Important Info Re: IT Crowd Series 3 DVD Easter Eggs

I’m writing this as a personal favor to anyone working on decoding the IT Crowd Series 3 DVD Easter Eggs. There’s a lot of incorrect info going around, and although I have no interest in the hidden messages myself, I feel I should point out a few important things.

Firstly, my website www.reynholm.co.uk has NOTHING to do with the DVD. It’s a personal fansite, it’s been around for several years and I have no affiliation with Channel 4 or the IT Crowd. Please don’t email me asking for the password to the intranet, it’s easy to find. In fact I believe it’s on the Wikipedia page. And most of the sequences of numbers on the site (the password file, etc) have no meaning. Either way, nothing on my website will help you with the Series 3 DVD.

Secondly, and this is the most important one, all the IT Crowd sites are hosted on the same web server.

The IP address is 89.16.172.246

If you visit the IP address on it’s own, you get a blank placeholder site that says “The cake is a lie” and “Coming soon…”. http://89.16.172.246/

Here’s a list of the sites that I could find sitting on that server:
http://www.hokerspoker.com
http://www.itsveryblue.com
http://www.friendface.co.uk/
http://www.fiendface.com/ (Yes, FIENDface, without an ‘R’)
http://www.ilovewillies.com/
http://www.howlonghaveyougot.com/
http://www.bluffball.com/
http://www.bluffball.co.uk/
http://www.cuke.me/
http://www.cuke.co.uk/
http://www.reynholmindustries.co.uk/
http://www.ilovewillies.com/
http://www.itcrowd.com/

As with all these sites, if you go to a page that doesn’t exist you’ll get the standard “Coming soon…” and “Cake is a lie” error page. The same thing will happen if you replace “www” with something else. “Coming soon…” should be interpreted as actually meaning “Page Not Found”. I can pretty much guarantee that http://fakefakefake.bluffball.com/ is not just “coming soon”.

I hope this helps, it’s just basic knowledge to anyone who has ever run a web server or setup DNS

Friendface.co.uk Text Deciphered!

If anyone was watching The IT Crowd last week, you would remember the whole plot revolved around a Facebook style website called “Friendface”.

Well there is a real official website at www.friendface.co.uk!

Except when you load the site you get a Reynholm Industries error message (I had nothing to do with this, I assure you!)

Well I’ve had nothing better to do tonight, so I  deciphered the blurry text on the page for everyone who was curious what it says. This is genuine, I did this by matching the symbols to where they appeared in the rest of the paragraph. The little upside down V with a dot above it is an ‘A’, and so on.

Here you go:

The text from www.friendface.co.uk, deciphered!

Update: I just found out that someone else beat me by 4 hours, it’s on Graham Linehan’s blog

Still, we’re both happy that someone else could confirm we got it right

IT Crowd Office Supplies

Just in case anyone’s wondering where the IT Crowd items on Zazzle are from, here are the originals from Series 3 episode 3:

Original:

Zazzle:

Original:

Zazzle:

Original:

Zazzle:

Buy them from here: http://www.zazzle.com/reynholm/

Reynholm Industries Update!

I’ve just done a major update of www.reynholm.co.uk

There’s now a new “secret” page and an Office Supplies store (near-exact replicas of props on the TV show, all artwork recreated by hand).

And I’ve updated the color scheme too, to fit more with the show’s look.

Feedback welcome!

(I may be updating some of the intranet wallpapers soon too, stay tuned)

Also very happy to see that the staff ID Cards in the intranet are nearly identical to the ones featured in the latest episode of the show.

Hacking The IT Crowd Series 2 DVD – Part 2

I think I may be onto something big here!

I recently came across the website http://www.ilovewillies.com

This site is owned by FremantleMedia and contains some great tips for the Easter Eggs.

I have now managed to extract some very useful information from the file in Episode 1. It is a JPEG containing EXIF data, with some Geolocation coordinates:

File: - G:\Copy of test.jpgImageDescription - OL]MPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Make - OLYIPUS L€TåCAL CO.,LTD

Model - Þ      OL]MP

Orientation -

XResolution - 144

YResolution - 144

ResolutionUnit - Inch

Software - 42-0120

DateTime - 2007:05:04 23:15:35

YCbCrPositioning - Co-Sited

ExifOffset - 296

ExposureTime - 1/30 seconds

FNumber - 2.00

ExposureProgram - Normal program

ISOSpeedRatings - 80

ExifVersion - 0210

DateTimeOriginal - 2007:05:04 23:15:35

DateTimeDigitized - 2007Ò0%:0
 23:1:3

ComponentsConfiguration - YCbCr

ExposureBiasValue - 0.00

MaxApertureValue - F 2.04

MeteringMode - Multi-segment

Flash - Fired

FocalLength - 10.00 mm

UserComment - You'vu found an Easter Egg!

