Cogs.Ink

**Cogs.Ink** is a website first revealed in a blog post from Mac Opsys. This website is used by upper management Cogs within C.O.G.S. Inc. to view a variety of information, particularly employee information. For Toons, this website was used to discover new information about the sixteen manager Cogs that were hired for the v1.3.0 update. Additionally, the reveal of this website prompted the beginning of the v1.3.0 ARG. Currently, this website continues to be updated and used for additional ARG's such as the April Toons 2023 ARG.

## Welcome

When first entering the cogs.ink website the user is greeted with a heading welcoming them to C.O.G.S. Inc.'s employee information platform. Nearby is a proud image of the Chairman saying a random assortment of dialogue. The viewer has the choice to login with a username, password, and choose from a drop down on whether they are an employee or contractor. Below the login information is a block of text to remind employees to review their "Cybersecurity Information and Password Guidelines" to ensure they are up-to-date on the latest information.

## Cybersecurity Information and Password Guidelines

This page contains a message about the importance of password safety and how at C.O.G.S. Inc. they have a duty to protect their shareholders' profits as much as possible. The three named threats against their protection are malicious actors such as Toons and <DATA EXPUNGED>. It is unknown what the missing information could be. In the opening statement is also declares that the user themself is the main cause for any issues that come about. If a user fails to secure their account it may be determined to be a breach of the standard "Cog Employment Contract (section 1(3).37)" or the "Manager Employment Contract Sec 4(a).0.3". Punishments will range from oil pipe cleaning duty to immediate dismissal.

The follow tips are listed in order to help employees secure their account:

* Use a strong password. your password must be between 8 and 20 characters long. We are working to support passwords longer than 20 characters. The following symbols are allowed in the password: ()!-\_
* Don't use weak passwords. We regularly scan our employee login credentials and prompt Suits with weak passwords to change their passwords at the earlier opportunity. Previous examples include:
	+ 12345678
	+ password
	+ PaSsWoRd
	+ password1
	+ password2
	+ password3
	+ \_
	+ aaaaaaaa
	+ aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
	+ zzzzzzzz
	+ zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
	+ wasdwasd
	+ cogsinc!
	+ headhunter1
	+ ilovechairman *(said employee was summoned to The Chairman's office and promptly fired on the spot.)*
* Ensure you change your password every so often, preferably after you receive a major upgrade to your suit components.
* Never write down your password anywhere, such as on a piece of paper.
* Never write down your username anywhere, especially other people's usernames. Your built-in storage should have plenty of space to securely store this information.
* IT Support Suits will never ask for your password. If you are asked to provide your password, refuse and report the incident to IT Support immediately.

At the end of the page there is a number and email provided to email if the user believes their account has been breached. It also recommends bringing any questions concerning these rules or tips to the user's line manager who will then point them to the nearest IT Deployment Support Office.

## Logins

The logins used for cog.ink were revealed in the v1.3.0 ARG. An additional login was revealed in the April Toons 2023 ARG. In total, there are 30 discovered accounts. However, only 18 are available for use. These accounts are the 16 new managers as of the v1.3.0 update, Jennifer Jackson, and the High Roller. Whichever login is used to access the terminal will reveal the same information, but only Jennifer's login will allow the viewer to see the Employee List, the Chairman's Work-It-Out-Mixtape, and a section labelled "Under Construction". Additionally, the High Roller's profile is only accessible through his login. It is recommended to use Jennifer's login in order to have the easiest access to the majority of information available at once.

### Available Logins

*\*Note: The High Roller's username is 7 spaces, not underscores.*

### Inaccessible Accounts

\*When attempting to log into the account for the Chief Justice it will have an error code stating "Employee John Robolts (C.J.) is no longer an employee at C.O.G.S. Inc., therefore the account has been disabled".

## Information

After logging into an account there will always be a chart to the side stating Suits Deployment information such as: Total Scheduled, Roaming, In battle, and Insurance Cases Claimed, with each having a random number attached to it. Additionally, before selecting any options, a note can be seen letting employees know that the "system does *not* count towards [their] renumerable working hours" and is to incentivize employees to finish their business on the system as quickly as possible.

The following sections are available to view:

### **Your Personal Information**

#### View Profile - View your personal records, disciplinary records, etc.

Depending on the account the user is logged into it will display their profile information. If the viewer is logged in as Jennifer they will be greeted with an error stating "An error has occurred. Unable to fetch your information at the moment; a special IT Operations Specialist will be dispatched to remedy the issue shortly." This error cannot be fixed. Profile information includes: Honorifics, Name, Employee ID, Suit Name, Position, Date of Hire, Hiring Manager, Disciplinary Records, and a Personal Statement.

