I Told You, Eli Oxley

Chapter Ten

Did you solve the puzzle yet? The hidden letters within the binary code were: C, I, T, S, O, N, H, H, M, T, E, A, E, O, D, O, W, S.

It took me a couple of minutes to unscramble the letters, but I eventually came up with the phrase: "COME INTO THE SHADOWS". But I had no idea what it meant. It was an imperative sentence, so what did it mean to come into the shadows? When I think of shadows, I think of something shady - not shade, as in a reprieve from the hot sun, but shady being something nefarious. So why would I want to participate in possible criminal activities?

But then I thought about the nature of hacking, how hackers, whether white or black hat, generally don't advertise themselves, but rather operate in the shadows of the web. If this were the case, then I could get on board with it. But how would I even find the boat to get on board?

My analytic side was once again handy. My thoughts were as follows:

So what would it mean to come into the shadows?

Do I need to hack into something?

If so, what would I hack into? Where would I even begin?

Maybe I hack into a web host.

Which host?

The Shadows . . . maybe it's just a website.

Surely it can't be that easy.

So I tried googling 'the shadows', but came up with a British rock band. Then I tried 'into the shadows' and came up with a couple films and young adult book series, and I wondered if all of those sites were clues, a part of another puzzle.

Then I realized that if they operate in the shadows, they would most likely make themselves un-googleable. I typed in the address bar "intotheshadows.com" and came to a website that had a Matrix-like background streaming green binary code along with the following recruitment advertisement that I screen captured:

• Greek Life Not For You?

• Do you often wish there were others more like yourself?

• Do you have a certain "skill set" that may be considered socially unacceptable?

• Do you often find yourself alone at your computer hacking your friends' Facebook?

• Would you like to improve your "skill set" alongside other likeminded individuals?

I clicked on the 'Enter Site' button and came to another word-scramble to solve before being allowed entrance:

-- What does this message say? Type in your answer to enter. Get it right, you're in. Get it wrong, you're not for us --

E E T U W I N R Y R N S T A O O R K

I didn't really know where to begin. It was just a bunch of gibberish to me. I tried staring at the letters for a minute to see if anything magically jumped out to me like the other two binary puzzles did. But nothing. Even unscrambling proved difficult because I didn't know what I was looking for. So if the answer wasn't just going to show itself to me, I had to break out my code-cracking skills.

Eighteen letters, I thought. Eighteen can be divided into two groups of nine, three groups of six, six groups of three, or nine groups of two. Or it could be totally random like two groups of seven and one group of four, but hopefully not.

I began to do things systematically and started with the first grouping. Two groups of nine:

E E T U W I N R Y | R N S T A O O R K

Nonsense. Utter nonsense. I tried to use the first letter in the both of the two groups followed by the second letters, third letters, etc. to come up with a word, but EETUWI . . . didn't produce any word.

Three groups of six:

E E T U W I | N R Y R N S | T A O O R K

I tried the same method as before, using the first letters of each group followed by the second and third, etc.

E N T E R A T Y O U R O W N R I S K

Crackpot Jackpot.

I then followed the same pattern with the other groups just to make sure that it was the right message, not just something to throw me off, but none came back with anything that made sense. Then I had an even scarier thought: What if this is all a scam, and as soon as I type in this message and enter the site, my computer will be hacked and every bad thing that could happen will? But then my idiot, jump-first-then-hope-for-the-best self said, "What the hay - let's just see what happens."