/ Xeni Jardin / 12:14 pm Wed Jul 7, 2010

Crack the Code in Cyber Command's Logo

The U.S. Military's new "Cyber Command" logo contains a hidden code. Noah Shachtman at Wired News says, "Help us crack it!"

Related reading today: Bruce Schneier says "The Threat of Cyberwar Has Been Grossly Exaggerated."

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  2. Anyone have the cipher text – I can’t read some of them from the image (bad eyes I guess) and Wired apparently is a big bad naughty site here at work and is a no go for the article.

    I think it is
    9ec412949a4f3f474f299058ce2b22a

    Can anyone confirm?

  4. I’m not digging the heraldry on the shield. Even a local SCA herald would send that back. Shouldn’t the characters in the hexadecimal be capitalized? It’s a logo for for the U.S. Military, for cryin’ out loud.

    …unless that’s part of the code?

  5. Damn stole my Ovaltine line.

    It is Hex though but of course Rich beat me to posting that bit of obvious to.

    I thought I was having a Waterhouse Moment there.

  9. Heh. The Schneier page’s filename is “the_threat_of_c.html”. I knew those pointers would come back to wreak their vengeance!

  11. There’s a wall, in a sculpture garden I believe, at the CIA’s headquarters that has an as-yet unbroken code on it. I’ve known two CIA guys that didn’t know what it said.

    1. I am pretty certain the recently the CIA has admitted that the sculpture code has been broken internally, but not publicly.

      1. That’d be cool. I wonder if maybe it has the real truth about the Kennedy assassination. (One of my ex-CIA pals swears it was a conspiracy, mainly involving the Hunt brothers.)

    2. dbarak, that’s the Kryptos, by Jim Sanborn. Of its four “sections,” three down and one to go (no Ovaltine yet).

  18. In related but interesting news, the MD5 hash for UNITED STATES CYBER COMMAND is 2600c735dd6df1c8730c5d401dd305cd.

  19. Not sure about the numbers, but I’m fairly certain the constipated-looking eagle is holding a sign that says “LPs by X and Throbbing Gristle are the key to my heart.”

    1. Yeah whats with that eagle? Do they look like that in the wild or is is it only the brain damaged ones? I mean it looks like its having a stroke or something.

  21. Took a few hours, but I got it. The code is:

    “Another massive waste of taxpayer dollars brought to you by the Pentagon.”

  23. As long as nobody let’s the makers of the National Treasure films see that there’s something else out there for them to make another crappy film about then I don’t care.

  24. … also what the hell is wrong with them? “Cyber Command”? “*Cyber* Command”? Oooh thats really hip and trendy with the kids nowadays…

    1. But we NEED them to protect our mainframes in cyberspace or someone will hack our gibson and trash our files and make red skull and crossbones images on our screens, and no matter how fast we type gibberish, we’re all gonna die no matter what and the only way to win is not to play!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  25. The United States has a military Institute of Heraldry, whose web page is found here: http://www.tioh.hqda.pentagon.mil/
    The entire staff, about thirty of them, are civilians.

    The arms for the Cyber Command themselves consists of the escutcheon surmounted by the eagle proper.

    The remainder of the picture is, in fact, a badge — and badges can be highly artistically presented, so long as they represent faithfully the device that is registered / granted as the badge, in tradition of English heraldic rules — which the US military heralds attempt to hold fast to.

    With that in mind, as this appears to be a badge, in the tradition of Scottish clan who place their motto upon the garter that encircles the clan badge, the sequence is likely an MD5 hash — or other hash — that encodes the motto of the US Cyber Command. Or in the tradition of the military, their mission statement.

  27. Is it really a ‘hidden’ code when it’s right there in black and white? it’s not exactly playing waldo, you know.

    1. Ha! You totally fell for the decoy code. Those digits were just put in to distract you from the mathematical arrangement of the eagle’s ass-feathers.

  28. It says “We’re sorry. We know we’ll never know what all of you know. But we have to do our jobs anyway.”

  29. I wouldn’t stand under the eagle when it’s lifting its tail like that.

  31. honusbam on the Wired forum points out that it could be a UUID, but it’s not a valid version 1, 3, or 4 UUID (version 2 I dunno).

