Can this qualify as a challenge?

[PeaceCrusader]

Dear Dan O and Fellow Forumers,

You cannot find anything posted under my name before mid 1999 because we connected to the Internet only in 1999. I can't remember the month but it surely was before May or June 1999.

And within a month was banned by your ISP.

Why would my ISP ban me? We had the same ISP for maybe two years until we switched to another one which offered a better deal and from Dial-up to Broadband.

I am still working full-time so I cannot possibly participate in 50-100 newsgroups, as you claim. That is an exaggeration. This Challenge forum alone is already taking a lot of my time just trying to explain things.

Yes, I see I did exaggerate. The search listed 150 but I see now that most of them were duplicates. I apologize and post a link to the scoreboard.

Thank you for finding Nabble and my scoreboard there. Do you know why I accumulate my postings in Nabble? How much time do you think I spend just trying to compose my responses? Are they one-liners that one may just let them go and forget about them? How many forums do you participate in? Are the people in one forum the same as in the other forums?

I don't want that my responses just be forgotten in a discussion forum that I participate in. And I would like to get my message across to as many people as possible and also get their opinions.

Best regards,
Aristeo Canlas Fernando, Peace Crusader and Echo

 

[feldesq]

Somehow, I doubt Randi will go for that.

For the sake of important clarification (sorry to appear to be nitpicking here), always remember that James Randi does not do the testing. The JREF screens the applicants (and as of April 1 will be using the new criteria), but the scientific method is the basis for designing the test protocols and then conducting the testing, and the final arbiter of the testing results would not be James Randi but an independent panel of scientists.

 

[PeaceCrusader]

Dear Jackalgirl and Fellow Forumers,

If the spirit is correct in the numbers you generated, what will that mean to you? Would you believe the spirit and who He is?

Probably not right off the bat; I have a lot already intellectually invested in what I currently think; plus, the other information provided (such as the Egyptian Princess stuff) is so completely obviously bogus that it raises extremely high barriers to belief in my mind, which aren't going to be overcome by simply passing one test like this. However, I will probably believe that something is going on, just that I wouldn't know what that is yet. It'd take more investigation.

Which, of course, should be no problem, right? Truth loves questions.

At any rate, I just generated the 5 numbers and have PMd them to Loss Leader. Edited to read: LL, sorry about the he/she bit. I didn't know your gender. But I'm glad your wife got a kick out of the post. : )

PC, I have made this proposal under the understanding that your medium will have to get all five numbers correct in order to pass this test. Do you agree? Please let me know that you agree that it's 5 out of 5 (not 4 out of 5, or 3 out of 5, but the whole 5 numbers guessed correctly).

Also, have you read the Challenge application and FAQ?

P.S. Also, I just want to point out that I used two 10-siders, one marked 10s and the other marked 1s, so there can be no foolin' around with what's in the 10s spot and what's in the 1s. --JG

Thank you, Jackalgirl, for your suggestion. That is brilliant. You are a methodical woman. I don't know what will change your beliefs but I do not impose on anyone my beliefs. You may pick out anything that the spirit says that is good for you and discard whatever is evil, if any.

I agree that success means 5 out of 5 and anyone wrong means failure.

I have read the Challenge application and the FAQ and understand them with the forumers' help (including yourself) in clarifying matters that may not be clear to me. In fact, I have them printed and put them in a clearfold plastic display book. I will take this book to the Philippines.

Did you know that the spirit told us that Jesus was born on May 23 and was crucified and died on August 17? The dates may be ridiculous especially August 17 and the year is 1 BC. These are far out of the generally-accepted dates. But I have proven them correct after seven years of research (1999-2006). And these are what first drove me into this forum--and asked if these dates revealed by a spirit would qualify as a challenge.

So do not dismiss the Egyptian names "Reneliniyindi" and "Agleloma" yet. They may be found to be correct. When the spirit says king, He may not necessarily mean the Pharaoh. He may be the governor or the mayor of his locality.

