Once again, Sparkles the /unicorn seems to have gotten herself in a whole heap of trouble.
This time she appears to have been kidnapped!
oh where, oh where has
my unicorn gone? oh where
oh where can she be?
Can you help to track her down? Do you have what it takes to join the ranks of the Defenders of the Unicorn?
(If you are successful in your quest to save our /unicorn, please keep any answers and deciphered hints to yourself until January 2, 2022 UTC, or risk the loss of your new hat.)
Since Winter Bash 2021 is over now, I'll now describe how I solved this puzzle to get the Defender of the Unicorn hat, in case anyone in the future is wondering.
/unicornGoing to winterbash2021.stackexchange.com/unicorn leads us to the first part of our unicorn-saving journey. Here, we get an enciphered hint:
UIF VOJDPSO IBT CFFO LJEOBQQFE!
XIFSF JT UIF EFGFOEFS PG UIF VOJDPSO OPX?!?!
TUBZ UVOFE…XBJU, B DMVF IBT CFFO MFGU:NFFU NF BU
/tbwf-tqbslmftOPX XIBUFWFS DBO UIBU NFBO?
This is a fairly simple cipher: just subtract one from each letter. So z goes to y, y goes to x. a loops around to z. The decoded hint is:
THE UNICORN HAS BEEN KIDNAPPED!
WHERE IS THE DEFENDER OF THE UNICORN NOW?!?!
STAY TUNED…WAIT, A CLUE HAS BEEN LEFT:MEET ME AT
/save-sparklesNOW WHATEVER CAN THAT MEAN?
In the HTML source code for this page is a haiku hint that will come in handy in the next step:
<!--
And another clue as well, that might be useful later:
oh where, oh where has
my unicorn gone? oh where
oh where can she be?
-->
/save-sparklesGoing to winterbash2021.stackexchange.com/save-sparkles gives us a more involved puzzle. (that page uses underlining instead of bold but I can't use underline in answers)
The kidnapper seems to have left notes on a piece of paper:ir fsncif wcovcp
fwfa abierpmz hbwf rif
irctz ifchj bdrnvafwrmnvcricufe
nivcm iffemfttmz baabihfe
afwfatfe rivr ntirx er b iffegnmBelow this is some more mysterious text:
efgz erxi fboj tfoafv fba
ani vcm zrn rxi ntriof nqri b xciv dbtj praarx, xjcmf c qriefafe, gnmm rg traarx
rwfa fiemftt ed arxt aforaecih tvbvt rg hbpft hbmraf —
xjcmf c vacfe, ifbamz tnooffecih, vr qafwfiv vjf prniet rg ojfbvcih
tneefimz vjfaf obpf b wctcri, qcihcih ri pz ojbvarrp erra —
“xjbv ornme vjbv df,” c pnvvfafe, “dmcilcih ri pz ojbvarrp erra —
rimz vjct bie irvjcih praf.”Scrawled on the back of the note is written:rj xjfaf, rj xjfaf jbt
pz nicorai hrif? rj xjfaf
rj xjfaf obi tjf df?qaroffe vrCan anything be done to save poor Sparkles?/_____-_____-___-______-___-______-___/3463333
Something can be done! Let's decode the kidnapper's notes. This cipher is not a simple Caesar cipher, but it does seem to be a sort of substitution code.
The cipher used here was familiar to me because, *sigh*, the cipher used here is very similar to the way certain models of Cisco Wi-Fi routers attempt to obfuscate their configuration. They used to just have it in plaintext, but then someone found some security issues with the way config files are handled, so Cisco just obfuscated the contents of the config file a little bit.
Anyways, what's happening here is that each letter in the messages has been replaced with another letter uniformly. For example, all ws have been replaced with xs. We can easily find most of the mappings with a known-plaintext attack. Remember that haiku from a section ago? Some of the text in the the second note matches up to that. Compare:
rj xjfaf, rj xjfaf jbt
pz nicorai hrif? rj xjfaf
rj xjfaf obi tjf df?
