One evening, while he was sitting in his chair and reading the latest paperback, Hans noticed something white behind the ventilation grill next to the fireplace. Carefully removing the grill he discovered a white envelope containing a diskette and a piece of paper. Excitedly he checked-out the disk, which contained a program. When he ran the program, he was greeted with the cryptic message:

X marks the spot

But what does X represent? A small text box on the screen seemed to be awaiting an answer. A little disappointed and confused, Hans unfolded the piece of paper and read the following:

T R O O C H X X I A O O
O P X O N F O O C T X O
H O O X L E X O I A O X
E H O O W T O X E U X O

What does X represent?

T R O O C H X X I A O O
O P X O N F O O C T X O
H O O X L E X O I A O X
E H O O W T O X E U X O

The "X's" occur in columns 3-4, 7-8 and 11-12.

There are too many "O's" in the tableau but if those in the noted columns were "0's"  then there appears to be some sort of binary coding.  I'd suggest that each "X" designates a "1".

Breaking the tableau into 3  4x4 grids and placing them one under the other we have:

T R O O  0   [3]
O P X O  2   [1]
H O O X  1   [2]
E H O O  0   [3]
C H X X	 3   [0]
N F O O  0   [3]
L E X O  2   [1]
W T O X  1   [2]
I A O O  0   [3]
C T X O  2   [1]
I A O X  1   [2]
E U X O  2   [1]

And then by alternating each group of 4 characters and listing them in a format as above we have:

T R O O  0
C H X X	 3
I A O O  0
O P X O  2
N F O O  0
C T X O  2
H O O X  1
L E X O  2
I A O O  0
E H O O  0
W T O X  1
E U X O  2

Having gotten this far I am unable to do anything useful with the remaining text.  I thought that maybe if I considered the "X" as a "0" and the "O" as a "1" i might get somewhere ( the [x] column above)  but that offers little solace.

Posted by brianjn on 2009-01-03 22:32:52