I thought maybe PNG had something that could store additional text information about the image in it where the puzzle's solution could have been saved, but I haven't found anything like that. Other than that, the only thing PNG does (that I'm aware of) is store the image data lossless, so I don't know how that could be a puzzle.
Well switching the image from JPG to PNG could mean a lot of things but the most obvious is that you had changed the background or added the image of the head to the background. I am stumped. I don't know enough about photoshop or image editing....if that is what the riddle is??
As for the cartoons....... wtf???? Can't see a link between the two?
Steve... Why might that be significant? :D
(Officially the last hint. I'll say the answer tonight. :) )
Hmmm, if there was something in very fine detail that you needed to make sure didn't get lost in compression you might use PNG.
Oookey dokey. It is indeed 'tonight' now. :)
First, I'll explain the puzzle. And then, I'll say the answer.
Steve was right. The key was in the fact that, while although JPG is "lossy", PNG is "lossless".
(Nerd Alert! Skip this part if you aren't interested!)
JPEG (the most common digital photo format) can achieve such small file sizes because it actually discards some visual information that isn't likely to be missed. This means that it uses a form of 'compression' that's 'lossy' (because it loses some of the details, however small).
This is similar to how an MP3 works. CDs hold a lot of information that you'd probably never notice, so the algorithm eliminates the stuff that you probably won't miss (or even be able to hear).
On the other hand, PNG is "lossless". This means that absolutely all information in the picture (ie. the precise colour of absolutely every pixel) is saved. This is akin to a .ZIP file (because if you were to compress, say, text files, you wouldn't want it to drop some of that information, right?).
The only reason to switch from JPG to PNG would be if I were going to introduce some form of information that might be lost in the JPEG compression algorithm.
(Nerd Alert on the Nerd Alert! Even more Geek-Stuff!)
24-bit colour works by allocating 8 bits to the red channel, 8 bits to the green channel, and 8 bits to the blue channel. This means that all three channels can have any of 256 different intensities, for each pixel.
However, if, say, the red component of a pixel were 212 instead of 213, your eye likely wouldn't distinguish the difference. Similarly, if the blue in a sky had 244 instead of 245, you'd never know anything was wrong.
Since that last bit (the "least significant" bit) only affects whether the channel intensity is even or odd, you could change that last bit to 0 for all channels of all pixels and never notice the difference.
What's the significance of this? Well, if that last bit per channel isn't really necessary for the image, then you can, instead, use them to store information.
This is a concept known as Steganography (hiding information without a casual observer being able to tell there's anything peculiar at all).
So, how does it work?
Take some ASCII text (plaintext), and break it up into the individual bits (so now, instead of a message of, say, 30 characters, you'd have 240 individual bits).
Strip off the last bits of each colour component of each pixel, and set that least-significant bit to the next bit to be encoded (in other words, with three channels per pixel, you could store those 240 bits in 80 pixels).
For these particular pictures, the first few encoded bits (32 if I recall correctly) actually go towards constructing an integer that says how long the message is. The next several bits form the actual message:
Wow! You're really a cleverface! You actually figured out steganography!
Impresserative!
Oh right! You need some single word or phrase to use as the 'answer', right? No problemo!
Ahem.
Here's a riddle for ya:
What gets wetter as it dries?
(And, seriously, if you could figure out steganography, but CAN'T figure this riddle out... uh... let's just say that I'm assuming you can get it!)
So, the answer is: a towel.
What? None of you got that? :D
Oh, and in case anyone was wondering...
No, I didn't encode the message by hand. That'd be tricky and a pain in the butt (I used a program instead). :)
And no, I didn't write the program just to put up a puzzle here. I originally did steganography for a fourth-year project when I was getting my BSc. A few years later, a friend needed an easy-to-use version he could use for a presentation, so I wrote a nice Java version for him, which I still have on a computer.
(I've even used it to hide pictures and other files within pictures, by first converting the files into text via tools that come with most varieties of linux. Yeah. I know. I'm very very very easily amused.)
==============================================================================
==888====888====888======888====888===========888==========8888888888888888===
=888====888====888=======888====888==========88=88================88==========
==888====888====888======888====888=========88===88===============88==========
===888===888====888======8888888888========888888888==============88==========
====888==888===888=======888====888=======88=======88=============88==========
=====888=888==888========888====888======88=========88============88==========
======8888888888=========888====888=====88===========88===========88==========
==============================================================================
I seem to recall pointing out in advance that it was highly unlikely that anyone would get it. When I said I only knew a few people that could, what I meant was only a couple friends (with PHds in computer science) and another friend (who's currently getting his PHd). :D
To be fair though, Steve was bloody close.
He was able to discern that I was using a lossless-compressed image format for the sake of retaining very fine details. That's actually not too far from outright figuring it out. I have to think he would've gotten it in another day or two.
Yeah I knew you were hiding some sort of information in that pic but I had neither the time or knowledge of that kind of information hiding to be able to do that. Funny in my first post I said it was like valves puzzles http://kotaku.com/5484157/valves-portal-puzzle-so-far-the-files-recovered-from-aperture-science kinda crule puzzle there. Maybe next time we can have a puzzle that does depend on specific knowledge on a subject that almost no on has here except for you :P
i asked my dad what the diff between jpeg and png. he said you dont loose any information with png. so i zoomed in a lot and scaned all the pixles but diddnt find anything, sort of. i saw a few letters but thats it no phrase or anything. can you tell us where the phrase is (in simple form)
That's pretty sneaky there Earl. I doubt I would have figured it out. It's pretty tough going from "Here's a puzzle. Figure it out." to steganography. I thought maybe you did some visual pixel manipulations that spelled out a message, and for a casual puzzle that could have been anything in the whole world, I probably wouldn't have gone into full on crypto-analysis. :D
tman, I think he's saying the solution cannot be found visually. You would need a program that could loop through each pixel, strip off the last bit of data, string together all of those bits, convert them into ascii characters and then you'd have your solution. I really don't know how I would have thought to try that unless I google searched "hiding information in images" more deeply and stumbled onto steganography on wiki or something. There's so many ways to encrypt data I'm not sure how I would have arrived at the method Earl used.
I'm assuming there's tons of different ways to hide info in an image at that level, right Earl?
Goota say Earl, I appreciate the riddle but it was almost impossible.
Another riddle that most people would have a fighting chance of getting would be better. I feel a little cheated ;P
It's true, Steve. There are a lot of different ways to hide information in an image, including some that work on JPEGs. The kicker? The one I chose was the easiest to figure out. :D
(It's actually common for the information to be encrypted before being blended in, for example)
I'll see if I can think of anything mullet. But the next thing that comes to mind... well, it's easier, but not much. :)
i figured you'd put it in the programming itself. I was going to look at the source for the page before i realized i didn't know how to do that in google chrome.
I didn't see this forum until now. When I started reading, I thought that you might have hidden something in the picture, that would get lost in a JPEG, but as I've never heard of stenography, I wouldn't have a change of actually solving it.
If you want another hard puzzle, I've got one:
42
This is the answer to the puzzle, your job is finding the question.
But how can that be 42? What is the exact question that makes it make sense that the meaning of life, the universe and everything is 42?
But how can that be 42? What is the exact question that makes it make sense that the meaning of life, the universe and everything is 42?
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