Solving Puzzle Caches: Codes

Introduction

To read the previous post on Solving Puzzle Caches, go to https://bcaching.wordpress.com/2008/08/05/puzzles-part-1/.

Common Codes and other Languages

Numbers can be expressed in many ways. Here are a few common ones:

• Morse Code: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morse_code
  0 = —–, 1 = •—-, 2 = ••—, 3 = •••–, …
• Greek numerals: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_numerals
  1 = αʹ, 2 = βʹ, 3 = γʹ, 4 = δʹ, 5 = εʹ, 6 =ϝʹ, ϛʹ or στʹ, …
• Roman numerals: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_numerals
  1 = I, 5 = V, 10 = X, 50 = L, 100 = C, 500 = D, 1000 = M
  
• Chinese numerals: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_numerals
  0 = 〇, 1 = 一, 2 = 二, 3 = 三, 4 = 四, 5 = 五, 6 = 六, …
• Mayan numeral symbols: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayan_numerals

If you want to see how many ways numbers are represented in a “few” different languages, check out the numbers from 1 to 10 in over 5000 languages here: http://www.zompist.com/numbers.shtml

Computer Codes

There are a variety of computer and Internet codes that are popular among puzzle cache hiders. If you’ve never seen a code before, it can be difficult to know where to start. The secret is to become familiar with different codes and know where to go to convert them to readable or “printable” text.

Printable text on computers is represented by numbers that are known as ASCII code. For a complete chart, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ascii#ASCII_printable_characters.

“0” = 48    , “1” = 49, “2” = 50, …, “9” = 57, “A” = 65, “B” = 66, “C” = 67, …, “Z” = 90

Other codes like Binary (Base 2), Octal (Base 8 ) and Hex (Base 16) are just alternate representations of those ASCII codes (which are listed in decimal / base 10 above)‏

Here is the same set of coordinates represented using several codes.

Printable Text

N 40 00.532 W 075 02.502

ASCII Codes in Decimal / Base 10

78;52;48;32;48;48;46;53;51;50;32;87;48;55;53;32;48;50;46;53;48;50

Binary / Base 2

The numbers 0 and 1 only – the native language of modern computers.

01001110 00100000 00110100 00110000 00100000 00110000
00110000 00101110 00110101 00110011 00110010 00100000
01010111 00100000 00110000 00110111 00110101 00100000
00110000 00110010 00101110 00110101 00110000 00110010

Octal / Base 8

The numbers 0 through 7

116040064060040060060056065063062040127040060067
065040060062056065060062

Hexadecimal / Base 16

Hex for short. The numbers 0 – 9 and also the letters A, B, C, D, E, and F

4E2034302030302E3533322057203037352030322E35303200

MIME / Base 64

Normally used to encode non-text data like pictures or file attachments to a text form that can be included in email. This includes the upper case letters A – Z, lower case letters a – z, the numbers 0 – 9, and the symbols “+” and “/”. The symbol “=” also sometimes appears at the end.

TiA0MCAwMC41MzIgVyAwNzUgMDIuNTAy

Encoder / Decoder Tools

There are many online and offline resources for converting between different formats. Here are a few that I use most:

• http://www.nickciske.com/tools/ for converting between text and binary, octal, or hex
• http://base64-encoder-online.waraxe.us/ for converting between text and base64
• http://www.motobit.com/util/base64-decoder-encoder.asp – another base64 converter but this will let you convert images or other non-text data and save as a file

What’s Next

The next post will discuss ciphers. Check it out here: https://bcaching.wordpress.com/2008/08/08/puzzles-part-3/

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Solving Puzzle Caches: Ciphers »