### **Latest Updates**

#### Words from the Chairman - The latest wisdoms from Robert himself

This page includes only a letter from the Chairman, featuring a photo of him, discussing how he came to run C.O.G.S. Inc., the advancements of the company, and why they continue to produce the highest quality products while greatly inflating his ego.

#### Commodities - View prices for commodities trades by C.O.G.S. Inc.

This page shows a line graph describing C.O.G.S. Major Commodities Index. The Y axis shows price in Cogbucks (up to 200) while the X axis shows Commodity. It has Coal (per Tonne) as a dark blue line, Oil (crude, per Barrel) as a pink line, and Gas (per Gallon) as a yellow line going across the chart starting from Day 2743 to Day 2749. The pricing information is said to be updated every 15 minutes, however, due to a Number Cruncher staffing shortage caused by the recent mandate to enhance perimetral security at Cashbot HQ, the data may no longer be up to date.

If the image shown on the Commodities page is edited, it will reveal various scribbles and drawings from Winn Dos, Mac Opsys' assistant who aided in discovering cogs.ink. There is a self portrait of Winn saying "Winn wuz here", a drawing of her and Mac Opsys, a drawing of a Doodle, a drawing of the Chairman with "loser" written by him and a Throw gag. There are also various words crossed out and replaced by Winn's writing. Mac allowed her to "toonify" this page so that she would feel like she contributed.

#### Calendar - View this month's calendar here

This page is where you can find the calendar of C.O.G.S. Inc. Unfortunately, CogCAL exports of the calendar are currently broken and employees must scan the page with their OCR module. The calendar has no listed month but it displays day 1-31 from Sunday to Monday. The dates for Sunday and Saturday are red while the weekdays are white.

* **Sunday** (1st, 8th, 22nd, 29th):
	+ Banquet\* 6pm
	+ On the 15th, Financial Audit% and Banquet\* 6pm
* **Monday** (9th, 16th, 23rd, 30th):
	+ Banquet\* 6pm
	+ On the 2nd, Sales Review 1pm, Banquet\* 6pm
* **Tuesday** (3rd, 10th, 17th, 24th, 31st):
	+ Banquet\* 6pm
* **Wednesday** (4th, 11th, 18th, 25th):
	+ Additional Break# 12pm, Banquet\* 6pm
* **Thursday** (5th, 12th, 19th):
	+ Banquet\* 6pm
	+ On the 26th, Chairman Appreciation Day& (Large capital letters move along the dated box)
	+ On the 5th, 19th, and 26th, it is Payday. This is only visible if the days are highlighted, revealing the hidden text.
* **Friday** (6th, 13th, 20th, 27th):
	+ Managerial Staff Meeting@ 4pm, Banquet\* 6pm
* **Saturday** (7th, 14th, 21st, 28th,):
	+ Server Refresh^ 12am, Banquet\* 6pm

**Footnotes:**

* \* restricted to higher-ranking employees only
* @ mandatory for Cogs with at least 1 direct reports
* ^ servers will be restarted in random order; please remember to save work before maintenance starts
* & mandatory donations will be calculated and deducted from the following paycheck
* # break lasts until 12:01pm
* % Mandatory for high-tier Cashbots and managers of all other departments

### **Company-wide information**

#### Product Sales Pitch - Our products and what makes them great, at a glance

This page features an illustration of a Mingler in front of multiple barrels of oil. It describes why C.O.G.S. Inc. is the only reasonable choice and the steps they have to take in order to make sure their products excels standards. The three main categories discussed are: Equipment, Product Development, and Aged to Perfection.

#### Management Structure - Introduction to the Chairman, and the rest of leadership

This page displays a chart showing the hierarchies of C.O.G.S. Inc. The listed members are the heads of each department with their secretaries and any additional high ranking members, with the Chairman above all. The image of chairman will be different depending on if the user is logged in as Jennifer or not.

