# Apple:  Webbriddle on Apple.com



## didde (Sep 18, 2002)

I just noticed this.

Head on over to http://www.apple.com/mpeg4 and scroll down to the very bottom..

There you will find ":k:" .. (??!!). It's a link that leads to http://uncaptheride.com/babble.html .

Oh man oh man, is this a riddle or what. Try it out and you'll see!


Very very cool!


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## didde (Sep 18, 2002)

.. and when you get to http://uncaptheride.com/babble.html just view the Html-source or hit cmd-a to select all the text on the page..

It's in white so you can't see it.

Cool.


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## bbloke (Sep 18, 2002)

I first noticed this on http://www.macrumors.com and the link is still present on Apple's pages.


The (white) text on the linked page says:

"Je sais que vous avez un endroit spécial dans votre coeur pour beemers.  Vous devez voir mon noir 1974 2002 coupe.  Vérifier le NewYorkTimes a classifié premier le 14 août, 2002."


...which Alta Vista translated for me as:


"I know that you have a special place in your heart for beemers.  You must see my black 1974 2002 crosses.  To check NewYorkTimes classified first on August 14, 2002."


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## profx (Sep 18, 2002)

this is a really weird one.

I tried to follow the trail, there is a website at both www.august06.com and www.august14.com both of which are hinted at in the site www.uncaptheride.com

Very odd, i tried searching on the www.newyorktimes.com website. I can't figure it out.  Anyway i got an early start tomorow morning.  Time to sleep i think!


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## roger (Sep 18, 2002)

beemer: BMW

There is a car called a 2002 BMW that was built in 1974.

The translation from Yahoo was slightly incorrect:

"I know that you have a special place in your heart for beemers. You must see my black 1974 2002 crosses. To check NewYorkTimes classified first on August 14, 2002." 

Remember that written French is quite formal and flowery compared to English. A better translation would be something like:

"Everyone loves BMWs. Check out my 1974 BMW 2002 coupe. See it in New York Times Classified from Agust 14, 2002."

R.


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## davidbrit2 (Sep 18, 2002)

It sounds like an Apple employee is advertising his used car or something. That's rather amusing.


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## twister (Sep 18, 2002)

The http://www.august14.com poem reminds me  of an apple hole.  APPLE hole?!

---
The worms crawl in,
The worms crawl out,
The worms play pinochle in your snout. 
---

Pinochle is a card game.

Ummm no idea what this means.  Just giving my 2cents.

Twister


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## twister (Sep 18, 2002)

Oops we exceeded the visit limit of the august 14th account listed above by profx

Here are the two pictures that i happened to download.

Twister


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## twister (Sep 18, 2002)

Two


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## banjo_boy (Sep 18, 2002)

Just go to:

http://uncaptheride.com/

Leave off the babble.html. The site is very bizarre. Are we sure that this isn't a "online mystery" storie that is annoying has hell.

It mean nothing from where I stand.


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## Ricky (Sep 18, 2002)

This is crazy stuff... Why would this be linked off of apple.com?


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## bbloke (Sep 18, 2002)

On a slightly different (but related) note, I was also surprised by this when looking up info about Darwin for a friend:

_*link edited because of pornographic content _


...keep scrolling down.


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## Ricky (Sep 18, 2002)




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## davidbrit2 (Sep 18, 2002)

Well, it's safe to say that I'm completely baffled by all of this.


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## doofy10 (Sep 18, 2002)

> _Originally posted by twister _
> *
> ---
> The worms crawl in,
> ...



This is from the children's book Scary Stories.  I know this because I remember reading it when I was little.  I dont know why it would be on the Apple site though.
-Doofy


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## edX (Sep 18, 2002)

bbloke -  since you have your pm and email functions disabled, you are hereby publicly warned about violating site policy by posting a link to a site containing pornographic links. any further violation of site policies will result in removal of your membership.

see the site rules if you have any questions.


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## sheepguy42 (Sep 18, 2002)

Today the Apple page this all started from (1st link in 1st post) had ":q:" at the bottom, and it links to the QT download page.


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## davidbrit2 (Sep 18, 2002)

> Well, it's safe to say that I'm completely baffled by all of this.



Please do not edit my posts without stating they have been edited, and why. There was another line after this commenting on the bizarre site bbloke mentioned, but it's vanished. If you must remove information, make it clear it's been done, so my statements are not misrepresented.

