And in the spirit of ambition (and possibly inspiration) these are some of the photos/themes I hope to capture this year.
I intend to continue with abstracts, selfies, macros, and I may even dust off good ‘ol Danbo again!
As has been my wont in recent times, I like to list a list of ambitions for the coming year. I’m initially focussing on maintaining rather than improving this year!
So, this year, my ambitions are:
In addition, my ongoing “rocks”
A rather surprising 1,000+ tweets this year, it would seem! Fortunately I have my scapel to hand… As usual, edited “highlights” of my year on Twitter…
I went to see Gravity recently – what an immense film.
It’s definitely a slow burner – as has already been commented on, it’s something like 10 minutes before the first cut. But it is beautiful to watch. Sandra Bullock and George Clooney are superb. Most of the screen time is devoted to Bullock, playing Dr Ryan Stone, an engineer on her first space flight doing some work on Hubble.
A satellite explosion causes a chain reaction of space debris, which destroys Hubble, detaches Stone from the space shuttle/Hubble, and kills the rest of the crew except for Matt Kowalski (played by Clooney). He manages to retrieve her with his thruster backpack, and the rest of the film follows their attempts to return to earth, initially by thrusting to the ISS. The filming and special effects are magnificent. Like the best special effects, you don’t really notice them. It really does look like it was filmed in space! I guess post “Apollo”, the need to mess around doing somersalts and spinning pens in the vomit comet is done and dusted, and they can get on with the story.
The plot follows a typical diaster theme – which of the protagonists is going to survive (if any), and will they make it? I won’t spoil the film by answering these questions now, although in this particular film it doesn’t matter too much. I can’t say I built up very much empathy with the characters, but it is a beautiful, absorbing film to watch.
There was just one “oh come on” moment, which almost spoiled the film for me, until I realised what was really happening. Aside from this, there was pretty much no disbelief to suspend. Not having been into space, it’s hard to comment on the realism – but as I’ve already said this had more the feel of a documentary than a movie. Obviously, as with any diaster movie, things go from bad to worse, and it does get a little bit eye-rolling at times, but as a visual experience it’s awesome. Indeed, the biggest technical criticism I’ve read is to do with the difference in orbital velocity between hubble and the ISS making “just” thrusting between them impossible.
Doesn’t top my “films you HAVE to see” list, but if you’ve got a couple of hours space then I can think of several worse ways to spend it.
Harrogate Odeon, 8th November 2013, in 3D.
Well, only 14 days to go, so I think I’ll review how I’ve done this year now!
Well, the Practical Photography Photo School is over (although the next one has started straight away), so I thought that I would collate my 6 homework assignments in one place!
Bridge over Ure
Taken in Ripon, just after sunset. Tripod, 50mm lens.
Grade: Bronze
Comments:
Image is underexposed
Image isn’t sharp enough
Composition needs more attention
A Selfie?!
With the homework deadline looming, I could only find one willing model who’d put up with my endless experimentation – me! Taken at 9.30pm(!), ISO 400, 50mm lens at f/4.0, 1/25s fired with a remote shutter release. Silver reflector in my right hand to try and make the most of the light! I pre-focussed on a brush, then took lots, moving myself forwards and backwards until I had one with my front eye in focus. I think the brief has it as out of camera, otherwise I might have cropped the top and left a little to nail the rule of 1/3rds, and given a bit more contrast.
Grade: Gold – Pass with distinction
Hotwheels
I made this homework hard for myself! Even on a very bright sunny day I was struggling to get a fast enough shutter to freeze the car and small enough aperture to get it all in focus, and had to push to ISO 400 which gives too much noise for my liking on my (ancient) camera. It also doesn’t do continuous focussing in shutter priority, and only 2-3fps in burst, which was nowhere near fast enough! Still, the ‘driver’ is (just about) in focus, the plane of focus is sharp, the subject fills the frame, it’s coming towards us, and there’s a sense of motion. Setup was camera on the tripod pointing at the end of track and pre-focussing slightly nearer then the end. I let go of the car and tried to fire the shutter as it launched. f/8, 1/640s, ISO 400 (and about 200 attempts)
Grade: Silver – Pass with merit
Comments:
Image isn’t sharp enough
Nice effort, but focus on wrong point.