### **Quick Actions**

#### Report Workplace Injuries - Help us keep track of injuries, so we can negotiate better insurance policies

This page has an in depth forum for employees to fill out if they have had any workplace injuries. Due to requirements with C.O.G.S. Inc. insurer, Wing Insurance LLC, they are required to submit all workplace injury records to the Suit Safety Inspection Association (SSIA) for record-keeping analysis. Injuries that lead to catastrophic, irrecoverable mechanical failures, or total asset discarnation can be automated, but the systems can not detect and report minor instances. The maximum wait time to report an injury is 4 hours. The following sections can be filled out:

* Your details
	+ Type of report, Firmware version, who is making the report
* Step 1. Injured Employee
	+ Identifier No., Type, Nature of Injury, Employee Work Hours, Days Since Promotion, Months Doing Job
* Step 2. Describe The Incident
	+ Exact location of incident, Exact time, What part of the Employee's work day
* Step 3. Why Did The Incident Happen?
	+ Incompetence by Employee, Incompetence by C.O.G.S., Inc., Were there unsafe conditions, Have there been similar incidents
* Step 4. Preventing Future Incidents
	+ What changes do you suggest to prevent this incident from happening again

After submitting a form it will give a series of letters after "SSIA-IR", these are unique to the suit chosen in the "Identifier No." field.

### **For Secretaries only**

#### Employees List - See list of suits and perform common actions

The page displays a list of *Your Direct Reports* (Boardbots) with Thomas Saggs listed above all as General Manager. The information listed is their ID number, Honorifics, Name, Suit Name, Suit Type, Email (setup as lastname firstname @cogs.ink), Status, and an option to view their profile. Below all of their names it displays the number of other Boardbots deployed.

Another list is available below listing *All Employees* with the Chairman listed first, then the Suit types in order of Sellbot, Cashbot, Lawbot, and Bossbot. Each list has the same information as the Direct Reports with the associated General Manager listed before the other suits.

Despite all of the listed names, besides the secretaries, having a "view profile" option, the only profiles that can actually be viewed are of the 16 newly added managers in the v1.3.0 update. The profile for the High Roller can only be accessed if the user is logged into his account.

#### Under Construction - Under construction (Not visible unless logged into Jennifer's account)

This page shows a walking yellow-capped Goon with "under construction" yellow tape above and below it. It has 5 spaces for a password to be entered and a hint below it. When the correct password is typed it will thank you for inputting the correct password and take you to a 15x15 grid (with 3 more becoming available once the first is solved) to be solved. If the password is entered incorrectly it will give a hint to what the password could be. This has no relevance to lore and was only to solve a puzzle from the v1.3.0 ARG.

## Chairman's Work-It-Out-Mixtape

This page is only available when the viewer is signed into Jennifer's account. It is listed promoted before the other options with large letters saying "NEW!". These mixtapes are advertised as being great for lengthening meetings that are too short, or staying awake during over-overtime. It is a set-of-4 mixtape made personally by Robert Cyger for the dusk-to-dawn modern hustler. The tracks are normalized to 0dB to "make the most out of the transmission line". The four tapes are (sound warning):

* **Mix A**: Early Morning Beam-me-up - Great to listen to while you get your day's work in order!

* **Mix B**: Energetic Lunch Combustion Aid - Getting work done while guzzling grub? This is the mix for you.

* **Mix C**: Sunset Dreams (of work) - The sun is going down soon, and your second additional 1-minute break lottery result is coming up. Enjoy the melody!

* **Mix D**: Late Night Midnight Oil-Burners - Chill beats to listen to for finishing leftover work while getting ready for nightly maintenance.

## Welcome Dialogue

* "Work hard and get promoted\*! \*Promotion not guaranteed."
* "I'm Robert Cyger, and I approve this website."
* "Proudly polluting since <DATA MISSING>"
* "Things to remember before asking for a raise: 1. Don't."
* "Emission free since <NULL>"
* "No clowning on the job."
* "Have you locked your office?"

## Misc. Pages

Some pages are only accessible through specific means and are not visible on the main pages.

### We Are Really Displeased We Mean It

When attempting to log into an account using quotation marks/apostrophe in the password box will result in a page opening showing an image of Mac Opsys and Winn, with Mac looking disappointed. The alt text element for the image reads "me, disappointed". Below the image is text that reads:

> *Pls, no funny business, it has taken me MONTHS to establish this link.*
>
>
> *If the Cogs find out we did something to their database, they would not be pleased.*
>
>
>
> *Don't ruin my work, thank you !!!*
>
>

This is referring to a method of cheating that could be used to forcefully break into user's accounts called an SQL injection. This is a web security vulnerability that allows an attacker to interfere with the queries that an application makes to its database. It generally allows an attacker to view data that they are not normally able to retrieve. This includes information such as usernames and passwords.