Best regards,
Aristeo Canlas Fernando, Peace Crusader and Echo

 

[Jackalgirl]

PC --

Oops! Missed your post (which wasn't there when I began my post). Give me a coupla minutes here to recalibrate my thoughts. : )PC --

Edited to state:

I too am agreeing with Loss Leader, in his messages below, in regards to what I will accept as a "hit". I am glad that you accept 5 out of 5.

I have read the Challenge application and the FAQ and understand them with the forumers' help (including yourself) in clarifying matters that may not be clear to me. In fact, I have them printed and put them in a clearfold plastic display book. I will take this book to the Philippines.

Excellent. This is important. It's also important that you understand (and make the medium understand) a couple of things: 1) that any test the JREF will find acceptable will almost certainly require blinding and that 2) any test that the JREF will find acceptable has to control for cheating, or for the methods of trickery used in magic tricks to simulate remote viewing, esp., etc. You should all also understand that Mr. Randi is a world-renowned magician who knows all of these tricks, and so knows how to control for them.

This should be fine, of course -- because when you've controlled for trickery, it's much more likely that what remains is a genuine effect.

Did you know that the spirit told us that Jesus was born...<snip>

You've told us this several times before. However, you have yet to provide any independently verifiable research information, which is why this information is unacceptable here as fact, will not qualify for the Challenge, and is unacceptable to me.

So do not dismiss the Egyptian names "Reneliniyindi" and "Agleloma" yet. They may be found to be correct. When the spirit says king, He may not necessarily mean the Pharaoh. He may be the governor or the mayor of his locality.

"King" does not mean "governor" or "mayor". It means "king", which in this context means "Pharoah". What you are doing here is what you have been doing in your prophesy-related messages, which (has been pointed out ad nauseum by brighter minds than mine) is back-fitting information to fit what you have. Sure, if you broaden the interpretation of words to mean just about anything, than any statement can be true. However -- and especially in the field of Ancient Egyptian history -- you will not be able convince me that God is saying "king" when It means "mayor". God is Word, right? so you will absolutely not be able to convince me that God will be sloppy with language.

 

[Loss Leader]

If the spirit is correct in the numbers you generated, what will that mean to you? Would you believe the spirit and who He is?

I have received the numbers from Jackalgirl. They are five two-digit numbers and I have preserved the order in which they were receieved. Since they were each rolled independent of the others, duplicates are possible. For my part, I will consider a hit to be the recitation of any of the numbers without reference to their order. I will not consider a hit to be: transposition of the two digits, any multiple of the number or any number that is "pretty close" to the number. The chance of getting all five correct in any order is, I think, one in eighty-three million. Four of five numbers cuts the odds to one in eight hundred and thirty-three thousand.

As I have consistently said, a successful test would cause me to believe that information can be transmitted without energy. This would cause me to believe only that God exists, nothing more.

 

[Loss Leader]

When the spirit says king, He may not necessarily mean the Pharaoh. He may be the governor or the mayor of his locality.

Seriously?

Can we take the spirit at his word about anything?

Gotacural wasn't really the name. An event that happened after a prophesied time was really the event. And now "king" doesn't really mean "king"?

Is there nothing that you won't twist and torture so that it fits your own personal beliefs? You say you spent eleven years not believing this spirit. Yet absolutely nothing shakes your faith the least bit. It is easier for you to change reality than to change your mind.

 

[Jackalgirl]

PC, let me post one more time with a more rigorous description of the protocol you and I and Loss Leader have created here. I am giving it to you in step-by-step description: please print it out and take it with you to the Phillipines as an example of where you should start with the protocol negotiations with JREF. JREF will probably want to fine-tune this a bit further.

Requirements:
Two ten-sided dice, one marked 10s (e.g., 10, 20, 30, etc) and the other marked 1s (1, 2, 3, etc)
One dice-roller (in this case, Jackalgirl)
Two observers (in this case, PeaceCrusader & Loss Leader)
Access to the JREF Forum

Procedure:
The dice-roller (Jackalgirl) rolls the two dice to obtain a two-digit number from 01-99. She writes this number down. She then repeats the process, to obtain five two-digit numbers. Duplicates are possible through this process. She PMs these numbers to ONLY one observer (Loss Leader) and informs all parties that the numbers have been generated.
The other observer (PeaceCrusader) then observes the claimant, who will provide him with five two-digit numbers. At the completion (that is, after all five numbers have been provided by the claimant), PC will post the results on the JREF Forum. Jackalgirl will then post her originally-rolled five numbers on the Forum, and Loss Leader will confirm that those numbers are the same as those PMed to him originally.

