I recently received an email from my friend Bob Fish, he'd stumbled upon something scary, and people were watching him, I was to visit him at the beach. I've attached his email (also if you want to skip, make sure you read the important part at the end of the question). :
I have to be quick, I'm being watched.
Pool cleaning in Santa Ana, saw some strange high power tech.
Have some photos, I'll need you to ID them to confirm, but this is bad.
Meet me at our beach in 15 minutes.
Bob
I arrive, and find Bob lying on the sand, he'd tripped on a mollusc and shattered his skull. He always was clumsy.
I flipped him over and searched for the photos, but there's nothing. I hear a sound and look up to see a black vehicle speeding into the distance. I call the police, but before they arrive I notice something in his top pocket, it's just a business card but the address listed is wrong. Then it hits me, Bob is wearing sneakers... Bob never trips in sneakers! Someone killed bob...
The police said it's just an accident and wont investigate further, but I know someone killed Bob! Can you help me find out why!
Bobs business cards:
(He used to be a c̐a̐r̐t̐o̐g̐r̐a̐p̐h̐e̐r̐, but then became a physicist, and finally decided that pool cleaning was easier)
I scanned the QR codes, but they appeared to be jibberish:
QR code 1 (always use these codes over the one in the image, the quality means some QR readers will yield different results)
ce 44 70 1d 72 df f9 14 38 8c 82 f9 d5 ef 56 e3
cd d4 97 34 66 b8 ad 11 3e d9 66 5e 0b 7d f0 a2
2a ff 60 db ae 5d 1e 35 5a fa 20 e4 d4 bd 93 d4
Base 64:
zkRwHXLf+RQ4jIL51e9W483UlzRmuK0RPtlmXgt98KIq/2Dbrl0eNVr6IOTUvZPU
QR code 2
9a da 48 d7 5d 80 ca a0 37 41 2b d3 dc 07 b8 85
80 73 b0 f4 3b f4 98 48 9f c2 6a 44 1c ed fe b8
bc 91 90 98 cf e3 2d 19 ac d4 0d cc 92 9c 20 92
Base 64
mtpI112AyqA3QSvT3Ae4hYBzsPQ79JhIn8JqRBzt/ri8kZCYz+MtGazUDcySnCCS
Can someone tell me, what did they kill Bob to hide?
Hints:
General hint 01:
Keys are lowercase, and are generally the full representation where they are found.
Daily Hint
Day 01:
Bob's the kind of guy who always knew e̐x̐a̐c̐t̐l̐y̐ ̐w̐h̐e̐r̐e̐ ̐he̐ ̐w̐a̐s̐
Day 02 (will link to day 1 until first part solved):
Bob was always good with n̐u̐m̐b̐e̐r̐s̐
Day 03 (no more till first part solved):
Three parts in the body of this question and in the previous hints are highlighted with a c̐o̐m̐b̐i̐n̐i̐n̐g̐ c̐a̐n̐d̐r̐a̐b̐i̐n̐d̐u̐ (because it looks cool), this should be all you need.
Day 04 (okay, one more hint. But this is legit the final hint for part one):
The entry point to this puzzle is the phone numbers on the card (let me know in the comments if anyone thinks this was too much of an intuitive leap to make (considering hint 3 and the highlighted sections of the main body), and I'll take note for my next puzzles to clue it in more in the main body).
Day 05:
Bob was a simple guy
Day 06 (relates to day 05 hint and general hint 01):
'What's here?', well, that would be the key ;). Sometimes the right context when you're mapping out a solution can be all it takes. Now all you need is the algorithm, I wonder where I could find that?
Day 07 (relates to 06, 05 and general 01):
Feel like you're going backwards solving this, well, you should! Start with the algorithm.
Day 08:
Opposites often reveal necessary information.
Feel free to post parts as you solve them to help others who may be trying to solve, there are roughly five parts to this puzzle, and you will know when you've solved a part.
================== !!!! IMPORTANT !!!! ==================
================== !!!! IMPORTANT !!!! ==================
Any decryption / encryption should be performed using the QR code base 64 representation in the question itself, don't use a phone scanner, the image resolution turned out pretty bad. Also, the address in the card should really be 821 SEA cct. ECB, although this shouldn't have stopped anyone from solving the puzzle, but running through it myself I did notice that (fixed in new edit)! I'd recommend using https://www.tools4noobs.com/online_tools/decrypt/, keep in mind Bob isn't stupid, he doesn't roll his own when it comes to security, he'd be using an established (but potentially outdated - he was pretty old) algorithm.
0c ee a2 ed d6 48 7a dc ...
for the second one. First one is also different. I used the app called "QR Reader" on an Apple device. I'm a QR noob so I don't know if that's significant. $\endgroup$