### Hotlinking is Bandwidth Theft

An additional hidden image is revealed when a user tries to locate the CHAIRMAN.jpg image through hotlinking. Hotlinking is "displaying an image on a website by linking to the website hosting the image". This method of displaying an image lets the user use another server's bandwidth to support their images. This becomes costly for the victim which is why many websites use .htaccess files to prevent hotlinking. The .htaccess page provides conditions telling the server what to do when certain files are displayed or how to display certain files. The .htaccess page of the cogs.ink website shows four different conditions. The first two conditions check that URL ends with the "bathroom key". If it does, it will reveal the image saved to the server as "yes\_you\_may.jpg" which is the normal image of the Chairman. The third condition is if there is no referrer (where the page was visited from) , and the fourth condition is if the referrer is cogs.ink. Following either of the last two conditions will show the file saved as "um\_can\_you\_not.jpg" from the server. This file will show the "guess who" image of the Chairman. Fulfilling none of these conditions, which involves using another server to load an image from cogs.ink, will show the hotlinking image. The image displays an angry Chairman shaming the user for attempting to use hotlinking for the image and the consequences of doing so. However, he offers to give the user a license to use the image if they email him.

## Trivia

* In the Workplace Injury Report form there are only Firmware versions from 2.0.18 - 2.0.22. This is likely a reference to the duration Corporate Clash has been in development.
	+ When picking an identifier number the only available options are an unmarked Cog, one of the 16 added 1.3.0 managers, Jennifer, and the High Roller. All of these options are available no matter what account is being used.
	+ According to this form, the locations available are:
		- Central Oil District (Toontown Central)
		- Offshoring & Drilling District (Barnacle Boatyard)
		- Stone & Iron District (Ye Olde Toontowne)
		- Organics & Biofuels District (Daffodil Gardens)
		- Brass & Shipping District (Mezzo Melodyland)
		- Coal & Ice District (The Brrrgh)
		- Woodchip & Paper District (Acorn Acres)
		- Luxury Suites & Textiles District (Drowsy Dreamland)
		- Sellbot HQ, Cashbot HQ, Lawbot HQ, Bossbot HQ, and Boardbot HQ (Listed as unavailable)
	+ This form gives no option for the Employee to say they had no incompetence on their part as well as no option to say that C.O.G.S. Inc. was responsible for any incompetence.
* In the footer of cogs.ink it states that it is best viewed with "Suitscape Navigator" browser. This is a reference to Netscape Navigator, one of the earliest widely used internet browsers.
* Attempting to view a cogs.ink page that does not support HTTP will give the following error: "This endpoint does not support HTTP. For the new Employee Information System, please use SuitZilla Ideator (pre-installed on all new Cog types and available as a patch for Cogs without WS-P modules) to access http://cogs.ink."
	+ SuitZilla could be a reference to Mozilla Firefox, a web browser.
* On the Cybersecurity page there is a phone number listed to be contacted if a user suspects their account has been reached. The number listed is "011 899 988 1999 119 ext 725-3". This is a reference to the episode "Calamity Jen" from the sitcom "The IT Crowd". There is a joke that the new emergency number that people should call are the previously listed digits, which are not as easy or convenient as 911 for example. It is poking fun at the fact that the United Kingdom changed its direct dial numbers multiple times with one being 118 NNN where "NNN" was the number tied to the commercial service provider<ref>https://www.androidauthority.com/0118-999-881-999-119-725-3-easter-egg-682519/</ref>.
	+ Additionally, there is a line that talks about the "Cog Employement Contract section 1(3).37". The number 1337 refers to a person skilled at computer programming or hacking.
* According to the numbers listed on the home page of cogs.ink and the Employee Lists, the numbers are always ~20% Boardbots, ~21% Sellbot, ~19% Cashbot, ~23% Lawbot, and ~17% Bossbot.
	+ Suit deployment varies every 15 minutes with ~20% in battle, ~40% roaming, and ~40% insurance claims.
* In mixtape A of the Chairman's mixtapes there is a faint noise of "Radio 17" from the C.O.O.'s radio themes.
	+ In mixtape C there is a faint sound of an unreleased track first shown in the "Backstage Corporate Clash: The Gumball Machine" video.
	+ In mixtape D there is the lobby music of the C.F.O underneath all of the static.
* Using the software OutGuess to scan images used on the site to check for possible data that can be extracted reveals data from the Commodities image and Plutocrat's profile picture. The meaning of the data is unknown or has no further action that can be taken.
* The cogs.ink website is based on websites made in the early 2000s.

## References

1. ↑ https://portswigger.net/web-security/sql-injection
2. ↑ https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotlinking