Wednesday, May 05, 2021
The unmasking of a numbers station
It only took a little over fourteen years but finally someone wrote to me about my numbers station on the web.
- From
- XXXXXXXXXXXXX
- To
- rparker@numbersstation.info, sean@conman.org
- Subject
- Re: Leaderboard
- Date
- Thu, 06 May 2021 00:48:42 +0100
Hello, Sean,
I'm not sure how your mail server is set up for "rparker", but I've successfully found your main page, so I'll copy the message I've sent to this fictional character :)
On 2021-05-05 18:30, jonn@doma.dev wrote:
Hello, rparker!
Learned from numbersstation from SMOG mag [This is a now defunct on-line zine and referenced the Gemini version of the site. –Sean].Only today figured I should check out the HTTP version and got some hints like the fact that it _is_ a challenge (thanks for "mystery" keyword!), this E-Mail address and COORDINATES!
I wonder how many people have reached out to you with the answer to the mystery, are there more puzzles to come and if so, is there some sort of leaderboard?
Great job, BTW, interesting stuff right there. I tried to make my own ARG some ten years ago, but it didn't go way past stegging a torrent file into a PNG.
…
Looking forward to your response,
kindest regards,
jonn.
I don't want to give away any clues,
but the coordinates spoken of in the web page are not part of the puzzle—they just point to some random spot in Boca Raton
(and I've changed them to point less randomly at Boca Raton).
The email address rparker@numbersstation.info was picked to mask my identity
(and was an intentional choice,
that's all I'll say about that).
And aside from that one post fourteen years ago,
it is also listed on my projects page,
so it's not like it was completely hidden.
Now I'm just curious if anyone can decode the message.
