What do we tell/ask Abby?

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Permalink Reply by QtheC on July 23, 2009 at 3:52pm

"Has Abby been asking us for information?"
"What does she need to know?"

I'm not sure, but the earlier invisible ink messages, two of them mentioned spine or spinal tap and something to do with confirm. It's possible that Abby needs to know the results of Maddison's spinal tap test for some reason. It might also be an indication from Abby that Maddison needs to continue to dig into this. For now I suggest saying something like "Tap Result Unknown" or "Tap Result Needed?"

We know where Thomas sent the postcards from. Abby might know this but might not. Her letters to Thomas just have his name on them (no addresses), so maybe the "organization" she works for delivers them after censoring. Maybe this information will help her locate Thomas somehow. We could send something like "T: Omaha L.A. Tucson NY" or same with dates added.

We could also indicate that we received the drops, but are having issues reading them. "Music Too Sketchy" and "Ink Too Sober" or the equivalent.

"What do we need to know (to help her or find her)?"

In one of the messages, it sounded like Abby wants us to find her and Thomas and that her location is unknown - something along those lines.

If we know more about the 8 girls that are captive, we might be able to locate them through their family or friends, or check whether they use the same doctor or clinic as Maddison.
Maybe ask "Who are 8 Girls?" or "8 Girls Names?"

We need to know what happens after 60 days, if anything, or if there is any way to buy more time.
Maybe "60 Danger?"

We might need to know who Abby is working for. "Employer?"

Encoding

For security, we should encode the message. If it is very short, we can use music (up to about 40 characters), and I could help format that on a musical scale. If that's too much bother, the PORTA digraphic code alone should be pretty secure. We could write in plain text something like "PORTABLE CARRIER ID:" followed by the code numbers.

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Permalink Reply by BrightSilence on July 23, 2009 at 4:50pm

A quick breakdown of some things I thought of while reading the letters.

1st letter:
"I'm afraid that if I lose her (Maddison), then all my love for these animals will be deflated"
- I think this indicates that it is in fact Maddison that is in danger... or 'Safe for sixty'

"And I'm left with my thoughts, YOUR LETTERS, and the guilt"
- Could indicate that Abby get's letters from Thomas too. (However, they could be old letters)

"I pray you aren't somewhere [censored]"
- Abby doesn't know where Thomas is

2nd letter:
"I don't think I'll be able to make another trip away to check her health"
- This and both hidden messages that mentioned her spine or asked about her spinal tap, tells me Maddisons health (spine specifically) is important to Abby

The first two letters were consistent and fairly simple to get the hidden message. (heat and warm underlined) All messages look like they were addressed to Thomas (the letters AND the hidden messages).
After those two, we sent the pigeon. And the third letter clearly had a message that was addressed to us. The baconian cipher described both Abby and Thomas' situation to us.

Also in the third letter:
"More than anything else I wish I had a staff of qualified nurses covering all my rounds while researching"
- I think Abby is talking about us helping Thomas out with decoding the messages. I think Abby is aware of us and talking about us to Thomas.

I think it's fair to assume that the baconian cipher is the first thing directly addressed to us. And it says "first find us". I'd say locating them is by far our highest priority.

Last thing, the warning at the bottom of the last letter bothers me. The baconian cipher said "NO SUSPICION YET", I think this isn't true anymore and we need to warn Abby about that before she's cut off completely!

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Permalink Reply by BrightSilence on July 23, 2009 at 5:09pm

Okay, suggestion:

"Suspicion arose! All blacked out. Still sober. Health fine. Spine ok? Who are cat and mice?"

Suspicion arose!
- They are suspicious of your communication, watch out!

All blacked out.
- The letter was all blacked out/censored.

Still sober.
- Alcohol didn't work so far.