Five out of five numbers correct constitutes a success. The order of the numbers does not matter, but they will be wholly and individually correct (in other words, no transposed numbers).

-=-=-=-=-

PC, please understand that JREF's requirements will almost certainly be more rigorous than this. JREF will probably, for example, require that the dice (if they accept dice at all) be randomly obtained (i.e., that someone go to a gaming store and buy several containers of gaming dice, then someone else draw a container out of a bag, or something along those lines) to ensure that the dice have not been tampered with. They will probably require videotaping of everything. They will probably have more stringent requirements about where these things are done and, depending on who carries out the individual steps, how they are done. I am not a rep of JREF, but I have read all of the Challange threads and the testing protocols can be very strict. Be ready for it.

 

[Dan O.]

To insure that the chosen numbers cannot be changed after PC returns from the trip, could either or both of you post a cryptographic checksum of the message containing the numbers? I can tell you exactly how to do this using the Terminal App on a Mac or in a UNIX command window. Otherwise I'll have to research the necessary steps.

The message should include the 5 pairs of numbers and a number of random words (the words are to prevent enumeration of all possible numbers to reverse the hash). For example, if the message is:

01 23 45 67 89 shoe box fork apple cup cat tricycle purple lamp space​

you could use these commands:

% [B]echo "01 23 45 67 89 shoe box fork apple cup \[/B]
? [B]cat tricycle purple lamp space" >secret.txt[/B]
% [B]chmod 400 secret.txt[/B]
% [B]md5 secret.txt[/B]
MD5 (secret.txt) = 8015b8320daa779265634f9abdfdf88b

The last line can then be posted as a commitment to the message without revealing the actual message.

Since we don't know yet if the spirit is computer literate, the message should also be printed out (in large text in case of limited sight), wrapped in foil and placed in a sealed envelope with an inscription on the outside to clearly identify the envelope.

It would be much better if a JREF representative were involved to make this an official preliminary challenge test instead of just a witnessed self test.

Edit: I temporarily forgot that you want to insure that you can actually perform what you claim before attempting the challenge.

 

[Jackalgirl]

To insure that the chosen numbers cannot be changed after PC returns from the trip, could either or both of you post a cryptographic checksum of the message containing the numbers? I can tell you exactly how to do this using the Terminal App on a Mac or in a UNIX command window. Otherwise I'll have to research the necessary steps.

Can you tell me a bit more about the md5 checksum? How exactly does it work? I have a Mac, and have in fact generated a checksum, but before I post it I'd like to know more about it. Fair warning: I'm an art major. ; )

Since we don't know yet if the spirit is computer literate, the message should also be printed out (in large text in case of limited sight), wrapped in foil and placed in a sealed envelope with an inscription on the outside to clearly identify the envelope.

While I am highly, highly skeptical of something claiming to be the spirit of God that can't read numbers off of a computer message (or, somehow, didn't "see" me roll the numbers), to be fair I have done what you've suggested. Though the writing isn't all that huge, it's on a smallish card, and it's not wrapped in foil (instead, I put the card with numbers on it inside a stack of cards and sealed that in the envelope, verifying that I can't see through it). It's on my living room tchotchke table, right behind the pic of me and my husband at Busch Gardens, is properly labeled, and has writing across the flap to make it harder to open & reseal. And the hubbo has been warned to leave it alone. I tried to warn the cat, but she only speaks English when there are Friskies Treats on hand. But as she doesn't have thumbs, I'm not too worried.

It would be much better if a JREF representative were involved to make this an official preliminary challenge test instead of just a witnessed self test.

Edit: I temporarily forgot that you want to insure that you can actually perform what you claim before attempting the challenge.

