Just Who is 'Unknown Origin'?

A Hacker?
An Automated Rogue Virus?
An Angry Loner?
A Prophet?
The Second Coming?
A Scientology Fundamentalist?
A Prankster?

Just who IS ‘Unknown Origin’?

The mystery started just a few short weeks ago, in the popular Cracktown Community IRC chatroom. While logged-on residents were in the midst of evening conversation, a flash of binary code with jumbled, incoherent sentences suddenly bombarded the chatroom. This obscure invasion automatically caused the chatroom to freeze in response for a time. Not much was initially thought of the strange outburst, until IRC Administrators tried to trace the IP address of the message source. And failed. Rick Male, Systems Cleanser for Quicklime News, explains; "It was very strange. Normally speaking, everyone leaves behind an IP address with every online movement they make. Not this time. The IP address was spoofed (i.e. faked) and the mysterious user, who must have intentionally bombarded the chatroom with their drivel, remains of ‘unknown origin’. Very few people in the world can successfully spoof an IP address. This bloke can."

The chatroom returned to normalcy for a time afterwards, various shut-ins and angry loners visiting the board just as frequently as before. Then, one night, Unknown Origin struck again. This time, a more clearer message was received by the chatroom logs;

"01101stillthereisnohope000111////THE END OF IT ALL///[ I CANNOT PERISH"

What does all this mean? Not much, admittedly. Except when you start to compare these curious chatroom invasions to similar entries found on several other chat nodes and virtual cafes on the internet. Quicklime News can, for the first time, exclusively reveal the hidden messages and pictures that have been sent to the darkest corners of the World Wide Web, all of which are linked by the sender with a familiarly 'spoofed' IP address – a certain ‘Unknown Origin’.
Here’s what was sent unannounced to a BNP chat applet three days ago;


YOURDAEDALUS.J_P_G
-----------38RH4RG347RGT734TG7GQEWER...

The binary code is too long to print here in full, but when you saved the whole message as a file and added the .jpeg extension, a low-res image can be seen;





















And here’s another two entries, retrieved from the same racist site 7 hours later;

1. ICARUSWITHOUTCONSCIENCE.J_P_G
--------------------323224545EJFHECBCHBCHWEERJ...


2. LUNAREYE.J_P_G
--------------------329292848SFBEHBSSWUSUDFUUS...

As saved as jpeg files respectively;

1.











2.

Further bizarrely encoded messages were found on the following chat applets and nodes;

Zinger’s Celebrity Pedestal forum. Text received;

POORICARUS.J_P_G
----------------3285768457ASACCHWHXSHFJGKFK...

And converted to;

A Coughin’ With A Chav Innit chatroom. Text received;

HIRO.J_P_G
--------------3475868695ASCEFTGUNCABBUXXAA...

And converted to;

The mystery just gets curiouser and curiouser. What is this online series of pictures and pseudo-prophetic babblings actually trying to say? Many are unsure, or plainly indifferent. Some, however, are already posting and discussing their wild theories on the Quicklime IRC Chatroom itself;

"Its God…"
"Its the alien worshippers going nuts after those four Scientology fundamentalists did the bombings in Aberdeen…"
"Its Banksy…"
"Its just a worm virus doing picture-mixes from random thumbnail galleries…"

And so on.

One thing is for sure. No-one has a clue as to who, or what, is sending these messages. Nor what they are trying to say.

Maybe it IS simply all a silly hoax after all. Nothing more than a geeky child in a dank bedroom somewhere, wanting to spread some kind of confusion and distraction for their own amusement. Or maybe it truly is someone trying to warn us all, in this dark and uncertain post-flood era, to not rest on our laurels or assume ‘everything is going to be ok’.

Because maybe, just maybe, everything WON’T be okay.



Polly Blank
[home]



Please see the latest issue of Quicklime News for Polly Blank’s already award-winning serial coverage of the ‘Rooftop Running’ craze hitting the region’s youth; "Youngsters, mostly of the 10-19 age bracket, are congregating more and more on the rooftops of the Flooded Zone houses and partially-submerged retail parks, perilously leaping from chimney to chimney and antennae to antennae above the flooded wastelands. Read more about my findings in the next edition of the ONLY local paper you can trust".