BASHandSlash.com readers must have had a bit of deja vu reading about the secret codes found by joystiq.com in a mysterious marketing campaign launched a few hours ago:

joystiq.com  

Take a ciphered audio and text file that points to a mysterious website called gknova6.com and you have got the beginning of a gripping cold war thriller...or a brilliant viral marketing idea! 

joystiq.com concludes that the mystery lies at the doorstep of Marlyand's Bethesda Software and their Fallout: New Vegas. The black and white footage of U235 atoms splitting seems to point to the game quite clearly...or maybe that's what the author of this mystery wants us to think.

I've gone back and forth on this now for the past few hours, ever since Beaknuke alerted me of the original clues.

While joystiq.com has done a great job at deciphering the codes, I don't agree with their conclusion that the viral marketing attempt points to Bethesda Software. There are three things that make me think that this in fact is a Treyarch CoD7 marketing stunt.

CoD7, currently rumored to be called: Black Ops is supposedly set post-World War 2, but before the modern era. Remember that Infinity Ward (the other Activision developer) was rumored to have an agreement with Activision to have the rights to any modern or post-modern Call of Duty. This would mean that any new Treyarch CoD game would have had to be set in the twentieth century. Thus, the rumors that CoD7 is set in the Cold War, seem plausible.

#1. The domain name for gknova6.com is registered to the same registrar as Treyarch's site.

        Domain Name: GKNOVA6.COM
        Registrar: MARKMONITOR INC.
        Whois Server: whois.markmonitor.com
        Referral URL: http://www.markmonitor.com
        Name Server: NS1.HOSTMONSTER.COM
        Name Server: NS2.HOSTMONSTER.COM
        Status: clientDeleteProhibited
        Status: clientTransferProhibited
        Status: clientUpdateProhibited
        Updated Date: 26-mar-2010
        Creation Date: 23-mar-2010
        Expiration Date: 23-mar-2012    

Treyarch's:

        Domain Name: TREYARCH.COM
        Registrar: MARKMONITOR INC.
        Whois Server: whois.markmonitor.com
        Referral URL: http://www.markmonitor.com
        Name Server: NS0.ACTIVISION.COM
        Name Server: NS2.ACTIVISION.COM
        Name Server: NS3.ACTIVISION.COM
        Name Server: NS5.ACTIVISION.COM
        Status: clientDeleteProhibited
        Status: clientTransferProhibited
        Status: clientUpdateProhibited
        Updated Date: 28-dec-2009
        Creation Date: 29-jan-1996
        Expiration Date: 30-jan-2012         

#2 JFK.

John Kennedy's Cuban Missile Crisis video appears on the black and white television on the gknova6.com site. The missile crisis is purported to be one of the missions in the new game. The baseball could be the Castro link (he was a playa!).

#3 All of JD's boys tweeting like crazy

JD_2020's XBox community fanboys are tweeting like mad on this one. Many of them met JD down at PAX East. Coincidence? I don't think so. The fix is in.

So far, whether I'm right or wrong on this, I've loved the campaign. For anyone even remotely aware of the history of encryption, to see Caesar's and Bacon's ciphers being used in a mass marketing campaign just made my heart skip a beat.

Furthermore, as someone who, as a kid, used to listen to "numbers stations" droning out endless secret codes on shortwave back in the 70's...the mystery audio brought back some frightening but oddly familiar memories.

I know that in today's age of terrorism we are always feeling insecure. After all, the thought of a dirty-bomb going off in a major city will keep some up at night (I'm talking to you Jack Bauer). However insecure we feel now, it cannot match the level of anxiety the average person felt during the Cold War. 

For example, unless you live in Wichita, I doubt any of you have a bomb shelter in the basement. I wouldn't have made that bet back in the 60's. Chances are, you may well have had one - or known someone who did. Back then, there were no doubts that:

• There were hundreds of nuclear tipped missiles pointed at us...
• An eastern enemy that rigorosly believed its own dogma and was intent on stopping us. An enemy whose itchy trigger finger was always poised over the red button....
• The doomsday nuclear countdown clock, a sign of how close we were to Armageddon, hovered precariously near two minutes to midnight...

Ugh, duck and cover indeed!

As for the mystery perpetrator of the encrypted audio...well done...whoever you are and if joystiq.com's decryption is correct, we'll know in a week!