Exactly so. This is all preparation towards the possibility of this lady actually filling out a Challenge app. I personally don't see why PC has to fly to the Phillipines to do this, but he wants to. So.

 

[Loss Leader]

To insure that the chosen numbers cannot be changed after PC returns from the trip, could either or both of you post a cryptographic checksum of the message containing the numbers?

I have composed a simple cypher that should be unbreakable. To test this, please try to break it. Cypher follows:

PDHWHCWVXRZOHEQPIJBOLWMMHUJKTF

It's my first cypher. I hope you like it.

 

[Jackalgirl]

I have composed a simple cypher that should be unbreakable. To test this, please try to break it. Cypher follows:

PDHWHCWVXRZOHEQPIJBOLWMMHUJKTF

It's my first cypher. I hope you like it.

Hi, LL -- that's not a cypher of the numbers, is it?

 

[Ravenwood]

As a backup target, just in case the spirit says that it cannot see numbers (You never know) I would like to vilunteer a target consisting of a statue of a religious figure that resides on top of my computer. He is a well known christian, so one would think that "god would know his own" I will PM Loss Leader with its description & name, so he may encrypt it & we will have a background target to use.

 

[Loss Leader]

Hi, LL -- that's not a cypher of the numbers, is it?

It is. Was I not supposed to do that? I thought it was required in order to insure that there was no cheating. In any case, I feel good about it being both unbreakable and, when deciphered, unassailable.

 

[Jackalgirl]

It is. Was I not supposed to do that? I thought it was required in order to insure that there was no cheating. In any case, I feel good about it being both unbreakable and, when deciphered, unassailable.

I hope so. The only problem is that if it /is/ breakable (and I don't know much about cryptography, only that it's trickier than I ever want to deal with), PC might conceivably break it. My original goal was to not post the numbers here, so that there could be no question. I think it's rather obvious that for something like a million-dollar challenge, there'd have to be some means to ensure that the numbers haven't been monkied with, but I didn't think we'd need to go to those measures here, since this is completely unofficial and extremely basic to begin with...

Edited to add: if anyone does break this, could you make sure you post here that it's been broken? We'll need to start again.

 

[Dan O.]

Can you tell me a bit more about the md5 checksum? How exactly does it work? I have a Mac, and have in fact generated a checksum, but before I post it I'd like to know more about it. Fair warning: I'm an art major. ; )

You can look at the wikipedia article on MD5^WP. To really understand the algorithm you would need a fair amount of math and computer programming.

Basically the hash is like putting the message through a blender. It is deterministic so every time you put the same message in you get the same result out. You can verify this by trying the same message that I posted earlier. But once you have blended the message there is no way to reverse the process and find the original message.

While there have been some serious attacks on the security of the MD5, these involve finding alternate messages that generate the same result and not with reversing the hash. But with these security concerns over MD5 maybe it would be best to use a different hash. SHA1^WP is considered more secure and can be used with the command:

% [b]openssl dgst -sha1 secret.txt[/b]

While I am highly, highly skeptical of something claiming to be the spirit of God that can't read numbers off of a computer message (or, somehow, didn't "see" me roll the numbers), to be fair I have done what you've suggested.

God would have picked the numbers for you. Though you thought they looked suitably random at the time, you will be surprised to see the hidden pattern in the numbers after the spirit reveals the truth.

This is all preparation towards the possibility of this lady actually filling out a Challenge app. I personally don't see why PC has to fly to the Philippines to do this, but he wants to. So.

The challenge only requires the demonstration of the paranormal. If the lady doesn't want to file an application I don't see why PC couldn't apply by saying that he is able to receive the information from the spirit. There might of course be difficulty later if the lady doesn't cooperate for the final test.

This all presumes that the spirit doesn't apply for the challenge in person

 

[GzuzKryzt]

Everyone, can we keep this thread focused on Mrs. Alvaran's claim of a "spirit"? We've come too far to get sidetracked by e.g. Egyptian mayors.

