Three codes appeared hidden in The Balance of the Universe post on the Investigate Ingress blog.
[1] uvpgtqghwdckbblcfuamjmffuvpe
[2] 7971*$fe898482*$^%87fd&%^&fafhej^^7181ei^*&$^*ei
[3] 0508060218070104000000130800040003120701110401060000021101231200040905031407061203050603
Code #1
Observations
All letters, many ciphers can be used. I usually go through my sequence: Atbash, ROT, Morse, Vigenere, Rectangles…
No luck
[hint]Well in this case, you win some, you loose some!!!
[/hint]
Spoiler
Since none of the usual cipher worked I tried to split the code to see if somethings were matching. Niantic usually use three letters for word so here is how I made the split:
uvp gtq ghw dckbblcfua m jmf f uvp e
Looking at the number positions, uvp comes up twice.
Now to find how can this sequence of letters become TWO, THR, FOU, FIV, SIX, SEV, EIG or NIN
The only answer was that it had to be TWO by alternating ROT-1 & ROT+1:
-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
uvpgtqghwdckbblcfuamjmffuvpe
twohsrfiveblackdevzninegtwof
2hsr5blackdevz9g2f
Code #2
Observations
Numbers, letters and symbols, all in pairs. 24 of them.
[hint]Think of a cipher that uses 3 type of characters and has to be divisible by 4 to make it work good.
[/hint]
Spoiler
The fact that the numbers fall in the decimal to Ascii range can’t be coincidence. Then looking at the letters, they range from a to j or 0 to 9. Symbols can also be converted to numbers. Everything is pointing to a decimal to Ascii conversion.
Start by making pairs
79 71 *$ fe 89 84 82 *$ ^% 87 fd &% ^& fa fh ej ^^ 71 81 ei ^* &$ ^* ei
Convert everything to numbers, a=0 and symbols convert to their number position on the keyboard
79 71 84 54 89 84 82 84 65 87 53 75 67 50 57 49 66 71 81 48 68 74 68 48
Convert decimal to Ascii
OGT6YTRTAW5KC291BGQ0DJD0
Remember that strings starting with N or O can be Base64 to Ascii. Now we need to know which are lowercase and uppercase. From the original string, whatever was a pair of symbols needs to be converted to lowercase
79 71 *$ fe 89 84 82 *$ ^% 87 fd &% ^& fa fh ej ^^ 71 81 ei ^* &$ ^* ei
O G t 6 Y T R t a W 5 k c 2 9 1 b G Q 0 d j d 0
OGt6YTRtaW5kc291bGQ0djd0
Convert Base64 to Ascii
8kza4mindsould4v7t
Need a substitution for Mind Soul, it usually is Body Mind Soul.
8kza4bodyd4v7t
Code #3
Observations
All numbers, nothing really stands out.
[hint]If you are thinking numbers to letters, you are on the right path. Just with a different twist.
[/hint]
Spoiler
Niantic used a common cipher but with a different approach to make it a bit more harder to solve.
I first started by making pairs
05 08 06 02 18 07 01 04 00 00 00 13 08 00 04 00 03 12 07 01 11 04 01 06 00 00 02 11 01 23 12 00 04 09 05 03 14 07 06 12 03 05 06 03
Seeing that 05 08 at the beginning I thought numbers to letters (a=0)
FIGCSHBEAAANIAEADMHBLEBGAACLBXMAEJFDOHGMDFGD
That just didn’t make any sense and was way to long to convert to a code.
I then started playing with different ways of grouping the numbers. Groups of 4 gave me 22 groups which could lead to a code if numbers are spelled.
0508 0602 1807 0104 0000 0013 0800 0400 0312 0701 1104 0106 0000 0211 0123 1200 0409 0503 1407 0612 0305 0603
My first instinct was to just add up the numbers in each groups (0508=0+5+0+8=13). Seemed good since the first two set gave 13 & 8 which gave NI. But the rest just didn’t make sense.
Then I started adding pairs in each groups of 4 (0508=05 + 08=13) and got
13 8 25 5 0 13 8 4 15 8 15 7 0 13 24 12 13 8 21 18 8 9
Convert numbers to letters (a=0)
NIZFANIEPIPHANYMNIVSIJ
9zfa9epiphanym9v6j
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