Health fine.
- I feel fine/healthy

Spine ok?
- Spine is ok, I think (could be interpreted as "Is my spine ok" which I'm kind of ok with too)

Who are cat and mice?
- Who's hunting/who is getting you in trouble & who is being hunted/is in danger? (8 girls/maddison)


I'd rather have the location of Abby, but the baconian cipher said "LOCATION UNKNOWN". So I feel like asking would be worthless.

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Permalink Reply by QtheC on July 23, 2009 at 5:57pm

We have to assume that encoding the information via PORTA numbers (or something similar) is secure enough... Otherwise no communication is possible of real info between us and Abby. Time is short, so forget about being too vague. Just trust the encoding.

As for the message, we should cram as much info. in as we can, and not leave stuff out based on assumptions, and *hope* we give Abby what she needs to know. She is interested in Spinal Tap info and Location info.

In chat, Maddison was primarily interested in knowing whether she personally was in danger at 60 days.

Bright suggested:
"Suspicion arose! All blacked out. Still sober. Health fine. Spine ok? Who are cat and mice?"

I previously mentioned all of these:
"Tap Result Unknown" or "Tap Result Needed?"
"T: Omaha L.A. Tucson NY"
"Music Too Sketchy" and "Ink Too Sober"
"8 Girls Names?" "60 Danger?"
"Employer?"

Putting all this together, how about:

"T: Omaha ok LA ok Tucson 2 sketchy NY 2 sober & blacked out. Eyes watching. Spine fine? Explain cat, mice, unsafe sixty?"

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Permalink Reply by Acidfingers on July 23, 2009 at 6:11pm

I just want to give some feedback as someone who hasn't read a word in this thread aside from the last message that Q posted... I really didn't understand half of that. Here is what I thought reading it:
What does the T at the beginning mean?
Are Omaha and LA really OK? They have marked out sections too that we haven't uncovered
Sober? huh?
What does a cat and mice have to do with this?

Not trying to 'hate' just providing some perspective.
I don't think we're being watched at all really. There's someone watching Abby closely, yes, but they don't seem to be too bright, since they haven't caught onto the codes in the letters yet. I assume the messages we send off on the pigeons are completely undetected by whoever is watching Abby, so just having a cipher on it should be more than enough. No need to be cryptic about what we say.


QtheC said:

We have to assume that encoding the information via PORTA numbers (or something similar) is secure enough... Otherwise no communication is possible of real info between us and Abby. Time is short, so forget about being too vague. Just trust the encoding.

As for the message, we should cram as much info. in as we can, and not leave stuff out based on assumptions, and *hope* we give Abby what she needs to know. She is interested in Spinal Tap info and Location info.

In chat, Maddison was primarily interested in knowing whether she personally was in danger at 60 days.

Bright suggested:
"Suspicion arose! All blacked out. Still sober. Health fine. Spine ok? Who are cat and mice?"

I previously mentioned all of these:
"Tap Result Unknown" or "Tap Result Needed?"
"T: Omaha L.A. Tucson NY"
"Music Too Sketchy" and "Ink Too Sober"
"8 Girls Names?" "60 Danger?"
"Employer?"

Putting all this together, how about:

"T: Omaha ok LA ok Tucson 2 sketchy NY 2 sober & blacked out. Eyes watching. Spine fine? Explain cat, mice, unsafe sixty?"

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Permalink Reply by TOSG on July 23, 2009 at 6:40pm

Completely agree with acid here. Especially if we're encoding the message, I don't see any need to be cute about delivering it. Let's just be straightforward, and ensure that Abby understands the situation.

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Permalink Reply by QtheC on July 23, 2009 at 6:45pm

I'll try to address some of what Acidfingers mentioned (T was for Thomas to indicate his locations). It's hard to keep it short though.

I had:
"T: Omaha ok LA ok Tucson 2 sketchy NY 2 sober & blacked out. Eyes watching. Spine fine? Explain cat, mice, unsafe sixty?"

I don't really know how obscure or short we need to be here. I mean, quite a bit of text can be printed out on a small piece of paper. It will get a little longer when encoded though.

