Arg and myself have stepped back fully, rolled out all "known" facts, all hints, discussed what's been solved, hints burnt and what we have left.
I think I speak for arg and myself here: We're stumped.
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1. We have one wow.jpg that used to be a tiff. It doesn’t open as a tiff anymore, saved as a jpeg.
2. Inside the jpg it holds some xmp data
3. It seemingly corresponds with the image. Although not 100%
4. Made with photoshop elements, not photoshop as the originals were.
5. There is only two points of change in the image. The title which was replaced with the original text and a 51 char string and the first header which was moved up a few pixels.
6. We have 6EQUJ5 / 6 / 6 / 5 / 7, which is from the OG but still a possible data point
7. 6EQUJ5 was the password to it’s container though, I don’t think it’s going to be used twice
8. The file was, again, dated to 1980. Aug 15 1977 or 05 15 1977
9. Everything so far has been double sha and that still remains as a hint
10. We have two unsolved/unrelated hints. "wow + crops" and one youtube video of the final countdown acted out in dance central by "AverageAsianDude".
11. And finally the portrait that hasn’t been used since the beginning. It was labeled as a starting point, so discountable.
EDIT:
12. Original wow.jpg was edited 5 times in Photoshop Elements. Previous hints/images were worked on in Photoshop.
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tl;dr We're stuck with no clear direction or goal. Other than solve the puzzle and high five our now infinite free time.
I'll add any hints you guys tell me I've forgotten. Also, that list was taken from our discussion earlier. It might contain typos, factual inaccuracies and/or pony gifs.
https://i.imgur.com/9JExi4m.gif
