GOONL!NE

While it may be news to all you non-PC players out there, yesterday, Portal received a mysterious update yesterday that immediately prompted excitement in the PC community. So, why should you be excited? Well, GOONL!NE have rounded up all that’s been happening, and it all seems to point to Portal 2…

UPDATE: Many of the hardcore on the Steam forums are admitting defeat, saying they’ve hit a brick wall. Another run-down of events can be seen here. Right now, we either wait until a very, very clever person makes a breakthrough, or we’re at Valve’s mercy

Yesterday, Portal receives mysterious update that adds a new hidden achievement.

Players quickly log that the radio in the starting room now has a green light, and if taken around the game, will sometimes make weird noises due to radio interference.

If you find all 26 of these places, you get the achievement. Clever people then run the .wav (sounds file) of this interference through a steganography program. They get 26 cryptic images in a numbered sequence.

Another clever man runs the number string through an md5 hash translator and gets a landline number to Kirkland, WA (near Valve HQ)

More clever people find out its not a phone/fax line but a data line hosting a BBS and telnet it

Use a clue from one of the files to figure out the BBS user/password login info (Done, as you guessed, by more clever people). They end up with a bunch of weird ASCII artwork.

A collection of the ASCII artwork can be seen here. People get to work on the ASCII and an ingame screenshot may very well have been found by turning one of the ASCII artworks.

Some believe a picture of what seems to be two hand-holding robots is significant. Others dispute it, claiming it shows the skeleton of a chicken and therefore they are not connected.
Others speculate that this may be Combine Super Soldiers. (This one and this one)

Another new collection of ASCII is posted here

That’s it so far. We’ll try update as it happens. Join the official discussion here