Sage
The bumble bees absolutely love this plant! Bright sunny day so hand held my 100mm macro. f/6.3 – which isn’t wide – but this close needed the depth of field. 1/250s, with -0.7 eposure compensation (which may have slightly over-egged it, but the highlights were burning out otherwise). I did get some bee’s feeding, but had to use my flash which doesn’t meet the brief!
Grade: Silver – Pass with merit
Comments:
Image is underexposed
Ever so slightly underexposed – even 1/2 stop more would make a huge difference.
Trollied
I like the pattern these trollies made as they go away into the distance. Choose a wide aperture for a narrow depth of field, and tried to align the focal place with a vertical third. Handheld at f/1.8 and 1/640s outside Sainsburys!
Grade: Gold – Pass with distinction
Feeling a bit sheepish
Full length portrait with my 75-300 @ 300mm. f/8 to try and minimise the softness of the lens, and 1/125 shutter so braced on the fence. Iso 400 which is the most I can go before too much noise kicks in. Tried to frame it to give the sheep some space, but put its eyes on a third. Used focus/re-compose as my camera has limited focus points. I really did try to get one of the neighbours cats, but they wouldn’t play with me. I’m not trying to fleece you, or pull the wool over your eyes!
Grade: Gold – Pass with distinction
So that’s a bronze, 2 silvers, and 3 golds. Not too shabby, but room for improvement.
GCHQ ran another recruitment campaign/competition this year (2013), called “Can You Find It.”
I had a stab at it, and though I’d record the puzzles and solutions. I’ll hold off publishing until the competition closes on the 21st October.
AWVLI QIQVT QOSQO ELGCV IIQWD LCUQE EOENN WWOAO LTDNU QTGAW TSMDO QTLAO QSDCH PQQIQ DQQTQ OOTUD BNIQH BHHTD UTEET FDUEA UMORE SQEQE MLTME TIREC LICAI QATUN QRALT ENEIN RKG
This is transposition cipher, with “Q”s substituted for blanks.
The big clue is in the frequency/histogram of the letters, which matches normal english, except for Q.
It’s 143 characters, which is 13×11. So try writing as a 13×11 grid:
A W V L I Q I Q V T Q O S Q O E L G C V I I Q W D L C U Q E E O E N N W W O A O L T D N U Q T G A W T S M D O Q T L A O Q S D C H P Q Q I Q D Q Q T Q O O T U D B N I Q H B H H T D U T E E T F D U E A U M O R E S Q E Q E M L T M E T I R E C L I C A I Q A T U N Q R A L T E N E I N R K G
Then read the columns
AQCOMPUTERQWOULDQDESERVEQTOQBEQCALLEDQINTELLIGENTQ
IFQITQCOULDQDECEIVEQAQHUMANQINTOQBELIEVINGQTHATQITQ
WASQHUMANQWWWDOTMETRODOTCODOTUKSLASHTURING
Which is pretty easy to translate into:
A computer would deserve to be called intelligent if it could deceive a human into believing that it was human www.metro.co.uk/turing
This links takes you to a download site, with a single file – “comp1.key”, the contents of which are:
-----BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY----- MIIC2gIBAAKBgDfABK8+joDLdbFTDJ+y3PTTzkqCi1L2qEjgxdg1iyZshJTeKUck SYVyKBeOBtB3FwwqXVa6iNEHJeLFewFE6ulEOIcatVp11Zg0ibMfnqTivbd6t8/z 3KzqrFksg9xQiicMactmTqFkm8ro5ODc2NTQzMjEwLy4tLCslBOCOVHxAgMBAAEC gYATW12FB2BtQbecmSxh6rWjYENZRZhgdvoZS8oF9xlYfwdNtRF5/RR1/BwFia++ BAuBktgTu/KzORsjcNPzrd0uTCbTG6hW8YPK2ROVOOeAMHek8Nl3+SW5wdePKuWw MdjDDjqxXDns+ZC1d2Cpz5V+x+2znOYL0bsEKei0sWl7LQKBgDfABK8+joDLdbFT DJ+y3PTTzkqCi1L2qEjgxdg1iyZshJTeKUckSYVyKBeOBtB3FwwqXVa6iNEHJeLF ewFE6uhVSior5HGPArFhsOQ0v9ob1NCV7P8M99qN4XplmX/xs05HgQCVh9aMWtio pKCcmJSQjIiEgHx4dHBsU9JB+TvkAkB3dy53aHRzaXNpbGd1b2VjdHNyZWhzcmku ZW9jdS4va2xidGVoY2VsIHkgICAgICAgICAgICAgICAgICAgIAuPAkATpSSd/C5S IEAbUPk+ZYAdt7OYVzay7ViAiaukhkt+/sJG+m8GmHnAKyLf9ohx3/aIcd/2iHHf 9ohx3/ayirJPAkAIefJYEpdAoRjJQCHPGUpOVjLiyQMyPcnsutG+ctAGGU8lZTDU yUim9V7iwqTE4sKkxOLCpMTiwqTE4sKkxOFNAoGAFInzTsAOkauW3crd1XfxMhxi tUkapdQqlwvFhZuouNIybfEOfW6WkjtghBDyqf50cEFWXMJ7Vk8mr6cwTosPvYKU VXKUCblretLTeU95TlbkprizPky++5b7pQuSi3mpLMi+6VgvcjTthfXPYNg2JjJp gmteC4felYL/2FTAmT8= -----END RSA PRIVATE KEY-----
This looks like an RSA private key, so first thoughts naturally resolve around decrypting something.
