Scary Spam

Usually on Tuesday, I try to put up some old paper or project I did in the distant past. Lately it's been hard to find more such stuff to post, as most of it has already been used on previous Tuesdays. For awhile there I was just scraping the bottom of the barrel. Now I'm happy to say that the barrel has been scoured clean and is being aired out. Soon it will be stuffed with new things, since I'm always writing papers.

Anyway, while pouring through old documents on my hard drive, I came across an old piece of spam I received a couple of years ago. Since it was (and still is) the most unique and creepy spam message I had ever received, I saved it. I don't know what to make of it. Hopefully, it was just written as a joke. Question 3 is particularly disturbing. And no, I never did attempt to solve the puzzle.

There is something extremely wrong with every single person in this world. They seem to be part of a pointless simulation.

"The Matrix" has portrayed this idea somewhat, yet we
watch it and go back to our daily lives. Yet in this
very life, underneath the seeming diversity in
people's opinions, values, talents, and interests,
there is something that makes everyone the same. It
is as though this planet is populated only by mindless
fakes, objects that provide the appearance of
intellect on the surface but are based on only
mechanical reflexes and primitive thought patterns.

I don't really care if anything I say has been said
before, if it was portrayed in movies, in books, or in
the lyrics of some useless song. With 6 billion people
covering the globe at any given time, thousands and
thousands of years of written literature, probability
dictates almost any combination of words has occurred
numerous times. Yet there is clear evidence there was
no action, so those words, just like the people who
spoke them, must have been just more fakes. I am
forced to use this language (also created by the
fakes) because there is no alternative, so everything
I write here could be misunderstood to make me sound
like one of them, but it will be the action that I
take and the dedication that will separate me from
them.

In my estimation the fakes that occupy this planet
don't make up 99%, but more like 99.9999999% of the
population. I know this because Ive searched, and in
my search have so far only found one true ally (I have
found him via the internet as well). But even with
those numbers we would not give up because there is no
logic in giving up.

The people on this planet are all fakes because the
societies have made them this way. Ideas that populate
people's minds have no logic or purpose. Concepts such
as religion, god, morality, individualism, freedom,
identity, happiness, love and billions of others are
all just memes. Like parasites they infect the minds
and spread from one person to the next. They have no
point or purpose; they exist without any logical basis
or foundation. The fakes are completely controlled by
them, and they will never see beyond them. To not be
controlled by them one must do more then just realize
that they exist. One must resist any ideas that have
no point, endlessly question, and never accept
imperfection or compromise in any answer.

We (myself and my ally) are different though. While we
have had the limitation of existing only in these
societies, something has made it possible for us to
resist being indoctrinated into becoming one of those
fakes. We have no arbitrary wants, needs, desires, or
preferences.

If this world continues to exist the way it is then
nothing in it will ever have a point. It will always
be just a product of random evolution, one with no
importance or relevance. The only logical goal is to
dedicate our lives to increasing our numbers, those
that aren't fakes, so that in thousands of years our
numbers may be such that the fakes would no longer be
a threat to progress.

Those that join us must see every other person
occupying this planet as the enemy, and us as their
only allies. Like us they must have dedication only to
taking the most logical action, and to nothing else.

To tell you more about us, we've posted some personal
information about ourselves on a website. You'll also
find past responses to us on that webpage.

If you reply to us we're open to anything you say that
makes logical sense. However, we'll be judging you
based on what indications you give that you have
accepted and/or rejected society. We will ask you some
questions to test how resistant you are to thinking
like everyone else.

If you already have an essay or a web site that shows
your way of thinking better than answering these
questions would, just send us that instead.

(1) What is your view of religion and how did you
derive it? What limitations do you see in a strictly
scientific view of the world, and what is necessary to
overcome those limitations?

(2) How do the things that you do in your day to day
life differ from the things that you'd like to be
doing in your day to day life in the future?

(3) What values, morals, principles, and codes of
conduct are most important to you? What if someone is
in your way, or somehow interfering in the goal you
are pursuing, would you consider killing them, given
there were no consequences?

(4) Do you prefer to follow your heart or your mind -
why? Can you describe a time that you did something
that went against your reason because of your heart?
Did you regret doing it?

(5) Imagine that you are given the opportunity to live
on an isolated island for five years with up to three
people of your choice. Survival will be extremely easy
on this island because you will be given plenty of
food, shelter, and other necessities for life. The
only difference is that you are isolated from the rest
of humanity and have no technology. Would you go? Who
would you take with you and how many would you take
with you?

(6) Who or what is so important to you that you can't
live without it? What things or people truly matter to
you in your life? Why?

(7) How do you justify doing something for fun or
enjoyment?