oh where, oh where has
my unicorn gone? oh where
oh where can she be
With this, we can learn what most of the letters are. We see that from the first word, o maps to r, h maps to j, and so on. Here's what we can decode so far (decoded text is in bold):
no esuine wicvim ewer raneommy gawe one noisy neigh abouv rewomuvioniuee unvim neeemessmy arrangee rewersee onvo us now eo a neeegum eegy eown each secrev ear run vim you own us once uqon a winv bash morrow, whime i qoneeree, gumm og sorrow ower enemess eb rows recoreing svavs og games gamore — whime i vriee, nearmy succeeeing, vo qrewenv vhe mounes og cheaving sueeenmy vhere came a wision, qinging on my chavroom eoor — “whav coume vhav be,” i muvveree, “bminling on my chavroom eoor — onmy vhis ane novhing more.” oh where, oh where has my unicorn gone? oh where oh where can he be? qroceee vo /_____-_____-___-______-___-______-___/3463333
At this point, let's look at what the underlined letters form: ne?er-gonna-run-aroun?-an?-?eser?-you
It's pretty easy to guess that it's going to form never-gonna-run-around-and-desert-you for seasoned Rick Ashley enthusiasts, but for those who don't know so much about the lyrics of hit pop songs, we can make some easy inferences about letters: for example, with abouv, it's pretty easy to guess that vs should be replaced with ts. With this method, we can decode the 9 remaining letters to get this great poetry:
no equine victim
ever randomly gave one
noisy neigh about
revolutionized
until needlessly arranged
reversed onto us
now do a needful
defy down each secret ear
run til you own us
once upon a wint bash morrow, while i pondered, full of sorrow
over endless db rows recording stats of games galore —
while i tried, nearly succeeding, to prevent the mounds of cheating
suddenly there came a vision, pinging on my chatroom door —
“what could that be,” i muttered, “blinking on my chatroom door —
only this and nothing more.”
oh where, oh where has
my unicorn gone? oh where
oh where can he be?
proceed to /_____-_____-___-______-___-______-___/3463333
Going to winterbash2021.stackexchange.com/never-gonna-run-around-and-desert-you/3463333 (the link is different for each user) gives us the final challenge: a 10 question quiz.
At this stage, you need to answer 10 questions correctly to "free the unicorn". These are various trivia questions about the Stack Exchange network. Once completed, you earn a Defender of the Unicorn hat, and Sparkles the Unicorn is freed!
This question:
Approximately how many page views do the Stack Exchange network get per month?
Treats all of these answers as wrong: "838.7M", "838M", "839M", "838700000", "838000000", and "839000000", despite them being listed on stackexchange.com as the correct answers. Here's a screen recording of what happens when I try.
It says we can't share answers to the questions, but I think this is okay because these weren't accepted as correct answers to the question at the time this was posted.
According to Area 51, there are ten site proposals that are currently in beta:
However, when I enter 10 as the answer, it's judged as incorrect. I randomly entered a higher number into the box and it was judged as correct.
What other beta sites exist that didn't go through the Area 51 process, or for which the proposal doesn't exist? Stack Overflow in Japanese was one such, but it was one of the 59 sites that left beta this month.
There seem to be several inconsistencies with the question
When was the first Developer Survey?
First,
the first annual surveys did not seem to be called "Developer Survey". Whether this is relevant or not seems to be inconsistent between this question and another question of the quiz.
Second,
the year in the survey name does not seem to coincide with the year when the survey started.
I may be wrong, of course.
The question:
How much reputation do you need to earn in order to be able to downvote?
Meta Stack Exchange differs from the other sites. Since the question doesn't specify a specific site, I would think both answers should be correct.
server-side is misspelled as sever-side in one question.
I’m sure I might be really bad at following directions, but in case it needs any immediate status review to be obscured elsewhere because it’s existing revelation there may not be desirable…
This has seemingly already been revealed in the Hat List thread: Winter Bash 2021 Hat List 😷 🎓 ??
At least one of the quiz questions (mentioned in another post here) has a large number for an answer and accepts it as decimal (such as 42000000), but not your typical floating point literal format (such as 4.2e6), which seems an oversight.
I think that one question while technically correct could be made more clear.
The question asks when network sites stopped going to the main meta site for their meta needs (now meta.stackexchange.com). But, based on the info I could get Stack Overflow got its site-specific meta after every other site in the network got one. The correct answer is indeed technically correct, but perhaps it could be reworded to make it clear it is asking about the creation of Stack Overflow child meta site.
Uncaught ReferenceError: StackExchange is not defined at watch-expression-1.devtools:1:32
Commented
Jan 4, 2022 at 7:32
watch-expression-1.devtools is not something that is being served from the site, as far as I know. I suspect that it is local to your browser.
Commented
Jan 4, 2022 at 7:36
Update, Sparkles is back: https://winterbash2022.stackexchange.com/visit-sparkles
In 2022 the URLS only lead to modified Rick Rolls:
/unicorn - "Rickroll 2" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prZBPTfcrbA
/unicorn - "Last Rickmas" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJresi7z_YM
/save-sparkles - "Foo Fighters With Rick Astley - Never Gonna Give You Up - London O2 Arena 19 September 2017" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdkCEioCp24&t=90s
Server rotates between several selections from a list.
1/₁₅P₁₀ = 5! / 15! = 1 / ∏(6…15) = 1 / 10_897_286_400