PeaceCrusader, you have pitched your Jesus' birthday idea quite a couple of times now. For a Challenge claim, it is irrelevant; not the least reason of which is that it is unprovable in the way you described.
I sincerely suggest you keep focused on getting Mrs. Alvaran to submit a proper application.



The reason I'm saying this is quite simple: A lot, a lot, of threads by potential applicants have withered away losing focus.
Often enough, it was the fault of said potential applicant who over the course of a rational discussion got a whiff of logic - and decided it must be ignored at all costs.

We have come quite some way in this one. PeaceCrusader, you're in for a rough next few weeks. Will you stand the challenge to your beliefs and will you let simple evidence (no, scriptural interpretation is not evidence) guide you?

[We'll be right back after these messages.]

 

[Jackalgirl]

...Basically the hash is like putting the message through a blender. It is deterministic so every time you put the same message in you get the same result out. You can verify this by trying the same message that I posted earlier. But once you have blended the message there is no way to reverse the process and find the original message.

Thanks for the link -- I will definitely check that out. But: am I correct in understanding that in order to be assured that I have not monkeyed with the numbers, I will need to post both the checksum and the word salad, correct?

While there have been some serious attacks on the security of the MD5, these involve finding alternate messages that generate the same result and not with reversing the hash. But with these security concerns over MD5 maybe it would be best to use a different hash. SHA1^WP is considered more secure and can be used with the command:

% [b]openssl dgst -sha1 secret.txt[/b]

I can do that too but, again, everyone will need the words in order to be assured that the final numbers were the correct ones, right?

God would have picked the numbers for you. Though you thought they looked suitably random at the time, you will be surprised to see the hidden pattern in the numbers after the spirit reveals the truth.

Indeed -- though this seems to suggest that not writing the numbers down will not hinder the spirit in any way.

The challenge only requires the demonstration of the paranormal. If the lady doesn't want to file an application I don't see why PC couldn't apply by saying that he is able to receive the information from the spirit. There might of course be difficulty later if the lady doesn't cooperate for the final test.

That's an interesting take on it, and I wonder if JREF would accept something like that: i.e., that it's PC who applies for the challenge, the medium simply being part of the "machinery" that he uses to remote view the resulting numbers. Of course, I'm sure she'd be miffed about him getting the $1 Million instead of her, but I'm sure they could work out a deal independently from the Challenge. I'll ask Jeff via the challenge email and see what he says. Good thought!

 

[GzuzKryzt]

...
That's an interesting take on it, and I wonder if JREF would accept something like that: i.e., that it's PC who applies for the challenge, the medium simply being part of the "machinery" that he uses to remote view the resulting numbers. Of course, I'm sure she'd be miffed about him getting the $1 Million instead of her, but I'm sure they could work out a deal independently from the Challenge. I'll ask Jeff via the challenge email and see what he says. Good thought!

PeaceCrusader, would you even be willing to take the Challenge under the above quoted circumstances?

 

[Dan O.]

I have composed a simple cypher that should be unbreakable. To test this, please try to break it. Cypher follows:

PDHWHCWVXRZOHEQPIJBOLWMMHUJKTF

It's my first cypher. I hope you like it.

The difference between a cypher and a hash is that the cypher is reversible if you know the key. The hash has no key and is not reversible.

How do you know that your cypher is unassailable? A lot of amateurs that "roll their own" cyphers find out very soon just how easy amateur codes are broken. Only the OTP is know to be unbreakable but it is unusable for our purpose.

 

[Dan O.]

Thanks for the link -- I will definitely check that out. But: am I correct in understanding that in order to be assured that I have not monkeyed with the numbers, I will need to post both the checksum and the word salad, correct?

The checksum would be posted before the test. The EXACT message that generated the checksum would be posted AFTER the spirit's answers are posted. Even a single difference in the message, like an extra space or the difference between the unix and pc end of line, will result in a completely different hash. You cannot reveal the word salad until after the test because this would leave too little unknown information in the message and allow a brute force attack.

The words have another purpose in that if the spirit has difficulty with the numbers, PC can ask the spirit to read the words instead.

Note that there may be a language barrier because the medium does not speak english.