Star Rider

Kurt's Journal #9 - Decryption #1

Why did Alcon willingly sign the non-recovery agreement? And why did he meet his fate with such apparent tranquility? As I scrolled through the photos captured by the camera on my spacesuit, an insatiable curiosity welled up within me, yearning for answers to these pressing questions.

"Cube, how long can we stay here?"

"Kurt, we are still in the survey area. I can use the rotation of B-19997 to conduct some surveys of nearby small asteroids. It should be no problem to stay for 60 clock cycles."

"Sure, thank you. Could you please adjust the strength of the gravity for me?"

"I can. I need 300 seconds to secure the landing gear and another 45 seconds to start it."

The spacecraft was now standing vertically on the surface of the asteroid. The centrifuge module was designed to rotate around the longitudinal axis of the spacecraft under weightless conditions, but B-19997 had a slight gravity, so the centrifuge module was not in a horizontal position with respect to the ground. Instead, it was tilted slightly towards the ground like an umbrella surface. This ensured that the centrifugal force and the microgravity of the asteroid were combined to create the gravity that I felt in my vertical direction. I heard some sounds coming from the cabin. It should be Cube fixing the landing gear and transferring the counterweight arm to the balanced position. After a while, Cube prompted me:

"Please hold onto the handle. I'm going to increase the centrifugal gravity. Considering that you will move to different positions in the cabin and that it will take time to adjust the counterweight, I will only load 0.7G."

"Okay, go ahead and start."

The porthole closed slowly, and gravity kicked in. I walked over to the console and had Cube display Alcon's photo on the display terminal, as well as the contents of Alcon's storage disk on the console. When an unexpected relic from a "non-recovery agreement" astronaut was received, the rescuer could handle it independently from a legal perspective, but in most cases, the rescuer would bury the deceased on the spot and bring the relics back to a supply station, indicating that they were the relics of a certain astronaut. Cargo ships traveling between various space habitats and supply stations would send them back to the astronaut's hometown, and this operation was entirely voluntary, as every explorer hoped that if they encountered an unfortunate event, their relics could be treated with such respect and care.

After confirming with Cube, there were no last words or notes from Alcon in the existing system, so the relics could not be sent to any place or person. His limited compensation responsibility had a beneficiary, but the name was protected by the agreement, which seemed strange. From the flight records of the cabin section, it seemed that Alcon had enough time to leave his last words, but he did not. Perhaps he did not need to give the relics to the beneficiary, or perhaps the beneficiary was a charity organization? These circumstances piqued my curiosity about Alcon's text logs, as they might provide insights into his journey and enable me to give him a dignified farewell.

"Cube, could you please analyze Alcon's storage system and attempt to decrypt the content of the first log?"

"This system is probably a version from nine years ago, commonly used hashing, symmetric encryption, and asymmetric encryption are all supported. Based on the characteristics of the ciphertext, these logs tend to use symmetric encryption, but meaningful plaintext cannot be obtained by using commonly used passwords. Perhaps Alcon used a mixed method of multiple encryption..." Cube seemed to be answering my question and talking to himself at the same time. If I didn't intentionally adjust the language system to be more mechanical, I would even suspect that he was a human colleague working with me.

I remembered the few lines in that notebook: "Can you help me try these decryption algorithms?"

"Which ones?" Cube asked.

"Try these keys: 'Time is nothing', 'A&A', 'Alcon', using different hash algorithms with upper and lower cases, title case, no spaces, and various encoding methods, and see if they generate hashes of different lengths. Also, try calculating hashes using different character encodings."

After conducting extensive analysis, Cube responded, "I have attempted common symmetric decryption using the provided keys, but unfortunately, I have not been able to decipher the content."

Puzzled by the lack of progress, I contemplated the situation. The notebook was supposed to serve as the keybook. Could it be that I overlooked something crucial?

After a moment, Cube added, "I've also tried some uncommon symmetric encryption combinations, but with no meaningful output."

I picked up a package of warm coffee and walked to the display screen. "Cube, play the photo of Alcon's relics for me."

Cube displayed the photos one by one and opened the music. I leaned back in my chair, drank coffee, and looked at the photos one by one, wondering if I had forgotten to organize any relics. Suddenly, I noticed some tracks that looked like insects crawling over the sand on the right side of Alcon, in addition to footprints.

"What is this?" I zoomed in on that part of the photo and saw various strokes, which were some kind of writing, but a bit blurry.

Cube reminded me, "It should be Japanese, 'ami'."

"What?" I didn't understand. With the support of a huge database, AI's proficiency in various languages indeed surpasses that of ordinary humans, but I didn't react.

"'あみ' is the hiragana spelling of Japanese, corresponding to the English name 'Ami' and the Chinese character '亚美,' usually a Japanese female name."

"Ami?" I suddenly remembered the 'A&A' on the notebook.

"Cube, try 'Ami,' 'Ami&Alcon,' 'Alcon&Ami,' with various upper and lower cases, spaces, and encoding as keys for decryption."

Cube paused for a moment. "I think I found the decoding key, which is the Base64 encoding of 'Ami&Alcon.' Currently, I can decrypt the first log, but the others cannot be decrypted."

Cube displayed the key "QW1pJkFsY29u" and a meaningful phrase from a block of decrypted text on the terminal. Each log had a short name, and the beginning of each text was a unique system-generated code, such as "DSF@8c3fd2225d5c40705c73c0cdf29ebddd." Immediately following that, the first sentence written by Alcon was "I am Alcon, and I will begin a journey..."

My heartbeat suddenly accelerated. It felt like discovering a small asteroid for exploration, but also a little disappointed, perhaps because the owner of the log had already passed away, and I could only read his information without talking to him, or perhaps because I thought of my own future departure and could also leave information in this way...

"Cube, decrypt the logs and store them for me, but refrain from transmitting them to the command center at this time," I instructed. Considering Alcon's non-recovery agreement, I felt responsible for handling his logs personally. While I understood that AI's computing power could easily crack the password, Alcon explicitly expressed his desire for the company not to receive the file, and I held utmost respect for his decision.

"Cube, you just said we could stay for 60 clock cycles?"

"Yes, there are still 58.5 left."

"Okay, please put Alcon's first log on the display terminal, I want to read it."

"Sure, it's already stored. Also, you haven't taken any food for two clock cycles. I have prepared food capsules for you..."

I'm actually a little hungry, so I stood up and swallowed the capsule with the coffee, then started leafing through the first log of Alcon...