  32. For the previous anon poster who got only one digit wrong, it reads:

    9ec4c12949a4f31474f299058ce2b22a

  33. A simple Hex to ASCII conversion on the web yielded:

    ???)I???t??????*

    I’m thinking these guys might agree with Bruce Schneier about their mission.

  34. When I plug in the MD5 hash into: http://www.md5decrypter.com/ I get this result:

    USCYBERCOM plans, coordinates, integrates, synchronizes and conducts activities to: direct the operations and defense of specified Department of Defense information networks and; prepare to, and when directed, conduct full spectrum military cyberspace operations in order to enable actions in all domains, ensure US/Allied freedom of action in cyberspace and deny the same to our adversaries.

    Weeee! I’m a hacker!

    3. I can confirm this result. The string is in fact the MD5 hash of the entire mission statement of the US Cyber Command aka USCYBERCOM:
      “USCYBERCOM plans, coordinates, integrates, synchronizes and conducts activities to: direct the operations and defense of specified Department of Defense information networks and; prepare to, and when directed, conduct full spectrum military cyberspace operations in order to enable actions in all domains, ensure US/Allied freedom of action in cyberspace and deny the same to our adversaries.”

      I copied it out of the PDF on the defense.gov website, had to clean out the line breaks in the PDF, while chasing my son around, which means the above task took me three hours when it ought to have taken three minutes.

  35. I bet it says something like “Congratulations, you’ve got the skills we’re looking for : 18001337HAX”

  38. That’s exactly what I did.

    Then confirmed by hashing the string.

    If that’s the best they can manage, they have problems.

  41. from the MD5 wiki:

    US-CERT of the U. S. Department of Homeland Security said MD5 “should be considered cryptographically broken and unsuitable for further use,”

    bwahahahahaha

  44. And in case anyone cares, their heraldry blazons as:

    “Party per fess argent a key sable fesswise wards to base per pale two swords in saltire sable a flash sable a chief or the crest a Bald Eagle proper displayed.”

    And the MD5 hash of that is
    de5be17b857ff1d003b8cfbb327a2f9f

    Yes, I spent time blazoning the thing.

    1. That’s not displayed. Displayed is, essentially, spread-eagled. The position shown isn’t a very heraldic one, but I’d call it statant.

      Also you didn’t blazon the annular azure trimmed in or, but I don’t know how either.

      1. Predatory beasts of the ground are statant. “Displayed” refers to the wings of birds. The attitude of the claws is either specified by the blazoning or are left to the discretion of the artist, and the artist in this case had it clutch the escutcheon – which is something that is not blazonable.

        And now I look at it again and realise that I screwed up, it is in fact “addorsed” and not “displayed” (My memory told me “the eagle from the Great Seal” — which is displayed).

        So

        “Party per fess argent a key sable fesswise wards to base per pale two swords in saltire sable a flash sable a chief or the crest a Bald Eagle proper addorsed.”

        The globe and waves in the background are not blazonable, but the annulus complex is, so the blazon for the badge (as opposed to the arms/device as listed above) would be

        “An annulus Or inscribed 9ec4c12949a4f31474f299058ce2b22a surmounted an annulus Azure, bearing to base between eight mullets Or inescutcheon party per fess Argent a key Sable fesswise wards to base per pale two swords in saltire Sable a flash Sable a chief Or the crest a Bald Eagle proper addorsed, inscribed United States Cyber Command Or.”

        Commas added for clarity because the complexity makes it difficult for inexperienced readers to realise the inscription is on the blue ring and not in fact the bald eagle (One cannot inscribe an animal and the blue ring applies to the ring because everything that applies to the inescutcheon ends with “addorsed”).

        Someone Correct Me if I’m wrong, please.

  46. Hey, you knew all 6.02·10²³ elements of that blazon. I knew the bird wasn’t displayed. I don’t have any more corrections!

  47. Btw, I got the idea that birds can be statant from this page here. Even it says “this posture is normally reserved for long-legged avians such as the heron and the crane.”