However it isn’t a valid key. Using OpenSSL to examine it, we discover:
$ openssl rsa -check -in comp1.key" RSA key error: p not prime RSA key error: n does not equal p q RSA key error: d e not congruent to 1 RSA key error: dmp1 not congruent to d
RSA keys fundamentally consist of two prime numbers, and the fact that one isn’t prime is very suspicious. Let’s look at them.
$ openssl rsa -in "comp1.key" -text
modulus:
37:c0:04:af:3e:8e:80:cb:75:b1:53:0c:9f:b2:dc:
f4:d3:ce:4a:82:8b:52:f6:a8:48:e0:c5:d8:35:8b:
26:6c:84:94:de:29:47:24:49:85:72:28:17:8e:06:
d0:77:17:0c:2a:5d:56:ba:88:d1:07:25:e2:c5:7b:
01:44:ea:e9:44:38:87:1a:b5:5a:75:d5:98:34:89:
b3:1f:9e:a4:e2:bd:b7:7a:b7:cf:f3:dc:ac:ea:ac:
59:2c:83:dc:50:8a:27:0c:69:cb:66:4e:a1:64:9b:
ca:e8:e4:e0:dc:d8:d4:d0:cc:c8:c4:c0:bc:b8:b4:
b0:ac:94:13:82:39:51:f1
publicExponent: 65537 (0x10001)
privateExponent:
13:5b:5d:85:07:60:6d:41:b7:9c:99:2c:61:ea:b5:
a3:60:43:59:45:98:60:76:fa:19:4b:ca:05:f7:19:
58:7f:07:4d:b5:11:79:fd:14:75:fc:1c:05:89:af:
be:04:0b:81:92:d8:13:bb:f2:b3:39:1b:23:70:d3:
f3:ad:dd:2e:4c:26:d3:1b:a8:56:f1:83:ca:d9:13:
95:38:e7:80:30:77:a4:f0:d9:77:f9:25:b9:c1:d7:
8f:2a:e5:b0:31:d8:c3:0e:3a:b1:5c:39:ec:f9:90:
b5:77:60:a9:cf:95:7e:c7:ed:b3:9c:e6:0b:d1:bb:
04:29:e8:b4:b1:69:7b:2d
prime1:
37:c0:04:af:3e:8e:80:cb:75:b1:53:0c:9f:b2:dc:
f4:d3:ce:4a:82:8b:52:f6:a8:48:e0:c5:d8:35:8b:
26:6c:84:94:de:29:47:24:49:85:72:28:17:8e:06:
d0:77:17:0c:2a:5d:56:ba:88:d1:07:25:e2:c5:7b:
01:44:ea:e8:55:4a:2a:2b:e4:71:8f:02:b1:61:b0:
e4:34:bf:da:1b:d4:d0:95:ec:ff:0c:f7:da:8d:e1:
7a:65:99:7f:f1:b3:4e:47:81:00:95:87:d6:8c:5a:
d8:a8:a4:a0:9c:98:94:90:8c:88:84:80:7c:78:74:
70:6c:53:d2:41:f9:3b:e4
prime2:
77:77:2e:77:68:74:73:69:73:69:6c:67:75:6f:65:
63:74:73:72:65:68:73:72:69:2e:65:6f:63:75:2e:
2f:6b:6c:62:74:65:68:63:65:6c:20:79:20:20:20:
20:20:20:20:20:20:20:20:20:20:20:20:20:20:20:
20:20:0b:8f
exponent1:
13:a5:24:9d:fc:2e:52:20:40:1b:50:f9:3e:65:80:
1d:b7:b3:98:57:36:b2:ed:58:80:89:ab:a4:86:4b:
7e:fe:c2:46:fa:6f:06:98:79:c0:2b:22:df:f6:88:
71:df:f6:88:71:df:f6:88:71:df:f6:88:71:df:f6:
b2:8a:b2:4f
exponent2:
08:79:f2:58:12:97:40:a1:18:c9:40:21:cf:19:4a:
4e:56:32:e2:c9:03:32:3d:c9:ec:ba:d1:be:72:d0:
06:19:4f:25:65:30:d4:c9:48:a6:f5:5e:e2:c2:a4:
c4:e2:c2:a4:c4:e2:c2:a4:c4:e2:c2:a4:c4:e2:c2:
a4:c4:e1:4d
