Feel free to post thoughts and comments to this thread. Collaboration is allowed, but I'm only going to mail the games to a single shipping address. That, of course, will be the shipping address supplied to me by the first user to PM me the correct answer to the puzzle.

Have fun.

Chances are I won't win, so I'm just wondering, what kind of puzzle is this even? I've never seen anything like this (I havn't even looked at any of the Tanga puzzles either).

I predict someone will solve this within one day.

First guess from nitromob -- but not the right answer.

Ah that was a complete and random obscure guess but i think i may see something in all these letters will try again once i get a probable answer.

If it helps here's the table of hex pairs in plain text. Below that I've also included the frequency each pair (assuming these are really hex pairs it's assumed the 8 is the pair 08). There are 67 unique pairs so it's probably safe to assume each pair simply represents a letter

Maybe you feed this data set into some finite state machine? Or it's a program in and of itself that is obfuscated (see http://www.answers.com/topic/obfuscator)?

Shave and a Haircut
6a b6 aa ee : ba ab aa d6 : a5 2a c6 a5
ae 9a d5 6c : 6d db 72 5c : b1 cd 94 a5
46 53 64 d5 : 8c 51 ae 55 : 36 55 95 54
d6 9c e5 30 : 65 49 4c d4 : ac c6 a3 66
5b 4c a5 6d : 4d 2b 56 64 : ca b3 55 29
6b 54 ad 95 : 93 53 5a d3 : 15 cd 19 2b
97 45 d5 b5 : 4c d9 6d 9d : 0a 11 24 84
c4 a4 89 2a : aa aa aa aa : aa aa 8

0a - 1
11 - 1
15 - 1
19 - 1
24 - 1
29 - 1
2a - 2
2b - 2
30 - 1
36 - 1
45 - 1
46 - 1
49 - 1
4c - 3
4d - 1
51 - 1
53 - 2
54 - 2
55 - 3
56 - 1
5a - 1
5b - 1
5c - 1
64 - 2
65 - 1
66 - 1
6a - 1
6b - 1
6c - 1
6d - 3
72 - 1
8 - 1
84 - 1
89 - 1
8c - 1
93 - 1
94 - 1
95 - 2
97 - 1
9a - 1
9c - 1
9d - 1
: - 16
a3 - 1
a4 - 1
a5 - 4
aa - 8
ab - 1
ac - 1
ad - 1
ae - 2
b1 - 1
b3 - 1
b5 - 1
b6 - 1
ba - 1
c4 - 1
c6 - 2
ca - 1
cd - 2
d3 - 1
d4 - 1
d5 - 3
d6 - 2
d9 - 1
db - 1
e5 - 1
ee - 1

I used a hex editor to make up an exe file with those hex pairs. (assuming the 8 at the end was 08)

No go, the .exe file didn't do anything when I ran it in a command prompt (so as not to miss any output).

Second Guess by Ninjabob -- but not the correct answer.

I doubt 8 is 08. 0a is included, so if it were 08, I would think it would be written that way. 67 letters? 62 would be the max, counting capital and lowercase separate and including 10 more for the digits.

I assume you ran it on an Intel processor?

Perhaps these hex codes are an executable to run on the old Western Electronics 29? 29W? Okay - I made that whole thing up. But the hex pairs (if they were an executable) would only run on certain machines.

Won't work, check the ascii table, the parts with letters are only the lower 128.

The pattern above is fairly evenly distributed throughout the entire 256



Yeah its on intel. I ran it in command prompt from windows XP. I've run dos .exe programs I've assembled before under a command prompt from XP. The simple stuff works fine that way. And this is pretty simple from the length. If it was an assembly program I'd expect it to output text or somethinig or similar.

And I can't imagine he'd require someone to boot from an actual dos prompt. I could if I have to, I have a number of dos versions around.

Some observations:

1) I don't think they're hex pairs -- it seems strange that not one of the pairs has an "F" in it. Perhaps they're base 15 (at least there are some "E"s).

2) The response to "Shave and a haircut" is "Two bits", which equates to 25 cents, but is also another computerese phrase. Hmmm.

3) What, if anything, is the significance of the "29w" in the light bulb of the barber pole? Is it 29 watts? Maybe the pairs are all in base 29?


This is a toughie. Good luck, all.

- Phil

My first thought was that the 29w is located in the part of the barber pole that would normally say 25c. Is there a decoding clue in 29w = 25c? This puzzle is beyond my skill and attention span.

It could be the hex (or base 15) numbers, the "Shave and a Haircut" phrase, and the image of a barbershop pole, all have nothing to do with the puzzle except to be a red herring.

It could be the puzzle is coded in what appears to simply be the introduction to the puzzle itself (ie. "Prepare to bang your head ... solve it?")

There is what also appears to be a clue "Rearranging things should help"... which could be the intro text, or maybe rearrange the letters in "Shave and a Haircut" to spell a word of another phrase?

Three more guesses were submitted by Altaira, Moviebuffs, and dsmeyer -- none of them the correct answer.


BTW, someone asked how many guesses they could make. I think, to be fair, no more than 1 guess per user per hour. (Any guesses submitted less than an hour from the previous one, by the same user, will be deleted).

Just as another though, those are in MAC address format.

There is also a subtle 0 1 2 and 3 in very light blue blocks in the background of the wall...

Ninjabob guesses again -- but it isn't the correct answer.

noddingoff submitted a guess -- but not the correct answer.

I somehow think we are overthinking this. I did lots of hex math and then tried to transfer over to letters of the alphabet, but came up with nothing that could make a word. If someone figures out the trick and wins the games of course it would be nice to say it so we don't all go crazy lol. I have an idea and will try it right now, and will get back on how it went.

I believe I don't have what it takes to solve this.
I don't have a copy of Bang!

Here's everything I've thought of...

djflippy and Mundane both entered guesses to the puzzle -- neither answer was the correct one.

May I suggest saving up who has submitted incorrect guesses and only giving us a wrapup of those once a day? I keep getting the "new post notifications"... unless you are hiding clues in these posts?

Sure. Sounds like a plan.