http://pangenttechnologies.tumblr.com/post/159101381827

These Pictures of Rick Astley appeared after the post which stated that this blog is no longer a Spice Girls blog. Since it was April Fool’s Day at the time, the jury is still out on how true that statement might be.

Whatever the case, this post presents us with a new puzzle in the RGB color channels of each image. There are two images the first inverted image has text in all three channels, while the second only has text in the Green and Blue channels.

The text on each layer consists of words from one of two phrases in Rick Astley’s most famous song. “Never Gonna Give You Up” or “Never Gonna Let You Down” are the phrases. By assigning each word in the phrase a number, in order, a mapping is created. Never=1, Gonna=2, Give/Let=3, You=4, Up/Down=5.

Then, these numbers can be grouped by twos and decoded as Tap Code to become letters. These letters can then be decrypted using a Vigenere cipher with key ‘Rick Astley’ to become letters ranging from A-J. Then convert these to numbers 1-0 and group by threes to result in ASCII decimal encoded values which decode to more gibberish-looking strings, but since they are 15 characters and made up of lowercase alphanumeric, we recognize them as mediafire IDs.

1-Red:

11 32 23 44 15 45 13 44 32 23 51 32 13 44 24 12 12 44 33 13 52 42 13 42 11 12 53 31 33 11 42 42 21 13 25 55 13 44 13 23 55 34 13 44 14 ->

AMH TEU CTM HVM CTI BBT NCW RCR ABX LNA RRF CJZ CTC HZO CTD ->

JEF JEC JII JEE AJI JII JEF JIH AJE AJC AJD SJH JIG JIG AJD ->

056 053 099 055 109 099 056 098 105 103 104 108 097 097 104 ->

85c7mc8bighlaah -> http://mediafire.com/?85c7mc8bighlaah -> never.zip



1-Green:

11 41 13 13 12 43 44 31 23 54 11 32 31 34 11 12 53 31 33 13 42 24 31 35 11 43 53 31 go15 44 24 21 44 41 55 11 33 53 32 34 53 53 14 32 3 ->

AQC CBS TLH YAM LOA BXL NCR ILP ASX LFY RRD TEV CPN HUP LSH ->

JII ABA AAD AJE JEA JEA JEA AJF AAE ABA AJB JED JEJ JDH JIH ->

099 121 114 105 051 051 051 106 115 121 102 054 050 048 098 ->

cyri333jsyf620b -> http://mediafire.com/?cyri333jsyf620b -> gonna.zip



1-Blue:

42 42 31 44 15 52 44 45 13 54 42 34 31 34 11 12 12 44 33 13 42 24 13 41 11 43 45 31 21 54 11 32 13 13 12 43 13 44 31 23 51 33 13 13 11 ->

RRL TEW TUC YRO LOA BBT NCR ICQ ASU LFY AMC CBS CTL HVN CCA ->

AJJ JEE AJG AAG JEA JII JEA AAG AAB ABA JEA ABA JIH JEF AAA ->

100 055 107 117 051 099 051 117 112 121 051 121 098 056 111 ->

d7ku3c3upy3yb8o -> http://mediafire.com/?d7ku3c3upy3yb8o -> give.zip



2-Green:

42 42 14 13 25 53 44 31 15 54 42 24 13 44 24 12 53 35 33 13 52 42 21 42 11 12 13 31 33 13 42 25 13 13 12 44 13 44 32 23 51 33 31 34 13 ->

RRD CJX TLE YRI CTI BXP NCW RFR ABC LNC RJC CBT CTM HVN LOC ->

AJB AJF AAA AAA AJI JEE JEF JDH AJJ AJE ABA ABB JII JEF JEC ->

102 106 111 111 109 055 056 048 100 105 121 122 099 056 053 ->

fjoom780diyzc85 -> http://mediafire.com/?fjoom780diyzc85 -> you.zip



2-Blue:

42 42 22 44 15 52 44 45 21 54 42 35 31 34 14 43 13 45 15 23 51 42 21 43 11 44 44 45 24 15 11 32 24 44 14 11 44 45 24 54 42 25 31 43 24 ->

RRG TEW TUF YRP LOD SCU EHV RFS ATT UIE AMI TDA TUI YRJ LSI ->

AJE JEE AJB AAH JED AJJ AJE JDI ABA JEG JEG JDI AJE AAB JII ->

105 055 102 118 054 100 105 049 121 057 057 049 105 112 099 ->

i7fv6di1y991ipc -> http://mediafire.com/?i7fv6di1y991ipc -> up.zip

Each ZIP file contains a single WAV file with the same name as the ZIP. The five, unsurprisingly, make up the lyric ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’. Each WAV file is encoded using the Kansas City Standard method and can be decoded using the python scripts provided early by Pangent Technologies in this medaifire link: http://mediafire.com/?re6w37cv7aejo93

There is A LOT of content in these WAV files. Never is 2 hours long while the other four are 18.5 hours each. After decoding the audio files into text, it is revealed that Never consists of an ASCII-art image of Rick Astley:

The remaining four audio files decode into files with ASCII characters '1’ or '0’ only. Each file consisting of 1,553,445 ones or zeros. The suspicion is that these are Portable Bit Map (PBM) files with the header missing. So a row and column count is needed. The total divides evenly by 555 and 999, so those were tried and it was discovered that the size of 999x1555 was correct for the images.

Gonna:

Give:

You:

Up:

Each image appears to be differently shaded versions of the same image, so these can be recombined as Composite layers to make a color image. Since we have four, CMYK is assumed instead of RGB. Combining the images as-is yields a fairly washed-out looking but functional version of the image:

But since the composite images are binary black-or-white pixel images instead of grey scale images, they can be blurred before recombining to get a better result when combined into colors as this will allow more than just the 16 possible colors when working with 4 black and white layers. (It might only be 8 possible colors as it’s converted to RGB) The result (thanks Taurtini!) is pretty impressive for 74 hours worth of Audio and 6 Megabytes of text. A space-saving format this is not!

Speaking of Taurtini improving image quality, by using a blur and vertical motion blur of the ASCII-art image from Never.wav, the following image is obtained:

So there you have it, Pangent’s elaborate Rick Roll of the 2017 April Fool’s Season. Here’s hoping for a return to regular programming soon :)