Anyway, does anyone have any new leads on that weird uncaptheride.com site? The backwards text suggests constructing a domain name from some kind of anniversary date. My curiosity is at its peak...


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## bbloke (Sep 18, 2002)

Ed,

I publicly apologize for the previous post.  I wish to make it very clear I was not advocating the content that was linked to on the site I mentioned.  The only reason I displayed the URL was that I was very obviously surprised that a site about Darwin would have such links and indeed questioned whether or not they were "supposed to be there."  My post resulted from the immediate surprise of the discovery rather than any sort of premeditation, but I didn't realize I would be breaking any rules by posting.  Perhaps I should have thought it through a bit more and I assure you my intentions were utterly innocent!


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## davidbrit2 (Sep 18, 2002)

Personally, I wasn't offended. I assumed that was why you mentioned the site. I thought the juxtaposition of technical information of an OS and pornography links was quite funny, myself.

And I'm still holding my breath for someone to crack this strange mystery. I certainly haven't had any useful epiphanies in these past few hours. But that's probably because of all the calculus I've been working on.


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## Pawn Trader (Sep 18, 2002)

My too scents:

Somebody is trying to generate exactly this kind of buzz. Maybe shooting for a link on memepool? Laughing their @$$ off at the folks frantically clicking links trying to figure out what's going on? Or maybe it's part of some personal hoax that the public wasn't meant to stumble onto, but I doubt that. I wouldn't sweat it. If there is an "answer" you won't figure it out unless the hoaxers want you to.


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## bbloke (Sep 18, 2002)

davidbrit2,

Thanks for your comments.  I was rather shocked by the response I got to be honest (!) as I indeed had no intention at all to offend or advocate any material/sites of any kind.  As you allude to, I mentioned the site only because I found this mixture to be equally bizarre.

In both cases, I wondered whether the site designer was having some fun with everyone, was keeping personal links for some reason, or whether they had actually had a security breach of some sort.  I expect a "hack" is least likely, though possible, and I think Pawn Trader is probably right when he says we are unlikely to work out the motivations behind the link!


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## edX (Sep 18, 2002)

to be clear here - it's not a matter of endorsing or promoting. We are not all adults here and any link to pornographic links or material is just plain inappropriate. I had to clear 3 pop up ads that contained nudity and sexual acts after checking that link. I never thought anyone had any maliscious intentions here, but a couple of you surely weren't thinking things thru very far.  

bbloke - I would have been glad to have discussed this in a more private manner if you had your pm function available. I would suggest you take the time to enable it . it's not like people are going to start flooding it. It allows for private, discrete discussion of things like this without any public embarrassment.

david - your statement was not misrepresented. I left the part that seemed to apply to the original link or even both. i deleted the rest. since the original link had been deleted, it seemed irrelevant to continue commenting on it. if you would like to go back and reinsert an additional statement that doesn't repeat the link, then fine. but it is not my job to rewrite your inappropriate posts for you.


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## davidbrit2 (Sep 18, 2002)

> but it is not my job to rewrite your inappropriate posts for you.



Somehow I don't think replacing a URL with a placeholder constitutes rewriting...

And I fail to see how the post itself was inappropriate when the web site had already become a topic of discussion. Now if I posted the link again, that might be a different story, since we're now all in agreement that the site is smut.

Anyway, in my (somewhat futile) attempts to keep things on topic, I mirrored that uncaptheride.com site just for fun, but didn't find any interesting files that were referenced in the HTML. I'm going to try some of those weird augustXX.com domains and see what turns up. I tried putting :k: into a few search engines, but they all "intelligently" filter out the colons. They seem to think I want all the pages in the database that contain the letter K.  Any recommendations for a verbose search engine?


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## JetwingX (Sep 18, 2002)

anyone tried to ask apple yet ...?


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## bbloke (Sep 18, 2002)

Ed,

OK, I'm glad you accept the fact that I was not "endorsing or promoting" the links and that you acknowledge I did not have any malicious intentions.  With regards to those pop-ups, I definitely did not encounter these!  I was using IE 6 on Windows XP in the office when I first noticed the links but I saw no images, pop-ups, or any such material, only very grayed out links (which I did not follow up).  This must contribute quite strongly to our difference in opinions, as I certainly would *not* have posted if I *had* seen such things! 

