As part of our first class in Digital Curation, we completed numerous tasks- including one in which we became digital detectives for the afternoon!
Clue were given on a Clues.txt Notepad, in a variety of different digital digital encoding languages- it was our task to use the UTF8 ⇔ Binary, Hex, and Base 64 Converter programme and separate Base 64 Encoder / Decoder provided on Moodle to translate this into a format that we could understand and, once the question posed in a more ‘human-readable’ way, answer the questions by simply Googling the answers.
The first question was conveyed in binary form and was demarcated as easy to convert. However, when the binary form was copied and pasted into the converter provided, it proved to not adequately be converted to understandable text. After trial of numerous online binary converters, we were able to translate the question to text which transpired as ‘(?) year was the American standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII) adopted as Federal Law in the United States?
-Once this question had been ascertained we were able to simply google and find the answer (which turned out to be in 1968).
Therefore the difficulty lied with the reliance upon a reliable binary converter- which poses issues of authenticity- particularly pertinent as the first word (we can assume as what- was missing despite conversion.
The second question was also relatively straightforward and the suggested converter worked in translating hexidecimal expression to text.
The third question was expressed in Base 64 and we used the separate converter suggested on the Moodle to copy and paste the expression. Once it had been translated from its encoded content it was saved as a jpg file. We had to therefore choose the appropriate file extension to view- this could be problematic as technology changes over time and different viewers may need to be used.
Imps in the archive 
The first half of this post is excellent. It strikes a great balance between a conversational and an informative tone. The first task is fully explored and the issues faced are discussed in detail which would be a great help to someone trying to recreate the experiment. An indication of which converters worked and which ones didn’t would have been a great help, however. From this point the post goes downhill… the second and third questions are only addressed in the most basic way. Some images, more discussion, or even an indication of the question and answer would improve this and make it a much stronger resource.
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