Oh, I know how not to be a troll
"Count, the number of flames, there is hidden, she hid, it must be, there is no other solution, only flames, any other solution is bad"
Now it fits and I'm not a troll anymore?
Every normal person will think twice about what they count at all and if their puzzles are worth it
100% troll confirmed. The flames are the only entropic data that can encode anything meaningful. Since it's the last piece, it is unlikely it would lead yet to another piece via some encoded URL. There must be an actual key in here.
Let's play a logic game on the whole creation process:
1) Artist with a friend start making the final puzzle. They decide an oil paint is the best way to go.
2) Artist/friend likes Shakespeare poems, one about the
"The Phoenix and The Turtle" gets selected.
3) For unknown reason yet, Yari Shogi 7x9 chessboard gets selected to the the internal background.
4) Artist select target size for the painting to be "
18" x 24" and 21" x 27" with the frame". Note: All dimensions are divisible by 3 into 6x8 & 7x9.
5) As a connection the the poem, internals of the painting contain Turtledove, Phoenix and fire (among other things).
6) The previous piece was titled "
WHIT3R4BBI7, hence the artist aligns the actors to look like a rabbit when the painting is flipped 90'. Possibly to indicate a proper orientation that somehow is more useful when decoding (
). - Or simply as a connection to earlier piece(s) - we were "following the white rabbit" and now we have it (the final piece).
7) The Key - here we have several options but before exploring them lets get one thing clear: It will be random. It will not be a repeated string of "I LIKE PANCAKES", even after doing a couple of SHA256 rounds on it. The public key contains a non-random part, which had to be brute-forced. This can only happen if the input data, whatever it was, had enough randomity to support such eventual result. For example "I LIKE PANCAKES"+7random-bruteforced-bytes or "I LIKE PANCAKES" hashed somewhere between 0..4503599627370495 times.
a) 256bits -> Vanitygen was used. To get 1FLAMEN6 key, so (assuming the N6 was not a happy-accident), the author had to go through around 4503599627370495 private keys (random 256bits). Those bits would be difficult to encode on the painting.
b) 173-176bits -> Custom vanity-gen like tool was used. Such bit size might ring a bell to some - it is related to a length requirement of a mini-privatekey. In this case, authors of the puzzle make 2 tools - first one generates random 30-base58 char string, hashes it with '?' added and if the first byte of its sha256 is NULL (should happen about 1 in 255 times), rehashes the minikey alone and writes the 256bit-hash to a file/pipe/socket/whatever. Second tool constantly polls the file/pipe/etc for fresh 256bits of data, and converts it to a public key. If the key starts with "1FLAMEN6", saves the input/output & quits. Since the 2nd tool is the bottleneck (private->public conversion is slower than SHA256*257), and is basically same in speed as regular vanitygen, whole generation process of minikey like that would take about same time as in option A above.
c) any number of bits -> authors decide to make either fully random or keyword+random data that i supposed to be sha256-hashed to get 256bits private key. Optionally, it could be "
Yari Shogi, The Phoenix and The Turtle" sha256-hashed N-times, where N number (at least 7bytes, so 7*8=56bits) is encoded somewhere on the painting, it would be crazy I know, but its not impossible (there is almost 0% chance that they did it:).
d) 296/304bits -> Variation of the A but with compliant WIF-formatting being added (so we could verify the bits, would be cool...). It is basically 296bits:[0x80][256bitsprivatekey][32bits sha256-sha256-cut] or 304bits:[0x80][256bitsprivatekey][01][32bits sha256-sha256-cut].
Next, having bits set, the Artist begins painting. Still unsure about the final encoding, she paints about 200 orange/white flames all around the central art.
9) Meanwhile, the friend finishes the mangled bit layout and encodes it into 152 flames and a marker (fully-red flame at the bottom?).
10) The encoding needed several extra values:
a) 6 ribbons (6bits, either 011 010 or 011 100 or 100 101 or 100 011)
b) 5 spikes on Phoenix head (5bits, either 11110, so 30 in decimal (length of a minikey?))
c) 7 x 9 board
d) 3 either as rabbits tale or spikes of a melting Bishop
e) 8 light rays coming out of the lock (indicating 6bit encoding of 8bits (byte)?)
f) 17 leafs (1+7=8?)
g) 152 flames:
50+28 red flames
48+26 yellow flames
51+24 green flames
47+30 blue flames
35+24 short flames
63+30 long flames
~41 "dull" orange/white flames
(bonus values): 347, 18, 24, 21, 27
11) The artist begins the flame-paintwork. She had painted 200 flames but only 152 are needed, hence a bit over 40 are left "untouched". The 152-data-carrier-flames are clearly painted-over the original orange+white flames.