I suppose I also felt I was contributing to the commentary on the presence of spurious links alone (which were on Mac related sites), and I did not link directly to any pornographic material nor advocate viewing any.  Admittedly there was a link-to-a-link, but, honestly without meaning to sound facetious, I begin to wonder where to draw the line.  With hindsight, editing out the URL seems OK to me, (especially if those ads were coming up) but giving me a warning seemed a bit harsh as it was all completely innocent; I would have thought something as serious as a warning would be reserved for those who acted with bad intent.  As an additional note, the recent thread "dotmac.info" advertises a personal site and I have absolutely no problems at all with this... but it seems to be against the board rules you asked me to check, and yet you personally replied to that post in a very positive manner, rather than giving the originator a warning too.  This doesn't seem to be equal treatment.

Finally, I have enabled the PM option as you suggested - I originally switched it off when I first created my account as I misunderstood this to be a system like Microsoft's Messenger.  I don't want this thread to digress from the original topic, so I'd like to switch this discussion to PM/E-Mail if that is OK with you.  Sorry for the digression everyone.


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## davidbrit2 (Sep 18, 2002)

I didn't see the popups either. But I seldom do with OmniWeb. ;-)

There's a link at the bottom of uncaptheride.com that points to an image with reversed text. (http://uncaptheride.com/anniversary.htm) It mentions something about constructing a domain name from an anniversary. I'm getting nowhere with my guesses. Anybody else find anything?


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## davidbrit2 (Sep 18, 2002)

Well this is very interesting!

http://209.46.98.251/
Just have a look at some of this text. Oh, and if I disappear off the face of the earth in the next few days, it's probably because I've been wiped out by an ex-KGB agent, or something. ;-)

This is friggin' weird...


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## davidbrit2 (Sep 18, 2002)

At the risk of posting an annoying number of consecutive messages...

Take a look at this site: http://www.bmwfilms-hq.com/

It seems to give a basic description of these weird web sites. Of course, that still doesn't explain why the link showed up on Apple's page...


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## boi (Sep 18, 2002)

what is the matrix?


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## Pawn Trader (Sep 18, 2002)

> _Originally posted by davidbrit2 _
> *Take a look at this site: http://www.bmwfilms-hq.com/
> 
> It seems to give a basic description of these weird web sites. Of course, that still doesn't explain why the link showed up on Apple's page... *



Yay! Looks like you solved it.

I guess the answer is "BMW is working with some filmmakers to do some astro-turfing in an unorthodox manner." When you look at it in that context, Apple's connection to it doesn't seem too surprising (at least to me).

And we've played right into their hands. Might as well just submit it to slashdot and memepool and send them a bill for our time.


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## Rhino_G3 (Sep 19, 2002)

I still don't get it.  Is there anything to get?



> --NEW--
> 11. Watch for kanns tag - :K:.



But still... on apple's site??


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## iMan (Sep 19, 2002)

The original site for BMW film is att: www.bmwfilms.com
came out a guess a year or more ago.. short films made by wellknown directors like Ang Lee, Guy Ritchie, John Frankenheimer...

the films are called 'for hire' they are about a driver for hire, you get the picture.

Well i don't have time to watch them now but maby that wierd msg on the site davidbrit2 found is in one of the films, the dialog?
Just a thought...

Viktor


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## rharder (Sep 19, 2002)

LOL! Starting on page 1 of this post I was thinking "bmwfilms.com" but good thing I read the next two pages too. Kudos.

What is there to get? I dunno, BMW was trying to suck us in when they had their short films. The little 30sec clips included in the "real" films had some plot about a guy being shot and a car and some phone numbers flashed on the screen here and there on scraps of paper. I never called because I figured it was a "Press 1 if you would like BMW literature..." message. Guess they were more in-depth after all.

(And can we stop talking about porno? This BMW conspiracy thing is much more interesting!)

Anyone else think of BMWfilms.com when the saw the ads for the new movie The Transporter?

Hmm. I think I might still have all of the bmwfilms.com quicktime movies including the 30sec clips...

-Rob


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## sparky2772 (Sep 19, 2002)

The link has been changed to ":q:" going to a quicktime download page.


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## iMan (Sep 19, 2002)

rharder, I saw 'the transporter' trailer on the quicktime site a few days ago and you're right it got me thinking off the bmw film... a longer version I guess...


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## sheepguy42 (Sep 19, 2002)

> _Originally posted by sparky2772 _
> *The link has been changed to ":q:" going to a quicktime download page. *


yes I mentioned this a while earlier (yesterday I think).


