On Friday, Pal Kovacs was listening to the long-awaited new album from rock and steel giants Convey Me The Horizon when he seen a wierd sound on the finish of the file’s final monitor.
Being a fan of fixing riddles and breaking encrypted codes, Kovacs questioned: does this sound comprise a hidden message?
His hunch led to the invention of a hidden hacking-themed web site that in some unspecified time in the future truly obtained hacked.
Kovacs opened the tune within the audio modifying app Audacity and, as he suspected, there was certainly a spectrogram — basically a visible illustration of the audio itself — which was truly a scannable QR code. Excited, Kovacs shared his findings on the Convey Me The Horizon’s subreddit.
The QR code led to the hidden web site, which is protected by a passcode that turned out to be a quantity (93934521) written on the album cowl artwork, on the top of one of many characters, known as M8. This M8 character speaks in a number of the tracks, and in addition seems on the hidden web site as a sort-of information.
The web site is actually an “alternate reality game,” or ARG, which bands like 9 Inch Nails have carried out earlier than as a option to get followers extra engaged with the band’s music and lore.
On this specific case, the sport consists of an internet site the place, amongst different issues, the band uploaded some unreleased tracks, a folder protected by a “cipher,” which led to extra password protected information, extra mysteries, and extra hidden Easter eggs, a few of that are nonetheless unresolved and locked by unknown codes.
Kovacs’ discovery launched a wild decentralized chase the place 1000’s of Convey Me The Horizon followers tried to uncover all of the secrets and techniques hidden throughout the web site. Days later, the followers are nonetheless at it, as the positioning’s makers add new challenges and puzzles to resolve. Followers have a devoted Discord server with round 3,000 individuals inside, and a shared Google Doc that on the time of writing is round 5,500 phrases in size.
Maybe expectedly, on the primary day when followers discovered the positioning, somebody hacked it in an try to get forward within the sport. This prompted the builders to quickly take the positioning down and change it with a warning, asking followers to not do precise hacking on the hacking-themed web site.
“It appears user/s have been illicitly hacking into the M8 server to decode hidden secrets,” learn the message from M8, the album’s information, which a number of followers reported seeing in chats with TechCrunch. “It’s my duty to inform you that this behaviour is both naughty and counterproductive! You see, the whole idea of this program is to unravel the mysteries at a tantalizing pace, allowing everyone to enjoy the thrill of discovery. By bypassing the system and sharing the secrets prematurely, you’re spoiling the fun for everyone!”
It’s unclear what the builders meant precisely by hacking into “the server,” nor who was accountable. Sony Music Leisure, the band’s file label, didn’t reply to a request for remark.
“There was an email address found after solving a riddle on the site, we found it legitimately but when we emailed this email like the site told us to, we received a warning message saying that we had hacked it and may get blacklisted if we try again, we assume it was an old error from the first day when these hackers extracted info from the site,” xDarkMagicianGirl, the proprietor of the Discord server, informed TechCrunch.
xDarkMagician shared a duplicate of the e-mail that some individuals obtained after the hacking makes an attempt.
“So a friendly warning: your recent unauthorized access to our website has not gone unnoticed. While I admire your enthusiasm, it’s time to address the consequences of your actions. If you continue to hack into the system, you’ll be permanently blocked from accessing any part of,” the e-mail learn.
“Let’s play fair and enjoy the journey together. After all, a little patience goes a long way in making the experience truly enjoyable for everyone. So stop being a dips—, and play fair!”