Cipher cracking - Help a retard out

[SimplyScrumptious]

We’ve been given some numbers, and clues that led to a book.
However no one can figure out what to do with the numbers.

These are the numbers
241771711711732358
18510611831964731
112484111131722816
43715114714383161
64621103215111137

Spoiler: Pic

We have been given no clues as to how long the phrase is. No clues as to how to break up the numbers, or if there’s capital letters, spaces, symbols, or if all characters count or only letters.

We are assuming the deciphered phrase or word will be Goat themed.

i have tried a lot of possible combinations but only a few are successful.
Line-Word (1-2)
Chapter-Word (1-2)
Letter (3) & letter including spaces.
No one knows if garbled letters are correct and we then need to decipher them. We don’t know if the layout of the numbers is important.

Any advice from some smart people would be appreciated.

Here is the book
Amazon
Amazon preview

I have the full version via Scribd but my Adblock seems to bypass the login/subscription needed so I don’t think this will work for others Full book Might not work. There’s probably a google doc upload floating around but I don’t have that link since I don’t use Discord.

 

[Ultrapenguin]

I don't understand the context of this, but if whoever is making it wants it to be solved in the future they should consider using sources that are public domain rather than making it so that people have to buy a book about goats or find an uploaded copy to solve it, since even with adblock I can't read the book you're linking to check any of my suspicions.

Unless whatever you're supposed to be looking for isn't even in the book itself.

 

[W'rkncacnter]

There's definitely something fishy with the amount of 1s in this sequence, compared to other numbers, 1 appears far more often.
Here's a breakdown of the amount of numbers.

0	3
1	29
2	10
3	9
4	7
5	6
6	7
7	10
8	5
9	3

The amount of digits per line isn't consistent so perhaps the layout isn't too important. There's 18 in line 1 and 3 and 17 in the other lines.

I'm unfortunately very busy at the moment but I'll give this a proper look later tonight.

 

[We Are The Witches]

Is this you?


How about this cipher? You have matching info about being a british married woman, with an abusive brother, disabled, and mentions on Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (EDs).

Spoiler: Panel

Some stuff you said is somewhat ironic if it's you; I'm not going to continue with this.

 

[SimplyScrumptious]

I don't understand the context of this, but if whoever is making it wants it to be solved in the future they should consider using sources that are public domain rather than making it so that people have to buy a book about goats or find an uploaded copy to solve it, since even with adblock I can't read the book you're linking to check any of my suspicions.

Unless whatever you're supposed to be looking for isn't even in the book itself.

That’s what I was thinking. Either the preview is sufficient or it’s literally something in the cover or the Amazon page. Makes it fair since everyone can access the same text yaknow?

Is this you?
View attachment 7095697

How about this cipher? You have matching info about being a british married woman, with an abusive brother, disabled, and mentions on Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (EDs).

Spoiler: Panel

View attachment 7095698

Some stuff you said is somewhat ironic if it's you; I'm not going to continue with this.

no ma’am, it’s not me. That’s fucking funny though.

There's definitely something fishy with the amount of 1s in this sequence, compared to other numbers, 1 appears far more often.
Here's a breakdown of the amount of numbers.

0	3
1	29
2	10
3	9
4	7
5	6
6	7
7	10
8	5
9	3

The amount of digits per line isn't consistent so perhaps the layout isn't too important. There's 18 in line 1 and 3 and 17 in the other lines.

I'm unfortunately very busy at the moment but I'll give this a proper look later tonight.

Yeah the frequency made us all scratch our heads a bit.

 

[Varis]

Spoiler: Pic

The only time I've seen a box of seemingly random numbers like this was when one was used as a clue for a Caesar cipher. The most frequent number (in this case 1) ended up being the number of rotations you had to make.

 

[SimplyScrumptious]

Little update
I’m just stumped.
I’ve played about with more ideas and they’ve pretty much all led nowhere.
Unequal number groups fails about halfway through. It doesn’t help that many pages are invalid as there is either no text, or just a labelled diagram with no layout consistency.
Invalid pages- up to 9 book intro and contents), 16, 19, 26, 40, 56, 59, 70, 84, 94, 102, 116, 120, 130, 142, 145, 146, 150-160.

After rereading I pulled out 3 potential key words but now it’s figuring out how exactly to use them. It could even just be a fucking phrase, but then what’s the point of the numbers? My brain hurts. I’m not going to pretend I’m a code master or a number wizard.

Also: Chatbotgpt is pretty stumped too, so good luck if you try to use it. You’ll end up in circles.

I’m hoping tomorrow the clue released is actually helpful. I’m thinking that it’s less participant retardation and more poor thinking from the coordinators.

At this point I’m fed up. My UK smart friends, here’s the competition. Note I didn’t ask for the answer, just potential ideas for how I could solve it.

Who knows, maybe you’ll win the £1k!
Comp entry

Spoiler: Clues

These were posted in the discord, I’m not in it but I’m pretty sure it’s just others struggling in the same way. Sorry for the poor quality, they’re screenshots of a screenshot. The discord is easy to find if you wanted to access it. There should be a GoogleDocs copy of the book on there that someone uploaded. The Amazon link and preview link is in the thread.