coefficient:
14:89:f3:4e:c0:0e:91:ab:96:dd:ca:dd:d5:77:f1:
32:1c:62:b5:49:1a:a5:d4:2a:97:0b:c5:85:9b:a8:
b8:d2:32:6d:f1:0e:7d:6e:96:92:3b:60:84:10:f2:
a9:fe:74:70:41:56:5c:c2:7b:56:4f:26:af:a7:30:
4e:8b:0f:bd:82:94:55:72:94:09:b9:6b:7a:d2:d3:
79:4f:79:4e:56:e4:a6:b8:b3:3e:4c:be:fb:96:fb:
a5:0b:92:8b:79:a9:2c:c8:be:e9:58:2f:72:34:ed:
85:f5:cf:60:d8:36:26:32:69:82:6b:5e:0b:87:de:
95:82:ff:d8:54:c0:99:3f
Run each part through a hex decoder, and you get gibberish except for prime2 (notice all all the repeated 0x20s at the end of prime2, and 0x20 just happens to be the ASCII code for space.)
Let’s decode prime2 from hex into ASCII using http://www.dolcevie.com/js/converter.html
ww.whtsisilguoectsrehsri.eocu./klbtehcel y
This looks a lot like a web address to me, with a bit of endian stuff going on. Switch around each pair of bytes:
www.thisisgloucestershire.co.uk/bletchley
2910404C21CF8BF4CC93B7D4A518BABF34B42A8AB0047627998D633E653AF63A873C\ 8FABBE8D095ED125D4539706932425E78C261E2AB9273D177578F20E38AFEF124E06\ 8D230BA64AEB8FF80256EA015AA3BFF102FE652A4CBD33B4036F519E5899316A6250\ 840D141B8535AB560BDCBDE8A67A09B7C97CB2FA308DFFBAD9F9
Very clearly a hex stream, but full of non-ascii characters. Convert it anyway and you get nonsense.
At this point I needed a little nudge. Because I knew the RSA key from puzzle 2 was broken, it didn’t even occur to me to use it to decrypt this, although in retrospect in seems very obvious. I’d tried using the key with openssl trying to solver puzzle 2, and it was no go.
The nudge pointed me to the site below, where it transpires you don’t actually need the 2 primes, just the public modulus, public exponent, and private exponent.
http://nmichaels.org/rsa.py
Stick these values in from the key, together with the hex string, and what happens:
0x20 0x20 0x20 0x20 0x20 0x20 0x20 0x20 0x77 0x77 0x2e 0x77 0x68 0x74 0x72 0x65 0x67 0x65 0x73 0x69 0x65 0x74 0x2e 0x72 0x6f 0x63 0x75 0x2e 0x2f 0x6b 0x6e 0x65 0x67 0x69 0x61 0x6d 0x30 0x32 0x33 0x31 0x20 0x20 0x20 0x20 0x20 0x20 0x20 0x20
Oo, now I recognise the 0x20 (space), and the 0x77 0x77 0x2e 0x77 sequence (“ww.w”) from puzzle two – lets go back to ascii:
ww.whtregesiet.rocu./knegiam0231
Switch the pairs again:
www.theregister.co.uk/enigma2013
This one’s a picture!
