Another picture puzzle question....

Posted: Thu Mar 11, 2010 9:14 pm

So, I haven't really seen too many of this type around Wisconsin, but over in the Cities, there seem to be quite a few picture puzzles with various photos that supposedly represent the coordinates. After reading the other thread, the idea of "stegonography" got my attention. I read a wikipedia entry about it, but don't understand how I would go about looking at some of these to see if that's what's going on.

What's the trick here? Thanks.

WGA Member Joined: 2006-12-23 Posts: 5951

Heya, anyone in particular? Not that I'll be able to solve it but I might get lucky...

WGA Member Joined: 2007-11-26 Posts: 3258

The trick is really not "looking" at it, you need to decode the picture. Basically coordinates are hidden in the picture code. You can use a steg detect program of sorts. It's a little beyond my pay grade but I'm guessing the more graphically-computer inclined on these boards can chime in.

Posted: Thu Mar 11, 2010 9:48 pm

I was afraid it was something outside my skill set and budget for caching. No Mike, none in particular. There are just bunches of puzzles like this around the metro, especially the western burbs. pfalstad has quite a few of these, but he's not the only one. Since my family lives up thataway, we get up often enough that it's worth the trouble to solve some stuff.

Just probably not any of these.

Posted: Thu Mar 11, 2010 10:38 pm

Aw, c'mon. Now we have to go look.

Posted: Thu Mar 11, 2010 10:47 pm

Here's sometihng I learned, and I'm will to bet that you have a tool on your computer. Try opening the picture with you notepad. the coords could be imbeded somewhere in the code. Near the top.

Posted: Fri Mar 12, 2010 6:29 am

Download the photo onto your computer. Then use a photo editting program to open the photo. Zoom in, zoom in, zoom in .... and look around.

WGA Member Joined: 2007-11-26 Posts: 3258

That will work for only the more basic image puzzles, which these may in fact be, which is essentially a replication of physical steganography techniques (i.e., done to an actual picture).

For computer-stegged images, you have to get to the code. For instance, you could add visually indetectible watermarks; embed coordinates in an unused/unread portion of the image code; or even change individual pixels of the picture to map them to alphabetic characters. You can use a program like stegdetect which works on a whole bunch of different types of methods. I have not done much with it though.

If you're lucky it will be the first way, and you might be able to tell this by how many people have solved it!

Posted: Fri Mar 12, 2010 10:36 am

I looked at downloading the stegdetect program last night from the brothersoft site. Checking online reports, both norton and mcafee claimed it to be safe. However, when I went to actually download it, my norton gave me the red light sign and I quit.

Anyone have problems from that site?

WGA Member Joined: 2007-11-26 Posts: 3258

I haven't gotten that error.