Clue 2 is a video, it had the phrase “Get Your Goat”

Note the “outside” phrasing here.

It is hard to see, but the book is visible.


This one I couldn’t figure out. Scan Brian head mouse? 4 heads? 4H is an organisation mentioned in the book but this would basically take me to other books. I played about with the numbers a bit with no results. This was posted on Tuesday March 11th, if the phrasing is relevant “today is the day”??


They got pissed off at this point.


Clue 6 I don’t have, but it was the Sneak mascot opening the book to a page that isn’t visible, then nodding.

So that’s everything for now. Hopefully one of you is smart, cos apparently no one else involved is.

I’ll be fiddling with numbers in desperation through the day as ideas hit.

 

[Varis]

Four brains. For brains? Since goats and brains seem to be two key words in the advertisement video, is there something in the book about goat brains?

Edit: another thought about the cipher. 0 is always preceded by 1.

 

[SimplyScrumptious]

Four brains. For brains? Since goats and brains seem to be two key words in the advertisement video, is there something in the book about goat brains?

Edit: another thought about the cipher. 0 is always preceded by 1.

There is a part called “Goat Psychology”, this was pretty much the only part that is very specifically about brains.



I tried the keywords I had, going to try a shift with them later. I’m tired lol.
I’ve been using this website to help since I’m very unsure about how a lot of ciphers work.
CacheSleuth

My brother in law is also having a go at this with the same lack of results, meeting the same frustrations as I am.

Is there a way I can upload bulk screenshots? Maybe it’s on an archive site.
Bingo! Archive.org

 

[Varis]

I tried a cipher identifier out of curiosity, and now I think the passkey has been encrypted with both A1Z26 cipher (letters into numbers) and a mono-alphabetic subsitution cipher (letters into different letters). I wouldn't be surprised if there were 4 ciphers in total, though I have no idea what the last two could be.

There are two instances of 1111 in the code. They might indicate two of the same letter, like LL or SS.

Edit: ESL

 

[SimplyScrumptious]

I tried a cipher identifier out of curiosity, and now I think the passkey has been encrypted with both A1Z26 cipher (letters into numbers) and a mono-alphabetic subsitution cipher (letters into different letters). I wouldn't be surprised if there were 4 ciphers in total, though I have no idea what the last two could be.

There are two instances of 1111 in the code. They might indicate two of the same letter, like LL or SS.

Edit: ESL

New clue for the day!
They’ve realised we’re all retarded, or their puzzle maker sucks, and gave us the layout.
I now have 2 sets of letters/phrases. AND they fucking make some sense!




I’m leaning more towards the phrases needing to be rearranged correctly.
I skimmed through the book to see if there was a chapter or something that included all the words with no luck.

 

[Varis]

Well, I'm stumped. None of my theories work after this clue.

Do the numbers denote a page and a word on the page? Eg. page 111, 37th word?

 

[SimplyScrumptious]

Well, I'm stumped. None of my theories work after this clue.

Do the numbers denote a page and a word on the page? Eg. page 111, 37th word?

Oh my fucking god, today’s clue was the one.
And the answer was far simpler than I, and presumably others, thought.
There’s me fucking around with scrambled lines of gibberish letters, desperately finding words that fit the theme and pattern. Trying ciphers, rearranging those letters. Checking and rechecking all my theories.

Turns out one of the few chapters I didn’t work through individually was the fucking one. It literally needed one page. Page 41, Chapter 4. Every other page I attempted the basic Line-Word-letter method failed so I had pretty much given up on this approach, with the only reliable method be being chapter-X/chapter-Y.

I overcomplicated it, definitely should not have needed so many hours of failure.

Todays clue was just pleading, How do you all suck this bad?


And that mystery clue with the brain scan, Brian cox, big head, and mouse? 4 in one image- four one. Fourty fucking one.


Thanks for coming to my TED talk on how to be an overthinking retard who manages to complicate really simple tasks. Pity I didn’t win £1k, I was minutes behind.

I’m relieved it’s over tbh.

 

[Varis]

Huh, I've never heard of a book cipher. Pretty cool. Thanks for sharing and sorry we couldn't help you to win.

 

[SimplyScrumptious]

Huh, I've never heard of a book cipher. Pretty cool. Thanks for sharing and sorry we couldn't help you to win.

It’s a pretty neat cipher, so simple and if you don’t know the rules it’s incredibly time consuming to crack. One of my earliest thoughts was that it was a book cipher, and I tried grouping the numbers in 3s and applying them to the Bible, and to the Lord of the rings (I was going along the greatest of all time theme). Obviously nothing I tried yielded actual coherent results: although I did get excited when I saw “wheel” as the first 5 letters.

Funnily, one of the words used in the password was one I picked up on that was in the clue video: Brainergy.

Ciphers and codes are neat, but I think I’ll stick to watching smart people solve them