Talk:Cortana Letters

Aren't we to assume that this is Cortana (A.I.) can't we put some of her images here?-- Yamanba 00:27, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

I suppose that would make sense. --Dragonclaws 00:32, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Investigative Reporting

Main article: http://marathon.bungie.org/story/cortana.html

Take a look at the reaction when the email first was sent out:

..."is this some cruel hoax perpetrated by some heinous fiend? We all remember the fake Bungie email that lead to the Marathon Gold hoax right? A detailed look at the Cortana email headers reveals the following.

    Received: from dux1.tcd.ie (dux1.tcd.ie [134.226.1.11])
    	by dux4.tcd.ie (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id QAA15384
    	for <hsinclir@dux4.tcd.ie>; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 16:51:57 GMT
    Received: from mail.bungie.com (root@[209.125.9.11])
    	by dux1.tcd.ie (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id QAA21325
    	for <hamish.sinclair@tcd.ie>; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 16:51:55 GMT
    Received: from Cortana ([209.125.9.49])
              by mail.bungie.com (8.8.4/8.8.4) with SMTP
    	  id LAA02086 for <hamish.sinclair@tcd.ie>; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 11:49:43 -0600
    Message-ID: <001301be5903$4685cb60$31097dd1@Cortana.bungie.com>
    From: "Cortana" <cortana@bungie.com>
    To: <hamish.sinclair@tcd.ie>
    Subject: Closure
    Date: Mon, 15 Feb 1999 10:50:20 -0600
    MIME-Version: 1.0
    Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
    	boundary="----=_NextPart_000_0010_01BE58D0.FB651460"
    X-Priority: 3
    X-MSMail-Priority: Normal
    X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 4.72.3110.1
    X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.72.3110.3
    X-UIDL: e36fab4ede04e7c19a0a09e3d2f7cc91

The email was sent from a machine with the IP address of 209.125.9.49. The full email can be seen here.

By sheer coincidence (no such thing right?) I had asked Matt Soell of Bungie Software to send me proof of something I can't reveal here. His email header is as follows.

    Received: from dux1.tcd.ie (dux1.tcd.ie [134.226.1.11])
    	by dux4.tcd.ie (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id QAA02387
    	for <hsinclir@dux4.tcd.ie>; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 16:52:26 GMT
    Received: from mail.bungie.com (root@[209.125.9.11])
    	by dux1.tcd.ie (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id QAA17712
    	for <Hamish.Sinclair@tcd.ie>; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 16:51:04 GMT
    Received: from [209.125.9.13] ([209.125.9.13])
              by mail.bungie.com (8.8.4/8.8.4) with SMTP
    	  id LAA02056 for <Hamish.Sinclair@tcd.ie>; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 11:48:48 -0600
    Message-Id: <199902151748.LAA02056@mail.bungie.com>
    Subject: Proof.
    Date: Mon, 15 Feb 1999 10:50:39 -0600
    x-sender: matt@mail.bungie.com
    x-mailer: Claris Emailer 2.0v3, January 22, 1998
    From: Matt Soell <matt@bungie.com>
    To: "Hamish Sinclair" <Hamish.Sinclair@tcd.ie>
    Mime-Version: 1.0
    Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"
    X-UIDL: e7629e421652984e6fd6b1ea4d63065c

You'll note that Matt's machine has the IP address 209.125.9.13. So the domains (209.125.9) match. Matt's mail was sent from machine 13 and our mysterious Cortana's from machine 49 (hmmm... 7 x 7 = 49... but I digress).

So the Cortana email does originate from a Bungie computer. But who is Cortana and why did he/she send the Story page a Durandal like message? A cruel joke or something more?

Bungie employees are well aware of the severe penalty for divulging sensitive information to the Story page. Yes folks... dismemberment. So either Cortana's corpse is now floating limbless inside of hangar ninety six or else the message was sanctioned by the powers that be.

I'll let you draw your own conclusions.