(note: Grace is going to work on the NY letter with alcohol some more tonight, so that part may be updated).

How about

"Spine fine but Tech missing. Explain danger, unsafe sixty. Your fav safe? Eight girls? Omaha & LA hot Tucson tune 2 sketchy NY blacked out. T's security watching. Be careful."
Acidfingers said:

I just want to give some feedback as someone who hasn't read a word in this thread aside from the last message that Q posted... I really didn't understand half of that. Here is what I thought reading it:
What does the T at the beginning mean?
Are Omaha and LA really OK? They have marked out sections too that we haven't uncovered
Sober? huh?
What does a cat and mice have to do with this?

Not trying to 'hate' just providing some perspective.
I don't think we're being watched at all really. There's someone watching Abby closely, yes, but they don't seem to be too bright, since they haven't caught onto the codes in the letters yet. I assume the messages we send off on the pigeons are completely undetected by whoever is watching Abby, so just having a cipher on it should be more than enough. No need to be cryptic about what we say.


QtheC said:

We have to assume that encoding the information via PORTA numbers (or something similar) is secure enough... Otherwise no communication is possible of real info between us and Abby. Time is short, so forget about being too vague. Just trust the encoding.

As for the message, we should cram as much info. in as we can, and not leave stuff out based on assumptions, and *hope* we give Abby what she needs to know. She is interested in Spinal Tap info and Location info.

In chat, Maddison was primarily interested in knowing whether she personally was in danger at 60 days.

Bright suggested:
"Suspicion arose! All blacked out. Still sober. Health fine. Spine ok? Who are cat and mice?"

I previously mentioned all of these:
"Tap Result Unknown" or "Tap Result Needed?"
"T: Omaha L.A. Tucson NY"
"Music Too Sketchy" and "Ink Too Sober"
"8 Girls Names?" "60 Danger?"
"Employer?"

Putting all this together, how about:

"T: Omaha ok LA ok Tucson 2 sketchy NY 2 sober & blacked out. Eyes watching. Spine fine? Explain cat, mice, unsafe sixty?"

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Permalink Reply by QtheC on July 23, 2009 at 6:58pm

One other random idea I had was this: We could note the exact time the pigeon was launched (say noon Friday) and include that in the message. Then if we are lucky and she sees it come in, Abby can tell us when it arrived and we can estimate her distance from Nacogdoches, draw a big fuzzy circle... help find her.

"Launched Noon 7/23. Arrival time? Time to launch next?"

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Permalink Reply by Angela Crouch on July 23, 2009 at 7:55pm

that is a really good idea since i think the tracking device will fall through. hopefully, we can get what we want.

QtheC said:

One other random idea I had was this: We could note the exact time the pigeon was launched (say noon Friday) and include that in the message. Then if we are lucky and she sees it come in, Abby can tell us when it arrived and we can estimate her distance from Nacogdoches, draw a big fuzzy circle... help find her.

"Launched Noon 7/23. Arrival time? Time to launch next?"

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Permalink Reply by QtheC on July 23, 2009 at 8:52pm

Note:

http://maddisonatkins.com/forum/topics/alert-possible-solution-has

This is definitely going to affect what message we send.

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Permalink Reply by Becky on July 23, 2009 at 9:30pm

Ok, so I am not sure where this would go, however, I was reading the chat log today from Maddison's visit....there was talk about a tracking device being put on one of the pigeons...well, what about having one put into the pigeon? A microchip or something...just a thought

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Permalink Reply by Kelly on July 23, 2009 at 9:35pm

maybe abby is maddisons mother. maybe she didn't really die and that is what someone told maddison and her father and that is why they do not like to talk about it. or she left maddisons father and that is what he told maddison. it would explain why she said "my maddison"

this is my theory. I posted it in the other thread. but yeah. maybe something affecting this? or the blacked out areas. I dunno. I'm kinda against sending pigeons since it said wait to send but whatever

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