a) Pro Inner to outer theory: I assume she didn't want to inner side look dull, hence every flame was painted-over. Next, when she moved to the outer-side, she more or less tried to leave equal number of unused flames on all outer-sides (about left=15,bottom=10,right=10,top=6). I assume she continued painting from the left side. Perhaps overshot the count initially (by skipping too many, 15), she later did 10 twice and finally only 6 at the top.
b) Pro Outer to Inner theory: The Artist knew that the inner side has 98flames, so she left them for later. The paint-work was actually started from the outer top, she knew 152-98=54 flames had to be put on the outer side, so she left 6 flames on the outer top side, then 10 for right and bottom, finally being left with 15, had no other option but make the left-outer side the must dull, with 15 dull-flames against only 8-data carriers.
The encoding1) The painting was titled "Torched H34r7s" (Torched Hearts). Logical conclusion is that we have 152 hearts on fire (?).
2) It is unknown at the time how is Yari Shogi board related to the encoding. Perhaps value (1A) encoded on the ribbons is somehow a "tip" hot to number the board? (personally I don't buy this idea)
3) The key contains 6 ribbons encoding 6 bits. 8 rays leave the keyhole. Logical conclusion is that 6bit chunks will encode 8 bit stream? Or perhaps these 6 bits will somehow "unlock" the data and the 8-rays are irrelevant?
4) The Turtledove, Phoenix were supposed to target players into the
"The Phoenix and The Turtle" poem. Since players kind of failed, The Artist tweeted a verse from it. Now, the Shakespearean-English is a regular English, but due to some words being replaced or having their meanings changed of the 400+ years, I recommend using this "translation":
https://web.archive.org/web/20140405053414/http://www.geocities.com/athens/troy/4081/PhoenixandtheTurtle.html a) "The poem tells the story of a variety of birds assembling to mourn the passing of the deceased Phoenix and Turtle (Turtle-Dove)"
b)
"Love and Constancy is deceased" + "The Phoenix and the Turtle-Dove have left us" - implying Love=The Phoenix, Constancy=Turtle-Dove.
c)
Therefore they loved inasmuch as the love in two beings
Had the substance and nature compounded into only one;
Two separate birds, but inseparable and indistinguishable;
Combined as one in love so extinguishing their separate selves.
- implying Turtle-Dove(Constancy=constant?)+The Phoenix = New Bird. Flamebit+constant=goodbit? FlameBit+PatternedFlameBit=goodbit?
d)
Their hearts were separate, but not divided;
No range nor gap was there
Between the hearts of the Dove and his Phoenix;
However, their combination was a miracle.
Consequently, the principle of Personality was dismayed,
- "No range nor gap was there Between the hearts" = No gap between the flames? Read by pairs of 2-combined flames (hearts) unless there is a gap?
e)
By seeing what was separated, now develop as one,
They joined together without remaining as two separate entities;
Two straight-forward beings were made so much better by their bonding;
- what we already know 1+1=1. So either 2bits into 1 or 2 flames into 1.
5) The 152 flames are encoding 3 bits-each. Height (H), Inner Color (I), Outer Color (O). We do not know the order on how to read those.
a) do we read in one of 6 permutations of HIO? (HOI HIO OHI OIH IHO IOH)
b) do we first read all of H, then O then I? In one of 6 order-permutations?
6) If we count flames from 1..152, every uneven-flame (if starting from inner-top) or even-flame (if we start from outer top) encodes a pattern via its Height. For both start-location cases, pattern is 011 and is consistent from start to end. 011 is also encoded in the first 3 flames, 3 times in inner top and on the key-ribbons.
7) The painting has swirly-squares on the corners, implying QR-related content. Assuming at least 32bytes (256) bits data package, a QR of 25x25 (version2) with ECC Level L would have to be used. ZigZag readding pattern and/or occasional bits skipped (for ECC) might be a way to read this.
Bonus Trophy: While decoding the Long-flames (93*2=186 bits) I've found that if you mask the 186 bits with "0 011 010" you will end up with 176 bits of data that encodes to a proper minikey
SdY53vYvfLhPvGJYLmR5Wc5R438kme -> Sha256 = 006a89e0558a946647190b8cccdd873745dd4e44228e55b2196020a10dd1e79c bitmask(0011010) - heart attack confirmed, but it does not resolve to 1FLAMEN6 of course
