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Comment by Hackbraten | Hacker News Reader

Ok, I’m giving up. Found the password reminder within minutes but didn’t manage to get the password right after 40 minutes of trying. The narrative allowed me to narrow it down to five possible birth dates and two possible birth years.

After several hundred attempts, I haven’t been able to get it right. German date format, ISO date format, with century, without century, name prefixed, nothing prefixed. Feels frustrating but I’m simply too dumb, I guess.

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You can narrow down the date exactly, but i can't be bothered to test every format so doesn't really help

Hint is here :) https://txt.fyi/-/20336/e86ca3bf/

Still didn't help me. I've seen both hints and seen the calendar, and after 6 attempts I had to give up, felt a bit frustrated. Maybe accept a range of different answers?

What is it about the calendar? I’m playing on 1280 × 720 resolution, can’t see shit on the calendar nor zoom in.

That's a very good idea.Here's a spoiler with the password :)

https://txt.fyi/-/20336/ede282d7/

I think you need to set a bar of solving the first puzzle a little lower so that we can get an idea of your methods. I too don't have time to sit here brute forcing a game by hand when it could be any capitalization,

and when I wrote this comment, something occurred to me about it and I tried it and got in. Rubber ducky ftw.

The click action is bugged - I clicked the mug 5 times and it didn't do anything, 6th time it turned around

Also took me a while to figure out the calendar zoomed in because it didn't work the first few times

Is there a way of finding out the format in the game? I would never have tried that

Yep, bugged me too. Looked at the js source to see what clicked items I missed. Then guessing the password was a lot easier. Also trying the cheaphash function in the console was a lot faster than entering then keep reentering the username. The hash function result is very length dependent, so it was quite clear how long of a password I was looking for.

the calendar never zoomed for me. I had to squint to read the names and dates.

I thought I was clever in thinking the code to the filing cabinet would be a birthdate in MMDD format, but I never got it. "5928" made me think the code might be 5280, the number of feet in a mile, but to no avail.

Frustrated, I just entered 0000!

There's a hint in the desk drawer (you need to zoom in even further to see it) that is a reminder to change the passcode.

Similar to a TODO comment... it just never got done.

Is it really a reminder to change the drawer passcode, or rather a password hint for the computer in case Anne ever forgets?

The bottom drawer is a reminder for the top drawer lock, the top drawer is for the computer.

How can you narrow down the date exactly? The vacation is one week long so the date could be any working day, couldn’t it?

Well, apparently she has 2 kids? Ryan and Daniel (mug reveals "Daniel" with a crudely drawn baby). Then if you look at the calendar you can see Daniel was born June 12 and Ryan was born December 5, but beyond that I can't figure out a year.

Username is "anne.kingston" but I've tried all the following passwords to no avail:

- June12

- june12

- 612

- December5

- december5

- 125

Thanks, that made sense. It never occurred to me that there are two kids involved and that the calendar is clickable.

Swiss people don’t use American date order.

format is Name1234

DDMM is what we were supposed to guess somehow. Fine to have to guess that for a pen test or real security analysis, less fun for a game where you have no clue if you're really on the right track.

Hi Hackbraten, maintainer here.

Thanks for the feedback and sorry you didn't find the password! We're considering to add a uhs-hints.com-style guide in the future.

Here's a hint with another hint included: https://txt.fyi/-/20336/e86ca3bf/

Thank you for your reply.

How would I be able to read the calendar? Is there a minimum resolution to play this game?

if you click the calendar it zooms in....sometimes

The UI is really bugged, try clicking all over the calendar, it should eventually zoom in

I had to make another account because my other one is too new and got blocked for posting too fast \o/

The calendar should be clickable and it should then be readable. But I've just tested and there seems to be a glitch that makes it hard to click.

Try to click on the black lines! I'll fix this soon as possible.

Thanks, that’s super helpful! And sorry you had to jump through hoops regarding your account.

Ack, I'm really sorry—the rate limiting is harsher on new accounts because of past activity by spammers and trolls, and is definitely not intended to throttle legit users like yourself.

I've allowed the stuck comments to go through and have merged the comments from your second account back into this one, so they're all in one place. I've also marked this account legit so you can post as much as you want. Welcome to HN in any case! Let us know at hn@ycombinator.com if we can help with anything.

I got it after many attempts but, I confess, by tinkering directly with the `cheapHasher` JS function in the console. With that in-game form? it could have taken ages to guess.

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