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## davidbrit2 (Sep 19, 2002)

It looks like these folks have been trying to figure this out too:
http://www.macaddict.com/forums/Forum1/HTML/018185.html


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## fetlock (Sep 19, 2002)

This is all vaguely reminiscent of that Sandra Bullock movie, in which she receives a disk from a friend, with a program she's to check out, and at the bottom of the screen is a tiny symbol.  She clicks on it, and all h... breaks loose!  (Nothing but Macs in the movie.)


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## davidbrit2 (Sep 19, 2002)

Oh yeah, what was that called, _The Net_? It wasn't terribly realistic as I recall. Dennis Miller was in that, wasn't he?


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## Rhino_G3 (Sep 19, 2002)

> _Originally posted by davidbrit2 _
> *Oh yeah, what was that called, The Net? It wasn't terribly realistic as I recall. Dennis Miller was in that, wasn't he? *



Yep,  that's the one.  I remember seeing that movie and not originaly liking it because of the macs... at the time my vision was tainted by the dark side.

Regardless it ended up being a decent movie.


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## Hobeaux (Sep 23, 2002)

well, the 'backwards' message said to take the anniversary date and add .com to it.

I went to the earlier image which had the data 09 - 06 - 90 on it and so I put in the URL: https://www.august61990.com and it came up with a Web Design Firm. go figure.


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## sheepguy42 (Sep 23, 2002)

> _Originally posted by Hobeaux _
> *well, the 'backwards' message said to take the anniversary date and add .com to it.
> 
> I went to the earlier image which had the data 09 - 06 - 90 on it and so I put in the URL: https://www.august61990.com and it came up with a Web Design Firm. go figure. *


I tried clicking on your link, but because of "https" instead of "http" I got an error page in omniweb, so when I removed the "s" the address sent me here:
http://home1.nikonnet.com/photosharing/guestindex.html?RefreshRandom=0.6882235015295666
which is Nikon's (a camera company) site for loading pics, only get this: I am logged in as "kann"!!!! I have never been to this site before, and I am on my own Mac and nobody else can log in as me here, etc... and a photo is shown:


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## goynang (Sep 24, 2002)

There's actually six images if you do as the post above advises.

The last one has some kind of puzzle on it to do with numbers.


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## sheepguy42 (Sep 24, 2002)

> _Originally posted by goynang _
> *There's actually six images if you do as the post above advises.
> 
> The last one has some kind of puzzle on it to do with numbers. *


That puzzle may have to do with decoding a phone number or something....like if you flip all the pairs on each side of the 5, and dial the # like that.... I don't know. But one of the pics is a document with a phone # written on it.


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## lucasraggers (Sep 25, 2002)

from opensrs.org:

Registrant:
Mr. Sandau
5148 West Mill Rd.
Minnetonka, MN 5545
US

Domain Name: UNCAPTHERIDE.COM

Administrative Contact:
Sandau, Mr. ricardo@cazarin.com
5148 West Mill Rd.
Minnetonka, MN 5545

Anyone want to send Mr. Sandau an email?


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## IchiroBoston (Sep 25, 2002)

Oh man, now im hooked.
Anyone figure it out yet?
6 images, 6 keys.... hmm?

Ichiro


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## Hobeaux (Sep 25, 2002)

> _Originally posted by sheepguy42 _
> *
> I tried clicking on your link, but because of "https" instead of "http" I got an error page in omniweb, so when I removed the "s" the address sent me here:
> *


*

This is decidedly weird: I went back to the URL that I specified (not sure how the 's' got in) but with the Chimera browser and a warning came up stating something along the lines of "this site isn't who they say they are. the site may have been hijacked" or somesuch. but then it took me to the web design firm that I mentioned.

as far as the Nikon-ish site that you pointed to, it has in big, blue type the :k: symbol...

weird weird*


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## Ricky (Sep 25, 2002)

Man, you guys should be detectives.


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## IchiroBoston (Sep 25, 2002)

I got all the way to another phone number that you have to call back on Sept 30.
Guess I have to wait now 

Ichiro


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## goynang (Sep 25, 2002)

I think the number boxes show you how to decode other numbers.

It says a five is a five and zero is a zero. So 5's and 0's don't need decoding.

All other numbers get translated via those boxes.

i.e. 1 becomes 9, 2 becomes 8 and so on.

That's why there are two boxes (1 to 9, and 9 to 1), so it can handle numbers either side of 5.


