A858DE45F56D9BC9 archive

201109081949 k96b1

solved missing manual

Stonehenge ASCII art signed A858. The body is lost: rebuilt from a decoded copy found elsewhere.

Metadata

Post ID
k96b1
Title
201109081949 → 2011-09-08 19:49 on A858's clock
Posted (UTC)
2011-09-08 19:49:20
Timezone
UTC · title 19:49 against posted 19:49 UTC
Author
[deleted]
Account
A858DE45F56D9BC9 main account
Subreddit
r/A858DE45F56D9BC9 the main subreddit
Category
Y body-missing
Content
Seasonal greetings and ASCII art
Size
0 hex characters
Sources
community-archive, arctic-shift · body from arctic-shift
Links
Reddit · Arctic Shift · JSON
Score · comments
220 · 84
Tags
pre-automation2011Body missingmanualseasonal greetings and ascii art

From the post to its content

As posted

No body survives.

Explanation

201109081949 — Stonehenge

Status: reconstructed; the original body is not in the community archive.

The community archive has a record for it, but its Reddit body was removed and its analysis payload is empty.

The surviving original Reddit thread preserves the early decoding discussion, and the Solving_A858 wiki entry preserves the decoded picture and recipe. An independent Pastebin copy also preserves the decoded ASCII art.

Published recipe, in the direction needed to decode:

  1. Replace every V with A.
  2. Remove whitespace and hex-decode to Base64.
  3. Base64-decode to the ASCII art.

The decoded artifact is saved verbatim as 201109081949-stonehenge-ascii.txt. It is a reconstruction from surviving decoded copies, not a recovered copy of the original Reddit hex payload.

Reconstructed ASCII art

          .-----------.         .------------.
               :`.__________`        :`.____________`  .-----.._
               '.'_.------._.'       `.|__.-------..'  |`-..___.'|
              | ||__..| | |-._ __   | | |.... || |-._`--..__ |.'---.
          .::/ / |    | |  |  ___  `-|  |  _  || |   | | | | | \    `.
      _.-.`  -`.|_|    `.|.' /`.  `. '.|_\     `|.'   | | | | || `.    `.
      '.   `.   `-   _     _  |  `.__`   _          _  `.|.' | ||`. \     \
      | `. __`.  _           _ `. |   |     `--   _     _    '.||  \ `.____.
      /`. |   |  .'`---...____   `'---' _       _          _    | | `.|_..-'
      | /`|__.' |`---...___ . |  `--      ______________________`.|_| |  ` |
      | | | '|  `---...____|.'    _     |`._-_______-______-_____`. | |    |
     .| | |  | _ |  | | | | '| `-       '.|  ' ' '  '  '  ' ' ' || |    |
     ' `| |  |   /  | | |'|  |      _    |'.__.-------.__.-----.__.'| | .- |\
     |  | |' |   |  | | | |  |   `--   _ | |..|    |  |''|  -| |::| `.|_..-' |
     \   `|_.' _ |  | |_| '. | .`-._     | |  | -  |  |  | _ | |  | `--     .'
      '.         |  | | |  | |`.  `. _ | |  |  _ |  |  |   | |  |   _    `.
        '-. _    '._|.' |  |  | |  `.__`. |  |  __ |  |  |__ | |  |  `-- _  |
           ''''.    _  `-.|.' '.  |   |  `|__| ___ `.|__| _ `.|__|        /
                 A858 :    _    _      `.|_.-'   `-             _          _   .'
                       `-._______.::.__     `-     _      _       ___.:::.__.-'
                                 `----.....__..------------`

Solution summary

Method
no cipher (body lost)
Result
Stonehenge ASCII art signed A858
Explanation
Reconstructed from a surviving external decoded copy, not from the original body