Reserved for HINTS
Ok, it's too early to reveal some hints but I can reveal some info: there are, and were since the beginning, 2 different ways of solving this puzzle :)
Hint 1 (2016-09-24): the domain the puzzle image is hosted on has been selected for a reason [check the main website of the puzzle image]
Hint 2 (2016-09-25): Exif (don't trust every Exif viewer :) ) [ask google for exif viewer online tools]
Hint 3 (2016-09-26): page source [try Ctrl + u, F5 key combination]
Hint 4 (2016-09-27): according to an estimate by StatCounter, if the puzzle had happened in 2015, around 86.8%-90.7% (taking full 2015 year into account, desktop and laptop users only) of the users would have been able to solve this puzzle (ok, the rest of the users still would have been able to solve it, just not that easily comparing to most of the people) [web brower matters]
Hint 5 (2016-09-27): the filename of the puzzle image is what it is for a reason [there is another puzzle image to be found]
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Got to something but don't really know what to look for... Better sleep on it, bump for now.
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Leaded to another GA ended 8 months ago.
Try again later.
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I found something but it doesn't seem to be helpful to solve the puzzle.
I think that's just to confuse me. :/
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I'd tried two viewers and get the same results. Seems I should try third. :)
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I really want more of you guys to enter my giveaway so I'm adding the last hint right now, I'm gonna add more precise and detailed information for every hint tomorrow so I believe you'll have no problem with solving the puzzle then.
5th hint added
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Hints for solutions:
Solution 1: Hint 5, Hint 2
Solution 2: Hint 2, Hint 1, Hint 3, Hint 4
Solution 1, steps:
1) find the 2nd puzzle image (header2.jpg)
2) find pR9Et giveaway code in the 2nd puzzle image meta data (exif)
Solution 2, steps:
1) find _R_Et giveaway code in the puzzle image meta data (exif)
2) use a non Microsoft web browser (so not IE, Edge), check the page source of the main website (pesc0tro . netne . net) and find out there is a hidden html added:
after each refresh of the page the number of 'm' characters in the 'hm' is increased by 1 up to the 9 where the 'interesting...' is added too:
after next refresh the cycle repeats so this should tell you that one out of the two missing characters is '9'
3) use a Microsoft web browser (IE or Edge), check the page source of the main website and find out the hidden html is not added there but when you refresh a page each 9 times, the following hidden html is added:
this way you should know the last missing character is 'p'
Regarding Solutions 2, all people found out the correct answer just with the 2 steps as they used the letter 'p' because of the html tag <p> there. It was a coincidence, I should've selected different letter for this solution, my bad :)
During the giveaway it appeared my website had been locked. I tried to wait to get it unlocked but it seems this is not going to happen, this was a free hosting so I just created a new domain where you can test the above: http:// pesc0trohmmpuzzle . comli . com (remove spaces)
What you could learn from this puzzle, and potentially use to solve other puzzles, not only by me:
1) It's possible to add/hide some data within image files.
If you download the main puzzle image (header1.jpg) you should be able, without any tools, to see the meta data tag I added, just by checking properties of the file, however, Windows and other OS most probably won't show there all meta data possible. This is exactly the case for the second image file I prepared (header2.jpg). To view meta data of image files you don't even have to use any software as there are many online services where you just paste url of the image and you'll see all meta data, however, I tried some tools and not all of them show the giveaway code for the header2.jpg image. The tool I can recommend is Jeffrey's Image Metadata Viewer
2) It's possible to create a website to look differently, have different features available to some browsers only
Even though the puzzle I created required (in fact it didn't but never mind) to use a web browser by Microsoft, I strongly suggest not to use their browsers. This is mostly valid for older versions of Internet Explorer, not sure about the recent ones, but it was always a nightmare for web developers to integrate modern designs to work under IE so be aware that if you use IE browser, the websites you visit may not only look worse comparing to what they look like on other browsers but also you may not have access to all website features.
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