FlashPixVersion - 0100

ColorSpace - Uncalibrated

ExifImageWidth - 1024

ExifImageHeight - 768

InteroperabilityOffset - 670

FileSource - DSC - Digital still camera

GPS information: -

GPSLatitudeRef - N

GPSLatitude - 51  32  56

GPSLongitudeRef - W

GPSLongitude - 0  32  4

Now what are these coordinates?
51 32 56 N 0 32 4 W
Well it just happens to be:
Pinewood Studios!!!

The comment in the file is “You Found an Easter Egg“

I am still working on decrypting the rest of the JPEG, it’s slow but I’m getting there.

Update: October 31st

I now know that the JPEG is a photo of Maurice Moss standing in the doorway of the basement holding something…
I have another 20 or so lines to decipher before I can unscramble what he is holding in his hand, although I do have a suspicion I already know what it is!

Update: November 9th

I have better things to do than try to finish decoding these subtitles, I seriously can’t be bothered anymore, and finally there are other people out there who have begun working on the project.

Here’s the photo I decoded so far: Maurice Moss

It’s Moss, and he seems to be holding 2 Easter Eggs.

Update: November 9th (again)

Yes I know the photo is blurry and pixelated. I only decoded part of it, hence why I said “here’s the photo I decoded so far”. The photo is only partially decoded, and I don’t have a more clear version for you. The photo, when you click the link, is pixelated, and I don’t have a finished copy of it for you. Please don’t ask me for a more clear version, because I only partially decoded the image above and that’s the most I’m going to be doing on it. It’s enough so that you can see what it is.

To recap: That’s the image, yes it’s blurry, no I can’t fix it.

Thankyou.

Hacking the IT Crowd Series 2 DVD

Well 2 days ago my copy of the great series “The IT Crowd series 2″ arrived on DVD from the UK (Region 2 DVD).

Series 1 had a whole bunch of cool geeky features, however series 2 has gone above and beyond this time.

When you select “l33t” subtitles and watch episode 1, you see this:

The subtitles are actually a base64 encoded file! This is the same format used for attachments in emails.

Hidden Files
Episode 1 – “EasterEgg1.jpg”
Episode 2 – “Barber.z5″
Episode 3 – “EggDump”
Episode 4 – Not a file, but some programming code (see below)
Episode 5 – “EasterEgg3.part.2″
Episode 6 – Not a file, it is some kind of encoded light pattern in the bottom of the screen.

Programming Code (Episode 4)
Episode 4 contains the following programming code:

10	REM > Sophie's Choice

20	MODE 0

30	*LOAD EggDump ffff3000

40	ENVELOPE 1, 3, 1, -1, 1, 1, 2, 1, 30, -10, 0, -40, 127, 80

50	PROCPLAY2

60	END

70	DEF PROCPLAY2

80	RESTORE 290

90	REPEAT

100	A = 1

110	READ C, N$, D

120	P = 37 + INSTR("A BC D EF G", LEFT$(N$,1)) * 4

130	N2$ = MID$(N$, 2, 1)

140	IF N2$ = "#" THEN P = P + 4

Etc…
It appears to be in BASIC language, a game called “Sophie’s Choice”.

The JPEG image in episode 1 will probably reveal more though.

The main problem with DVD Subtitles is that they are not text, they are images. The only way to convert them to plain text is to use Optical Character Recognition (OCR). The best program I’ve seen to do this is SubRip, however this unfortunately truncates the subtitles and only translates the first 8 or so lines.
Currently I’m using a program called Avidemux, it’s the only one I’ve found (out of about ten) that works. The drawback is that although it’s accurate, it also takes much longer to train the OCR.

I’ve written a base64 decoder with PHP, so far I’ve only extracted enough of the subtitles to know that the JPEG photo was taken with an Olympus Digital Camera E-10 at 11:15pm on May 4th 2007.

Update: Part 2 Continues here

Best Anti-Piracy Ad…Ever!

Still feel like downloading illegal movies? Watch this…

Why, That’s Delightful!

Why, That’s Delightful!

The official blog of Graham Linehan, the genius behind “Father Ted”, “Black Books” and “The IT Crowd”!

Enjoy his unique perspective on the world around us.

Reynholm Industries (The IT Crowd)

I’ve been getting a lot of fanmail over this one, this is the corporate website for Reynholm Industries, the fictional organisation that Roy, Moss and Jen work for in the UK sitcom “The IT Crowd”.

Check it out at http://www.reynholm.co.uk

I built this site as a bit of fun, but I have to say after all the positive feedback I feel inspired to develop it even more!

Feedback, comments, suggestions all welcome, but please don’t ask me for the Intranet password. THERE ISN’T ONE!