Obvious guess is that there’s something encoded in it.
Standard first step is to check the HTML page source and URL, no clues there. No mouseover magic or anything like that (there hasn’t been so far) – it’s just an image.
I’m also assuming that the picture itself isn’t the answer.
Let’s look at the EXIF. Nothing there.
Two choices – one is there’s some visual data, two is there’s digital data encoded somehow.
No joy with fiddling with brightness, contrast, or shifting images around.
JSTEG may be promising – download, patch, compile, extract and we get:
9e34 fb8d 8f1e 4a00 e45f 2d63 057d 7dd8 37b9 cf09 68d5 8ff7 d788 6c3c 3d25 70ad f078 1b6c 5753 b898 77f9
Nonsense in ASCII – maybe need to decode it using our RSA key? Nope – still nonsense.
Steghide looks good, but we need a passphrase. Nothing obvious works though (“turing”, “enigma”, “enigma2013”, “bletchley”, “GCHQ”, “lovelace”).
Because it’s a JPEG, the image hiding options are limited.
What about the image structure of a JPEG – it runs from a Start of Image (0xFF,0xD8) to an End of Image (0xff,0xD9), and in theory you can put stuff in the file after the End Of Image marker. This particular file has 2 SOIs and EOIs – so two images, running from 0x0 to 0xcbd3 (52180) and 0xcbd4 to 0xf404?
So, let’s skip the first 52180 bytes, and put the rest into a new jpeg:
%> dd bs=1 skip=52180 < comp3.jpg > comp3b.jpg
See if it’s promising:
%> identify comp3b.jpg comp3b.jpg JPEG 451x97 451x97+0+0 PseudoClass 256c 8-bit 10.0469kb
Sure looks like an image – shall we view it?
Yay – off to www.eveningstandard.co.uk/colossus
Strange.
Text is just
CanYouFindIt.co.uk/secured
With a bit of fancy wibbling.
Clicking it takes you back to the first puzzle page, and the answer is exactly as expected.
So that’s that!
I think, with a slightly heavy heart, I need to draw my 365 project to a end. One of my principles is ending well, and I would rather finish it definitely than have it just flicker out.
For the past two a a bit years, I have had a picture to assign every day – that’s about 870, but over the last couple of months the advertised day has slipped further from the photographed date – so I’d find myself taking 5 at the weekend, and using these for the following 5 days. This was never my intention, and I think it’s right to call time.
The original intention was to meet the challenge of having to take a photo every day, with the subtext of getting much better at using my camera and understanding its settings as well as improving my art. I feel I have achieved these ends, and I now find it hard to go places without having my camera with me! I intend to carry on with the Camera School in Practical Photography, and I will continue to post photos on my 365 site (and this blog), but I suspect this will be closer to once a week than once a day.
I have by no meas exhausted my “pictures I want to take” list, and I look forward to more adventures in photography, and hopefully a new camera once I’ve saved up enough (Canon 7D please!!)
It has been a fantastic and most enjoyable project, and I have no hesitation in recommending a 365 to anyone!
I love geeky jokes – these ones are all thanks to the Grove Boooks newsletter. Incidentally Grove Books are awesome – theology bookettes on almost any subject you may care to think of.
An infinite number of mathematicians walk into a bar. The bartender says: “What’ll it be, boys?” The first mathematician: “I’ll have one half of a beer.” The second mathematician: “I’ll have one quarter of a beer.” The third mathematician: “I’ll have one eight of a beer.” The fourth mathematician: “I’ll have one sixteenth of a…” The bartender interrupts: “Know your limits, boys” as he pours out a single beer.
It’s fab having a 2 year old around – they are so funny.
Couple of humurous recent ‘conversations’:
Me: I don’t want you two to get into an argument
2yo: But I want to get into an argio
Me: No!
2yo: I want to get into an argio, please can we build an argio?
2yo: Is (9yo) brushing his hair?
Mum: I doubt it! I’ve never brushed your hair in the mornings. Does that make me a deficient mother!
2yo: No, I don’t think so
Mum: Oh, thank you!
2yo: That’s my welcome
9yo: What’s the time Dad?
2yo (interjecting): It’s 25’o’clock
Mum (to 9yo): What does your bother call Mario Karts?
2yo (interjecting): He’s Bothering me!
9yo (ignoring 2yo): He calls it “zoomy cars”