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Your friend Puzzle has been kidnapped by a mysterious group of people. A few days after the capture you receive a mysterious email:

Dear Sexaginta Quattuor,

$\qquad$TXkgdHdvLXllYXItb2xkIHNvbiBsb292ZWVzc3NzIGJhY29uISBXaGVuIGhlIGVhdHMgaXQgaGUgc2F5cywgIkFBQkFCQkFBQUFBQUJBQUFBQkFBQkFBQkFBQUJBQUJBQkFCQkFBQkFBQUJCQkFCQkFCQkFBQUJCQUFCQUFBQUJBQUJCQUJBQkFCQkFCQUFBQkFBQkFBQUJCQkJBQUFBQUFCQUFBQUJBQUFBQUJBQUFCQUFCQUJCQUJBQUFBQkFBQkFBQUJCQkJBQUFBQUFCQUFBQUJBQUJBQUJCQUJCQUFBQUJCQSI=

$\qquad\qquad\qquad\qquad\qquad\qquad\qquad\qquad\qquad\qquad\qquad\qquad\qquad\quad$ Respectfully Signed,$\qquad\qquad\qquad\qquad\qquad$01010000011101010111101001111010011011000110010100001101

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  • $\begingroup$ Are there any indications to how to solve it? $\endgroup$
    – boboquack
    Jan 21, 2017 at 5:10
  • $\begingroup$ The binary at the end simply translates to 'Puzzle'. Also, 'Sexaginta Quattuor' means 64 in Latin. $\endgroup$
    – wildBillMunson
    Jan 21, 2017 at 5:11
  • $\begingroup$ @boboquack I would like to see if anyone can solve it without any hints. $\endgroup$
    – suomynonA
    Jan 21, 2017 at 5:14
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    $\begingroup$ Not sure why a downvote. The puzzle is just fine with clues given. $\endgroup$
    – Techidiot
    Jan 21, 2017 at 5:59
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ @boboquack Yeah. It's just a matter of choice :) Anyways, this one was a good and fun one! :) $\endgroup$
    – Techidiot
    Jan 21, 2017 at 8:01

1 Answer 1

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Final

Friend puzzle is located at -

Lincoln County, NV, USA

Steps

As will pointed out Sexaginta Quarttuor is 64 in Latin. Hence decoding the following with base64 we get My two-year-old son looveessss bacon! When he eats it he says, "AABABBAAAAAABAAAABAABAABAAABAABABABBAABAAABBBABBABBAAABBAABAAAABAABBABABABBABAAABAABAAABBBBAAAAAABAAAABAAAAABAAABAABABBABAAAABAABAAABBBBAAAAAABAAAABAABAABBABBAAAABBA"

Now

It say's bacon. It's a Baconian cipher. Decoding it with I=J and U=V we get FREE TEXT HOST COM I THREE CEYR THREE UNG Which is nothing but some URL of the text hosted at Free Text Host

Then,

Converting I->J and U->V we get this link giving us
01001001 00100000 01100001 01101101 00100000 01100100 01101111 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01100110 01101001 01101110 01100101 00100000 01101001 01101110 00100000 01101101 01111001 00100000 01101110 01100101 01110111 00100000 01100110 01101111 01110101 01110010 00101101 01101100 01100101 01110110 01100101 01101100 00100000 01101000 01101111 01101101 01100101 00101100 00100000 01100010 01110101 01110100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 01110010 01100101 00100000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01100001 00100000 01110010 01100001 01101001 01101100 00100000 01100110 01100101 01101110 01100011 01100101 00100000 01100001 01110010 01101111 01110101 01101110 01100100 00100000 01101001 01110100 00101110 00100000 01001001 00100000 01101100 01101001 01101011 01100101 00100000 01111010 01101001 01100111 01111010 01100001 01100111 01100111 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01100110 01110010 01101111 01101101 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01100010 01101111 01110100 01110100 01101111 01101101 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000 01101101 01111001 00100000 01101000 01101111 01110101 01110011 01100101 00100000 01100001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01110111 01100001 01111001 00100000 01110101 01110000 00101110 00100000 01001001 00100000 01101000 01100001 01110110 01100101 00100000 01100001 00100000 01101110 01100101 01110111 00100000 01100011 01101111 01101101 01110000 01110101 01110100 01100101 01110010 00111011 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01110000 01100001 01110011 01110011 01110111 01101111 01110010 01100100 00100000 01101001 01110011 00100000 00110010 00110001 00111001 00101110 00110011 00110001 00110101 00110110 00111001 00110111 00110111 00111011 00101110 00110000 00111001 00110011 01001110 00111000 0101011

Which gives -

The binary is malformed. Adding an extra 1 at the end and then converting binary to text we get - "I am doing fine in my new four-level home, but there is a rail fence around it. I like zigzagging from the bottom of my house all the way up. I have a new computer; the password is 219.3156977;.093N8W"

Further

This is a Rail-Fence cipher with Level-4 and zigzagging bottom to up. Decoding it gives 37.237N;115.806999W(Thanks to @M Oehm for the right decoding)

So,

The friend has been captured and is located at Lincoln County, NV, USA(According to this)

Visual

Somewhere here in the fields! :)
enter image description here

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  • $\begingroup$ You almost got the link, but you made a mistake when decoding the Bacon cipher $\endgroup$
    – suomynonA
    Jan 21, 2017 at 6:12
  • $\begingroup$ @suomynonA Isn't it "ITHREECEYRTHREEUNG" ? $\endgroup$
    – Techidiot
    Jan 21, 2017 at 6:14
  • $\begingroup$ No; but you are very close $\endgroup$
    – suomynonA
    Jan 21, 2017 at 6:16
  • $\begingroup$ @suomynonA If you try decoding "AABABBAAAAAABAAAABAABAABAAABAABABABBAABAAABBBABBABBAAABBAABAAAABAABBABABABBABAAABAABAAABBBBAAAAAABAAAABAAAAABAAABAABABBABAAAABAABAAABBBBAAAAAABAAAABAABAABBABBAAAABBA" with bacon you get FREETEXTHOSTCOMITHREECEYRTHREEUNG Not sure what am I missing here? :-/ $\endgroup$
    – Techidiot
    Jan 21, 2017 at 6:18
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    $\begingroup$ I guess it's an axtra 1, so that the last letter is W. (It looks like a railfenced long/lat coordinate.) $\endgroup$
    – M Oehm
    Jan 21, 2017 at 7:35

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