ArmA 3: new ARG - Things we know so far.

[JakeB]

What is an ARG?

ARG = Alternative Reality Game.

It's a game the devs put out which mimics real life, web pages owned by fake corporations and mysteries that the community has to solve. These are real webpages, for instance, but the names (ION inc, Tom Larkin etc) are from Arma. By cracking these webpages we can reveal information about Arma3, which the devs have sneakily hidden.

The ARG also has a story to it, the fake twitter accounts reveal the thoughts of characters in the game, and give us clues to the passwords and usernames we need to find.

BIS has a bit of a history with ARGs now, ever since the cache hunt in "Chernarus", actually an area in Czechoslovakia.


Right, this is an attempt to clear up and assimilate everything we know so far.

The beginnings:
Spoiler:

show spoiler

ArmA 3 gameserver spotted on: http://tools.poweredbygamespy.com/ma...mename=arma3pc


http://m26.node-42.rv4a3.org/, the hostname in the above screenshot, takes you to this page:



From the beginning:

[Site plays dialup sound, which gives everything an 80s feel]

The terminal heading clues:
Spoiler:

show spoiler

The number +302254093269 is Greek (+30 country code) and the tail part, 2254093269, is registered to a Taverna (a greek pub) on 'Stratis' - location here. The 2254 part is the Limnos area code.

Federal laws mentioned are the Atomic Energy Act and the Computer Fraud Act, respectively.

(WOPR) is a reference to a fictional supercomputer in the movie "WarGames" - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WOPR and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WarGames. "Joshua" is the backdoor password in the film. It's about an averted nuclear disaster, and both of the laws mentioned above would be relevant to it.

rv4a3 most likely refers to "real virtuality 4" (ArmA III's game engine) and "a3" to ArmA III itself.

rv4a3.org's domain registrar has been updated on whois, thanks to Nixxen for the tip-off. It is now registered by Embassy Freight NL. Now Jerry Hopper is shown as working for them on his LinkedIn profile, too.


M-26 refers to where the computer is supposed to be based - Mike-26 Air Force Base on Stratis - http://arma3blog.com/sites/default/f...p_overview.jpg
AMES1 is an early warning radar system - this ties in with the fact that Mike-26 is supposed to have an advanced radar facility.

Arma3.com's redacted info on Stratis says:

Limited access via bypassing login:
Spoiler:

show spoiler

Batto managed to get into it somehow, and posted this screenshot:

It references Jerry Hopper, and shows that there is a /home/melteme directory. "melteme" should be a user name, going by standard UNIX principles. "jerryhopper" could be another.
"melteme" is apparently the name of a wind: ""the bad tempered one": Northerly wind in the Aegean.", source: http://windlegends.org/windnames.htm
My thoughts are that Melteme could be a call sign for a member of TF Aegis.

Ion-Inc, FTP (possible dead-ends):
Spoiler:

show spoiler

Ion-Inc are the PMC company introduced in Arma 2's PMC DLC. They have their own site: http://www.ion-inc.com/ and the "client" tab requires login info. It's generally known that the villain from OFP is the username (guba) and his nickname (dentist) is the password. It's probable that nothing on the old Ion-Inc website is relevant.

The hostname mentioned above used to have FTP access, with one file/folder titled "OFPD". When saved and opened in a text editor it included:

drwxr-xr-x   2 ftp.ofpr.info ftp.ofpr.info     4096 Oct 20 11:32 .
drwxrwxr-x   3 ftp.ofpr.info ftp.ofpr.info     4096 Feb  2 21:41 ..

ofpr.info redirects to http://ofp.gamepark.cz/, which is hosted by jerry hopper (previously referenced in Batto's screenshot). ftp.ofpr.info is an ftp server with lots of stuff on it (take a look) and was apparently used in a previous ARG by BI.

As of the night of 24/02 the FTP server went down - everyone was abusing it as all had read/write access. It has now gone back up, and shows us the same contents as ftp.ofpr.info. I believe something on here must be important otherwise the link would not have gone back up.

SSH requires login details.

Oddities:
Spoiler:

show spoiler

User Verox found a new sub-domain, m26.node-42.rv4a3.org/stats - which also asks for login details.

An oddity in the page source of http://m26.node-42.rv4a3.org/ - a commented out line of code mentions "motyar.com". The site does not exist.

Does this mean anything to anyone?

The mission name (Molon Lave/Labe, Long/lat co-ords):
Spoiler:

show spoiler

The mission name

Is "MolonLave[39.465715,24.986258].Stratis" - these geo-coords take you to here:

- which is at the southern tip of Stratis. In game it looks like this:

- source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...ntAgEncI#t=81s

Molon Labe has historical significance, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molon_labe (v -> b transitions are quite usual in Latin/European languages)

The listed IP address:
Spoiler:

show spoiler

Back to the gamespy listing: it uses the IP address 82.173.160.150, which takes you to: http://82.173.160.150/login


In the page title is "SahraniRadio - Airtime" - Sahrani radio was operated by Jerry Hopper, was it not?

Note that the listed IP address is different to the hostname's actual IP address - which is 62.75.235.178 - I'm not sure why GameSpy is reporting a different one (other than to give us different clues).

A wiki for sharing clues can be found here:

https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/Arma3_ARG_2013

Some ground rules:

These games create a huge volume of posts, and after a while it is impossible for new users to get involved because the amount of reading is so vast. For this reason, please post only things you think will help solve the ARG. Conjecture about who is putting on the game, or for what reason the game was made, can be made elsewhere. Likewise, please be sure to read as much as you can before posting so you aren't covering ground we have already gone over.

Spam will not be tolerated and posts not directly related to solving the ARG will be deleted. People who spam also run the risk of having their permissions to participate in the thread revoked. You will be able to read it, but you will not be able to add to it. And, of course, the regular forum rules apply.

If you think you have been black listed, contact Max Power.

[[FRL]Myke]

Tried to merge the old thread into this one but chronological ordering broke it up. Sorry for the inconvenience.

[tremanarch]

im watching the movie wargames right now - maybe I can find some hints.

You know this reminds me of the book: Ready Player one very nice

in the book are more 80s reference names / passwords btw...

[KeefehB]

Nikos Sialmas monument, greek airforce officer who crashed in 1992. No idea if relevant.

[dale0404]

Got to love theses!!

[JakeB]

Thanks Keefeh, that helps clear up what that is!

What we really need here is Batto to tell us the login details, that way we can all have a try at the next stage of the ARG! Come on dude, I registered on this forum to join in with this, have a sense of community!

[batto]

Jake, I posted all I know already in last thread. But here's it again: http://i.imgur.com/pCZZJvF.png

With command a token is send which is md5 hash of "usernameassword" string. Some PHP functions obviously don't check it. But mail/ls/... do. So I can't do much without knowing correct password.

http://terminal.jcubic.pl/examples.php

The javascript code is pretty much copypasted in jerry's page. So I assume the PHP code will be similar (filename is same) of course with different password.

[YouRek]

hello

http://toklysma.weebly.com/4/post/20...199201101.html

i use google translate ^^

[dale0404]

hello

http://toklysma.weebly.com/4/post/20...199201101.html

i use google translate ^^

Translated page:

http://www.microsofttranslator.com/B...199201101.html

[YouRek]

im search the name of the mirage translating is hard =)