The meta-clue, which was worth a 2 hour time bonus, was given out in the form of a file reference tagged to all 16 clues. The 16 file references were:
/54.73.20.68.63.44/, 20.68.63.44/68.73, 63.44/68.73.69.65Essentially, the file references can be arranged into a 6x6 matrix of 2 digit numbers (highlighted red, above), where the /s identify the position of the line breaks. Rather than advancing row-by-row, each successive file reference advances by 1/3 of a line. This ensures that even if there was a need to skip clues during the Game, teams would still be able to piece together the entire matrix (provided no 3 consecutive clues are skipped and the first 2 and last 2 clues are not skipped).
/68.73.69.65.68.65/, 69.65.68.65/65.77, 68.65/65.77.73.20
/65.77.73.20.20.61/, 73.20.20.61/20.6F, 20.61/20.6F.20.42
/20.6F.20.42.69.64/, 20.42.69.64/70.72, 69.64/70.72.22.69
/70.72.22.69.73.2E/, 22.69.73.2E/61.64, 73.2E/61.64.54.74
/61.64.54.74.20.22/
Having constructed the 6x6 matrix, the 2nd column of the 4th row and the last column of the next row should be dead give-aways that the numbers encoded in this matrix are hexadecimal. (Coincidentally, there are also exactly 16 clues in the Game.) The penultimate step is figuring out that these numbers reference into the ASCII table, which gives the following matrix of characters:
Ts hcDReading from top-to-bottom and left-to-right, we get The password is "The Bitch is Dead." As an after-note, 2 features of the meta-clue make it near impossible to solve prematurely: the non-decimal E and F appear only after clue #8, and by having the matrix read from top to bottom, the message only begins to make sense after the 5th line is completed. 2 teams, including the eventual winner of the Game successfully deciphered this clue.
hsiehe
ews a
o Bid
pr"is.
adTt "
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Determined to parallel-process as much as possible, we worked on the meta-clue in the front seat even while the back seat crew continued crunching out the immediate clues at hand. It was at one of these moments, while speeding through the pre-dawn darkness in between clues, with our faithful Guardian of the Clues reading out loud the latest file reference to the front seat, that an unmistakeable regular numerical rhythm began to emerge: " …68.63.44… 68.63.44/68.73… 63.44/68.73.69…".
Not only was "68" appearing very often, so were the numbers immediately adjacent, and in the same order too! It didn't take long to realise that there was a lot of redundancy and that the references were "scrolling windows" inching 2 numbers at a time along some much longer string. Effectively, completely new information was only being added after every 3 file references. A part of the numerical chaos had been tamed! But we still didn't quite know what to make of the repetition. Was it significant?
Next to figure out what the individual numbers actually meant. Our early experience with the clue at the Suntec Skygarden suggested applying mod 26 to the numbers again and even perhaps applying ROT X to shift some sense into the gibberish alphabets that were appearing. However, there was that "20" that kept appearing… to the one of us who just happened to work often with hexadecimal files… like the ASCII hexadecimal for "space". Hmm.
By the time 6f appeared in clue 8, it seemed more and more likely that we had a hexadecimal clue on our hands (or should we say digits, nyak nyak). Then the hexadecimal ASCII for "quotation mark" showed up. Intriguing. Translating the first few lines into ASCII turned up unpronounceable and worryingly repetive looking letters…
/Ts hcD/
hcD/hs
cD/hsie
The first line /Ts hcD/ went into our specially written ROT X Excel spreadsheet and we crunched through all possible letter shifts but nothing more meaningful came up. To remove some of the disconcerting repetition, we decided to just drop out all the repeated lines that didn't begin or end with a /.
And so it was, with the sun fairly high in the sky by now, in a carpark on Bukit Chandu, that we stared at a strange looking matrix and somehow the words "The" "Is" "Sword" popped up. "The pen is mightier than the sword"? Were there still missing letters?
/Ts hcD/
/hsiehe/
/ews a/
/ o Bid/
/pr"is./
/adTt "/
Oh. No, not that at all. It was just the lack of sleep that was keeping us from reading properly. Front seat grinned and bit out the phrase with equal parts glee and clue-killing satisfaction "The password is "The Bitch Is Dead." Indeed it was.
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