Many Warblings

A few small updates for you in one easy to digest post.

First we have had Jana contact us to say the following about the Lampa newspaper clipping -

In the insert pg. 69 (Czech headline) there is a grammatical error. It should have been divákY. This version (diváků) is wrong and would only work in combination with "skokem diváků", which would mean: (Suicide shocks by) "a leap BY witnesses". Wasn't there speculation that members of S. Jumped after Straka in order to save him?

(By the way: "Opice-Tance" is not a proper way how a Czech would write the term "Monkey Dances")

So mistake or clue ?

Next, in case you didn't see it in the comments, Jordan is putting together a task force to see if a co-ordinated effort can decipher the mystery of WhoIsStraka.com.

Read more on Jordan's blog - Notes From A Standing Desk

Finally for this post the BOLO Books Blog has published an interview with Doug Dorst.

The interview talks about Ciphers, the books creation and Stephen King, head on over to the Bolo Books blog and read the interview

Who Is Straka Update

I'm still not sure if the Who Is Straka Website is legitimate, but there are definitely more things to find there.

We had an email from Terrance to say that he and a friend had found some hidden images on the site, Kristin Rix also mentioned this in the comments yesterday, I went back to the site and I couldn't see anything different to what was there previously.

However I persevered and looked at things from a different perspective, that perspective was the Chrome browser. When you look via Internet Explorer you see a PNG file of the S symbol, when you look with Chrome you see a GIF file.

That Gif file is actually an animated one and contains all the images you can see here. 4 Rorschach style ink blots, and the phrases "SEEK SHELTER FROM THE STORM", "SAFETY IN NUMBERS WONT KEEP YOU DRY" AND "6483kHZ".

If you notice the S's in the phrases have what looks like a . under them similar to the Chapter 3 code.

The .GIF file isn't the only difference when viewed in Chrome.

As you can see the source code is different, there is an extra couple of comment lines and the unusual dot pattern after the encrypted lines.

As always if you can make any sense of this please get in touch in the comments, via Twitter or on email.

*** Update 25/11/2013 ***

The source code has changed again, more information has been added -

!-- Please direct all correspondence to whoisstraka@gmail.com --
!-- using secure communications protocols and encryption --
!-- to avoid detection and unwanted surveillance. Unsigned --
!-- messages with no PGP key will have to be ignored. They --
!-- are watching and it is raining. --

Who Is Straka .com

A new website has appeared !

Amanda has let us know via email that she found a website called WhoIsStraka.com

When you visit the site all you see is what you can see in the image a styalised S. symbol.

However that is not all there is, there is a hidden link to a PGP public key (Click here) and if you look at the website source code there is an email address and at set of Eotvos wheel coordinates.

The email address says - "Please direct all inquiries to whoisstraka@gmail.com" but it also says please use secure communications protocols and encryption.

There is some encrypted text following this, but I have thus far been unable to decrypt it.

At the end of the website source code there is this set of coordinates - 35° 46.865', -5° 48.797 - this appears to point to Tangier in Morocco and on the wheel it gives us C G E U Z.

Amanda also mentions there is a related Tumblr account which was set up today and the first post was today.

The web address was also only registered today (the 19th !) so it is unclear whether this is something official or not, but any suggestions are more than welcome in the comments.

If you send a PGP encrypted message to our new friend please let us know.