Dharma Secret’s LOST-n-Found: A Blog Dedicated to the T.V. Show Lost

Okay, here are instructions on how to find the number string if you don’t know about it yet.

Of all the explanations that I have read, and there are A LOT, this is the only one that I have found that makes sense. Thanks to this post, along with the help of some online decoders, I was able to duplicate the results.

Compliments of phn0rd from thetailsection.com:

Okay, everyone, listen up. I’m going to explain to you what the actually answer is, how to arrive at that answer, and why the post about ROT-18 is bs.

So, lets start with the numbers. Ever character stored on the computer is actually stored as a number - and that number represents that character. There is a table, called ASCII, which associates numbers with characters. For example, “a” is 97, “b” is 98, “A” is 65, “B” is 66, ” ” is 32, “.” is 46, and “1″ is 49.

Upon translating the numbers on http://persephone.thehansofoundation.org to characters via an ASCII table (or having a program do it for you), you arrive at the string “jbo ubs rsnf fv fveG 1 lnZ tub.SEG gn ov tbI”

After puzzling over this string for a while, you may notice that many of the words end in capital letters, leading to the conclusion that the string is in reverse. Reversing this string gets you “Ibt vo ng GES.but Znl 1 Gevf vf fnsr sbu obj”

jbo ubs rsnf fv fveG 1 lnZ tub.SEG gn ov tbI
becomes
Ibt vo ng GES.but Znl 1 Gevf vf fnsr sbu obj

At this point, it becomes somewhat obvious that this follows English grammar and formatting (capital letters at the beginning of words, spaces between words, and the. in the middle of a word probably representing a file of some kind), but the letters seemed to be substituted for other letters. This is called a substitution cypher.

The most common and easily crackable variant of a substitution cypher is a rotation cypher. This is when the alphabet is essentially “rotated” - if you were to rotate it by 1, a becomes b, b becomes c, etc.

The most commonly used rotation cypher is rot-13. The reason for this is when you rotate the alphabet by 13 characters (half-way across the 26 letters in the alphabet), rotating it by another 13 you will arrive back at the original letter. Therefore, a will be come m, and m will become a.

So, upon applying rot-13 to this string, we get “Vog ib at TRF.ohg May 1 Tris is safe foh bow”

This is starting to look promising, with words like May, is, safe, and at coming out. However, it is obvious that some letters still need more substitution applied to them. By pondering this for a while, we arrive at the conclusion: swap V’s and l’s, b’s and n’s, and r’s and h’s.

This brings us to the final string: “Log in at THF.org May 1 This is safe for now”

There is only one issue with this: May 1st has already passed. Many people have come up with arguments of different dates to substuite in for 1. The best argument I can find is as follows: ROT-13 works on a 26 character system of the alphabet because it shifts the characters half-way across the set. If you were to apply that concept to the 10 character system of decimal numbers, ROT-5 would translate characters half-way across, turning 1 into 6 and 6 into 1. Any other ROT would only work one-way: for example, ROT-4 turns 1 into 5, but 5 into 9.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
6 7 8 9 10 1 2 3 4 5

Therefore, if we apply this logic to the date of May 1, we arrive at May 6, making the string “Log in at THF.org May 6 This is safe for now”

Now, to show you why the ROT-18 is BS, take a look at what happens to the string when we apply ROT-18: “Atl ng fy YWK.tml Rfd 1 Ywnx nx xfkj ktm gtb” Not only are we left with a string of gibberish, but the 1 never changes to a 6.

One final note: I have reverse-engineered the Shockwave scripts on thehansofoundation.org, and have found that there is no login or password currently: no matter what you enter, you’ll can’t login. Therefore, I am led to believe that the May 1 date is inaccurate, and that they may update the site on May 6 to allow logins; that will remain to be seen tommorow.

The one thing that has been debated about this topic, is the validity of the date. After thinking this over a bit. It is possible that since there afre 26 letters in the alphabet, then the ROT13 cypher could be applied to the numbers 1-26. Using this formula, then that would make 1 = 14. Based on this could the actual date be May 14th?

Another theory as to the date mentioned in the message is that it is May 8th. By using a reverse number cypher, we get 1 = 8.

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0

UPDATE
Sometime during the late night of May 6th and the early morning of May 7th, a new set of numbers was loaded on to persephone.thehansofoundation.org.

By using the same ASCII cypher as before, we get: “HAS WIN HOST PC IN NIL URGE. 8, not 1 and 6.”

It is a common belief on many forums that “HAS WIN HOST PC IN NIL URGE.” is an anagram. Among the many anagrams suggested were:

Cenedra345 from the thetailsection.com: “LOGIN HUNCH WAS INEPT SIR. 8, not 1 and 6.” or
“SUN. CIPHER LOGIN HINT WAS 8, not 1 and 6.” SUN. being abbreviated Sunday? That would account for the periods as well.

From lostpodcast.proboards2.com:
CHRISTIAN HELPING US NOW. 8, not 1 and 6.

The common consensus however is that the actual message is: “SIGN IN WITH HANSO PR CLUE. 8, not 1 and 6.”

Many believe that the “PR clue” could refer to the word “miracle”, which is found on the WWPDP page.

Screen cap from the WWPDP page. If you move your cursor over the word “miracle” the cursor indicates that it is a link.

UPDATE: A new set of numbers were posted on May 16th. Using the same ASCII cypher as the previous messages, we get the decoded message: “Standby”.

UPDATE:
On May 18th, another set of numbers were posted on persephone.thehansofoundation.org.

By using a “Base 64″ Cypher, we get: amedoustesonehonotrelyonjleous

Compliments of psytor from 4815162342.com:

Anagram for: A mouse does not rely on just one hole.
Which is a phrase from the blast door map.

UPDATE:
On May 18th, another set of numbers were posted on persephone.thehansofoundation.org.

By using a “Base 64″ Cypher, we get: amedoustesonehonotrelyonjleous

Compliments of psytor from 4815162342.com:

Anagram for: A mouse does not rely on just one hole.
Which is a phrase from the blast door map.

UPDATE:
On May 20th, another set of numbers were posted on persephone.thehansofoundation.org.

This clue is the first numeric message which doesn’t involve decoding in some way. This clue is ment to be used in conjunction with Persephone’s previous message, “A mouse does not rely on just one hole”. By using the url, hole2.thehansofoundation.org, you will find the following picture.

an uncropped image can be viwed here

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