    1. Ah, I can see the logic of that kind of blazoning – herons and cranes were considered predatory and became “statant” (still, poised) while hunting. Nifty. Something new every day.

  48. Anyone else feel the omnipresent fear of their fingers touching, or marking or maybe even manipulating the entire world?
    From their secret base in Antarctica?
    Where they have a remarkable D&D dungeon?
    And No Chicks?
    And btw, the code translate to, “all your bases are belong to us!!??!?!! Commie n00bs!”

  49. I am looking forward to the day when someone discovers the first MD5 hash collision for this instance.

    I’d bet some variant of “\/\/3 4r3 1337 |-|4xx0rz!!!!!”

  51. Folks, that is just the serial number. I buy a lot of these limited edition plates from the Franklin Mint.

  53. It is an MD5 hash of the following text: “USCYBERCOM plans, coordinates, integrates, synchronizes and conducts activities to: direct the operations and defense of specified Department of Defense information networks and; prepare to, and when directed, conduct full spectrum military cyberspace operations in order to enable actions in all domains, ensure US/Allied freedom of action in cyberspace and deny the same to our adversaries.”

    Don’t believe it? Generate an MD5 hash of it here: http://www.miraclesalad.com/webtools/md5.php

  55. Md5 Hash: 9ec4c12949a4f31474f299058ce2b22a
    Normal Text: USCYBERCOM plans, coordinates, integrates, synchronizes and conducts activities to: direct the operations and defense of specified Department of Defense information networks and; prepare to, and when directed, conduct full spectrum military cyberspace operations in order to enable actions in all domains, ensure US/Allied freedom of action in cyberspace and deny the same to our adversaries.

    MD5 Decryption, Very rarely will 2 types of encryption give the same Code so.

  57. Ummm… The eagle stands on a straightforward rebus for “Access Key”, so I’d guess the image is in and of itself a simple keyfile. It may contain info discoverable by steghide, but that presupposes a Rijndael-128 password and my interest has vanished.

    1. How do you get “Access Key” – ?

      Heraldic blazoning in tierces goes clockwise from the bottom, making the rebus “Key to Warfare Electr[on]ic”. (The flash or bolt has been used in military signal corps insignia before to signify electronic communications, for example the US Army Signal Corps insignia.)

  58. As undeadhead pointed out, it’s probably an md5 hash of the mission statement. On a Mac, from Terminal.app:

    echo -n "USCYBERCOM plans, coordinates, integrates, synchronizes and conducts activities to: direct the operations and defense of specified Department of Defense information networks and; prepare to, and when directed, conduct full spectrum military cyberspace operations in order to enable actions in all domains, ensure US/Allied freedom of action in cyberspace and deny the same to our adversaries." | md5
9ec4c12949a4f31474f299058ce2b22a

  59. DISCLAIMER: My previous post of a solution was originally posted on Slashdot. I didn’t figure this out myself.

  60. “USCYBERCOM plans, coordinates, integrates, synchronizes, and conducts activities to: direct the operations and defense of specified Department of Defense information networks and; prepare to, and when directed, conduct full-spectrum military cyberspace operations in order to enable actions in all domains, ensure US/Allied freedom of action in cyberspace and deny the same to our adversaries.”

  61. The first thing I did was Google the string of characters. Pretty quickly found out that it was an MD5 Hash for their mission statement. Unlike all those who commented previously, I didn’t pretend that I figured it out on my own.

  62. DÕ ¥0Ù ţ├┤↑∏Ҝ ŦҢﺁћқ اт Ẁٰٳ└└ мΆҚΞ вӨійģ вӨійģ ?

  63. Well, since no one else seems to have thought of this, I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that it might be an MD5 hash (whatever that is), and that it probably decodes to some really lame and poorly written mission statement that serves as the perfect illustration of just how uncool the Department of Defense bureaucracy really is.

  65. I think it’s an MD5 hash? No one seems to have thought of that yet.

    Beside, why are there two syringes in the logo? Truth serum + antidote? :/

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