "http://www.iec.ch" site.
 
Mmmmhgr damn me and my low-level Photoshop skillz!! I have no idea wtf i am doing...

Valve wont release HL² if we dont figure out three tests!!! and the third is even harder than 2 =-O
 
Ok i opened that picture in photoshop, then after a google search for "IEC61966-2.1" found:

http://www.gballard.net/psd/saveforwebshift.html

Followed these directions from that site:

"Photoshop> Image> Mode> Convert To Profile: sRGB IEC61966-2.1"

After doing this, theres a bunch of new stuff in the source file for the image...among it, a couple urls: (heres a few)

http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns
http://ns.adobe.com/iX/1.0/
http://ns.adobe.com/xap/1.0/mm/

Does any of this mean anything or am i following some pointless....thing?

Edit: Ok following this a bit deeper i found that theres some "XMP metadata" embed in the file.

Info about it here:
http://www.adobe.com/products/xmp/main.html
 
DoctorGordon said:
Ok i opened that picture in photoshop, then after a google search for "IEC61966-2.1" found:

http://www.gballard.net/psd/saveforwebshift.html

Followed these directions from that site:

"Photoshop> Image> Mode> Convert To Profile: sRGB IEC61966-2.1"

After doing this, theres a bunch of new stuff in the source file for the image...among it, a couple urls: (heres a few)

http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns
http://ns.adobe.com/iX/1.0/
http://ns.adobe.com/xap/1.0/mm/

Does any of this mean anything or am i following some pointless....thing?

Edit: Ok following this a bit deeper i found that theres some "XMP metadata" embed in the file.

Info about it here:
http://www.adobe.com/products/xmp/main.html
Click to expand...

OK I did the same thing yet found none of that. How do you "see" the source file portion you speak of....
 
Aknot said:
OK I did the same thing yet found none of that. How do you "see" the source file portion you speak of....
Click to expand...

Sorry mind is racing, the source of the image...meaning i opened it with notepad
 
Just opened the file with notepad...for some reason i downloaded the webpage....i dont think the extractor works, let me find another...
 
i found a bunch of crap in the metadata of the "second test" image, a bunch of these guys are tryin to work it out but im probably just insane and seing things : D
 
Up-to-Date Summary:

Seems there some form of hidden data within the jpg called "XMP metadata". Supposely, photoshop can embed this in some image files, like jpgs and pdfs. Maybe the references to photoshop in the original file were hints to this.

Current objective: Extract the XMP metadata.
 
i was wondering if one of you prostars can help a noob like me out.

where can i find the second test pic? i've been following this whole thing along, now i wanna run this through cs. thanks
 
got this. But doesn't mean anything to me.

XMP Media Management Properties
.. DocumentID: adobe:docid:photoshop:3e4d730c-fadf-11d8-bedb-ebb4a1bffe48

From Photoshop CS
 
Take a look here...

I think your all going a bit deep myself, i been watching the trainstation video, i duno if ne1 else has seen this???...

also just as this all is in view the Guy says "Welcome" <-- that'd be a nice password?

btw when i refer to clock i mean the eggtimer on the post in the whiteboard
 
OK wait - are we still talking about the same gman.jpg image? If so, here's my theory. You are seeing this information about the XMP metadata because VALVe used this Adobe product to embed the message "password is nova/prospekt this is the second test" (that we already know about) so it would still be a valid JPG image. You cant simply open a JPG with notepad and type in text anywhere.

I'm not trying to rain on anyones parade.. but I think if we continue using resources to pull this "metadata" you're looking for... guess what you're going to find:

"password is nova/prospekt this is the second test"

This is just my personal theory :)
 
Coolpot said:
I think your all going a bit deep myself, i been watching the trainstation video, i duno if ne1 else has seen this???...

also just as this all is in view the Guy says "Welcome" <-- that'd be a nice password?
Click to expand...

WOw. Nice find!

Edit: We need to review this Binks and re-cross reference them with the new whiteboards.
 
Coolpot said:
I think your all going a bit deep myself, i been watching the trainstation video, i duno if ne1 else has seen this???...
Click to expand...
I think you are closer to being on track (again this is just my opinion so flame away ppl). I think they are giving us signs of where to look next. I mean come on.. why put the ASCII art image of a bird in the HTML of the result page of the second test?

I've searched all the cache files for the important strings like "www.", ".com", "http", etc (see my previous posts). I just don't see any plaintext data in the cache files that contain these obvious strings. Unless its rot13 encoded within the files themselves.. hmm wait.. maybe I should rot13 encode the strings and search for those?
 
So, without having to read 40 pages of speculation. . .

Can anyone recap what's been found/not found?

For the benefit of all?
 
Hazar Dakiri said:
So, without having to read 40 pages of speculation. . .

Can anyone recap what's been found/not found?

For the benefit of all?
Click to expand...

Yeah, what he said.

EDIT: This is a bit off topic, but where you live in NM Hazar? (I know that I should put this in a PM, but some people never check theirs...)
 
I just noticed something on
http://img3.exs.cx/img3/2208/White-bored.jpg

There is a picture of a bird's head in a square next to the text Airboat girl.

I think it'd be worth our time to try and decrypt some of the symbols drawn on these white boards. Also in http://img20.exs.cx/img20/4497/White-Bored2.jpg on the right hand side 3 quarters of the way down there is a picture that looks like a hallway upside down with light coming out of the end door. Either that or it's a light fixed on top of the ceilin, I'm not sure. But see if you can find other symbols or shapes or patterns in the whiteboard as Coolpot inspired me to do.

EDIT: Other things I've noticed is that the old man with crypt axe is holding a sand timer. The pic underneath him seems to be a robot or machine decapitating an alien or bug in one arm and holding Alyx in ther other.

And is that image next to rocksom a lock?
 
I think that if we find one theme to all of these pictures we'll solve them, right now death is a pretty big one as far as i'm concerned (vulutres, doves ect) (clocks, death, hallway, old gordon, "entrance to hl2")
 
Gah, I guess I'll have to say this for the 15th time. Greg Coomer said that there is NO IMPORTANT INFO on the second and third whiteboard pictures.
 
thebarge said:
You are seeing this information about the XMP metadata because VALVe used this Adobe product to embed the message "password is nova/prospekt this is the second test" (that we already know about) so it would still be a valid JPG image. You cant simply open a JPG with notepad and type in text anywhere.
Click to expand...
Do you know how they embedded the text in there then?
Because according to a program called Photo Studio the information is sitting in Photoshop Resource Data, more specifically (and more confusingly) "Color Transfer Functions" where i'm sure is not a usual place for a comment.
http://www.p0stwh0restores.com/uploads/switch/color_transfer_functions.jpg
 
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