(8) Do you see that there is anything wrong with the
way people act, or with the way our society exists?
What exactly? Can you imagine how it could be changed?

Feel free to tell me or ask me anything at anytime. If
you didn't like this message for some reason, you can
always show me how to do it right by sending me a
better one.

Do not simply reply to this email, if you do, we will
likely not read your reply. If you do wish to
communicate, first demonstrate your interest by
solving a puzzle to obtain our website address and our
second e-mail address. Only if you write to that
address are we going to read your letter. Since there
is the possibility that either the website or the
corresponding e-mail address doesn't work, we have a
third e-mail address for you to use. To find the
third e-mail address, solve the puzzle given below.
For this third e-mail address, you'll find a Java
applet on our website that allows you to check whether
or not you have solved the puzzle correctly.

When you send me e-mail to my second or my third
e-mail address, mention that you solved "puzzle 6" in
the subject of your e-mail, that will immediately get
my attention, and make it impossible to mistake your
e-mail for junk mail.

The puzzle for the third e-mail address:

The solution to the puzzle is a string. When you
solve the puzzle, take the resulting string and add
"@yahoo.com" and that will be my email address. So the
resulting email will look like
"your_answer@yahoo.com". The solution string is ten
characters long, three English letters followed by
seven digits. There are ten parts to the puzzle that
you must solve, one for each character.

Part 1

In the five lines of text below, find the least
frequently occurring letter. This is the first
character of the solution string.

SZADLTFOLNRCHUXDBDCALCCDCBVNMAKLCAOBBFGUM
XMAABEINABAQBAOBAZBXAVBKCUDYHCYCQCDOCYNXE
RFMCGCUVYJABPIHQWYHALOBKABAPXSMIBAJZYVBQA
HUZBABKAGJBFOPXQIQSCDRCVCHGABJCKASDFMPRBA
UBIWASLGWEBABJAWCRPZHBWVDKCAZWAIFRGPSAJAT

Part 2

In the five lines of text below, find the most
frequently occurring letter. This is the second
character of the solution string.

NIXSHWLWXURPEQVO
ZAZKXYFTMJGNBECW
UDHIRSKVPQZFLBAG
OJMEDECTUFIHABJN
QRPVDMOSKYTELGCY

Part 3
The third character of the solution string is "n".

Part 4
The fourth character of the solution string is "3".

Part 5
The fifth character of the solution string is "6".

Part 6
The sixth character of the solution string is "2".

Part 7
Subtract one from the least significant digit of
Albert Einstein's year of birth. (For this puzzle,
this is the definition of least significant digit: The
digit which is farthest to the right in a number. For
example, if Albert Einstein was born in 1842, then the
least significant it is "2", and one less would be
"1".)

Part 8
Subtract 17 from the number of prime numbers between 1
and 100.

Part 9
What is the least significant digit of the sum of all
the prime numbers between 1 and 100
(2+3+5+7+...89+97)?

Part 10
The tenth character of the solution string is "0".

Puzzle for the second e-mail address:

The second e-mail address is the preferred e-mail
address to write to. Solving this puzzle will give
you both our URL and our second e-mail address. When
you solve the puzzle, take the resulting string and
add ".freeservers.com" and that will be our website
address. So the resulting URL will look like
"http://your_answer.freeservers.com". The second
e-mail address is 164837@your_answer.freeservers.com

Procedure:

translation table

a-d = 1-4

e-h = 5-8

i-l = 9-12

m-p = 13-16

q-t = 17-20

u-x = 21-24

y-z = 25-26

start string = fedcba21

fedcba21

12abcdef [read backwards]

23bcdefg [add one to all]

32cbedgf [switch two at a time]

3 c e g [discard every other character]

33cceegg [duplicate every character]

cc335577 [translate every character]

ee557799 [add two to every character]

e 5 7 9 [discard every other character]

j 101418 [double all characters]

j j n r [translate the numbers; leaves letters the
same]

k l q v [+1 +2 +3 +4]

k l q 22 [translate the last letter]

k l q 44 [double the numbers; leave letters the same]

kkllqq44 [duplicate letters; leave numbers the same]

qkrlwq44 [add six to every other letter; leave numbers
the same]

qwlrkq44 [read letters backwards; leave numbers the
same]

qwl 44 [discard last three letters; leave numbers the
same]

qqwwll44 [duplicate all letters; leave numbers the
same]

hqnwcl44 [subtract nine from every other letter; leave
numbers the same]

hqnwcl44 [all done]

To find the solution string, repeat the above
procedure for

start string = abcdef12

When you are done, you should obtain six letters
followed by two digits.

Ryan and Jacob