I’m not sure either one quite captures exactly what I mean, but I think (1) is probably closer than (2), with the caveat that I don’t think the file necessarily has to be deliberately constructed to be decoded without a-priori knowledge, but it should be constructed to have as close as possible to a 1:1 mapping between the structure of the process used to capture the data and the structure of the underlying data stream.
I notice I am somewhat confused by the inclusion of camera raw formats in (2) rather than in (1) though—I would expect that moving from a file in camera raw format to a jpeg would move you substantially in the direction from (1) to (2).
It sounds like maybe you have something resembling “some sensor data of something unusual in an unconventional but not intentionally obfuscated format”? If so, that sounds pretty much exactly like what I’m looking for.
However, I don’t think it will be particularly interesting or fun for people trying to decode it. Maybe that’s ok?
I think it’s fine if it’s not interesting or fun to decode because nobody can get a handle on the structure—if that’s the case, it will be interesting to see why we are not able to do that, and especially interesting if the file ends up looking like one of the things we would have predicted ahead of time would be decodable.
I’m not sure either one quite captures exactly what I mean, but I think (1) is probably closer than (2), with the caveat that I don’t think the file necessarily has to be deliberately constructed to be decoded without a-priori knowledge, but it should be constructed to have as close as possible to a 1:1 mapping between the structure of the process used to capture the data and the structure of the underlying data stream.
I notice I am somewhat confused by the inclusion of camera raw formats in (2) rather than in (1) though—I would expect that moving from a file in camera raw format to a jpeg would move you substantially in the direction from (1) to (2).
It sounds like maybe you have something resembling “some sensor data of something unusual in an unconventional but not intentionally obfuscated format”? If so, that sounds pretty much exactly like what I’m looking for.
I think it’s fine if it’s not interesting or fun to decode because nobody can get a handle on the structure—if that’s the case, it will be interesting to see why we are not able to do that, and especially interesting if the file ends up looking like one of the things we would have predicted ahead of time would be decodable.
I’ve posted it here https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/BMDfYGWcsjAKzNXGz/eavesdropping-on-aliens-a-data-decoding-challenge.