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## Ricky (Sep 25, 2002)

I was running Chimera and noticed that the main page and MPEG-4 page on Apple.com both tried to load something off of http://www.glen.nu/.  My WhoIs attempts were fruitless, and the site itself has no main page.  I couldn't find anything about that server in the page source code...

Glitch, or clue?  It may be a forward of some sort...

EDIT:  The site's icon is a red snake.


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## wiz (Sep 25, 2002)

&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;!-- END COPYRIGHT INFORMATION --&gt;
&lt;!-- END INCLUDED FOOTER --&gt;
&lt;a href="http://uncaptheride.com/babble.html" ONCLICK="adclick('http://uncaptheride.com/babble.html',':k:')">:k:</a><br><br>
&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
&lt;/center&gt; 
&lt;/body&gt;
&lt;/html&gt;


take a look at the source code of the apple page...

i think there was supposed to be an ad there?

well thats what the code's "adclick" method suggests, I GUESS


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## dave17lax (Sep 25, 2002)

I received this fax this morning, seemingly by mistake. Upon reviewing the document, I found a glaring error in it!


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## Ricky (Sep 25, 2002)

That's fine.  I was only trying to help, and I get jumped on for it.


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## dave17lax (Sep 25, 2002)

? does my link not work or something


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## Rhino_G3 (Sep 26, 2002)

Your link works... I'm still trying to find the glaring error in it 

Maybe the date at the top?  it's Sept 17th... not the 25th.

I'm trying to find a versailles casino right now to see where they're located.  I tried dialing the number at the top of the fax to see if it was legit and all I get is a stutter in the dialtone.


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## Rhino_G3 (Sep 26, 2002)

Take a look at this....

http://abc.abcnews.go.com/primetime/push/show.html

Especialy this paragraph


> The mystery begins when a fax from the _Versailles Casino_ in Push is sent by _accident_ (perhaps) to Jim, alerting him to a sizable accounting error  and an embezzlement scheme involving a fortune in cash. Casino honcho _Silas Bodnick_ refuses to talk about the missing money, so Jim's investigation leads him to Push, where nothing is as it seems.



Aparently it's show new show on ABC called "welcome to push nevada"


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## Rhino_G3 (Sep 26, 2002)

whoo hoo!! take a look at this   



> About Push, NV
> 
> Push, NV is a television show, produced by LivePlanet, that is currently airing on the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) at 9 PM, 8 PM Central on Thursday nights. It stars Derek Cecil and Scarlett Chorvat. *There's a twist to Push, though. There's a sizable amount of money, exceeding $1 million, that one lucky viewer will win.* They will do this by watching the show very carefully. Every episode has a Weekly Clue (Episode 13 has two) which is hinted at throughout the episode, and on various *web pages*. By successfully solving the Weekly Clues, a viewer could ultimately go and solve the Ultimate Solve, available right after Episode 13 airs until 6 hours later. That viewer would then win the cash prize.


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## paulbawon (Sep 27, 2002)

This entire game is run by an 'online game and strategy' marketing company based in the UK. They were commissioned by Dreamworks to work on the web based marketing for AI and then have moved to market for BMW. I think you'll find that one of the posters amongst you will actual be a employee and will be leading you through various strands of the narrative. Within the next week it'll move from the web to other media forms like phone, fax and email, where you'll interact by calling numbers and having your numbers called adn recieving strange fax's (there budgets for this are normally in the £400k+

It's a good ride to be on so have fun!

Paul


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## roger (Sep 27, 2002)

I wouldn't call the error glaring, but it is there. The cash flow statement doesn't balance to the sum of $1,045,000.

The Balance sheet doesn't feed into the cash flow statement either: In Week1 the Cash in the balance sheet is out by $10,450.00 compared to the balance at the end of the cash flow statement. I wonder if this is supposed to be a difference like that above, but someone got their thousands and millions confused.

There is a lot of undeposited funds at the end of Week1 - looks like someone has been dipping their hands into them.

The glaring error from an accounting perspective is that they have a credit on the assets of the balance sheet - should really be in liabilities, but that is just notation.

R.


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## IchiroBoston (Sep 30, 2002)

Ok, I just called the 916 phone number... uggh another message to wait till jan 11!!
Damn!


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## mfsri (Oct 24, 2002)

It has something to do with BMW films...


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## Ricky (Oct 26, 2002)

http://www.geekculture.com/joyoftech/joyarchives/399.html

Hm.


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