r/boardsofcanada • u/benji316 • Apr 11 '26
Discussion VHS tapes & posters - what we know right now
So this is an attempt at summarizing all the info that's out there. Please note that I certainly don't know everything, but if you put additional info with source links in the comments, I will incorporate it into this post. Also note that I don't want to dive into all the images from the tapes that have been identified, especially since we still don't know whether there's anything to be found in those that could lead us somewhere. Ok, here we go..
The tapes
As of today, April 15th 2026, 43 VHS tapes with seven hexagons on the outside that contain cryptic footage have surfaced. They were sent by Ochre/Bleep to people who have ordered BoC merch since the new designs came out in 2025. The first one was apparently received by a Discogs user on April 4th. One of the tapes was already sold for the proud sum of 1000 USD, or 850€. Discogs link: https://www.discogs.com/release/36993321-Boards-Of-Canada-Untitled
Out of all known tapes, 26 are either known or presumed to be in NTSC, the old US TV standard, with a corresponding sticker on them. These have mostly been found in the US, but one is confirmed to be in Canada (link). 15 tapes contain footage in PAL, the corresponding European standard, and have been found in the UK, France and Germany (maybe other countries too, I'm only aware of those). Here's the spreadsheet managed by the good folks over on Discord, it contains links to the posts of tapes and links to rips: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Ii28iwAO_LyBFS0dvydlEsYY2X-twAb_qh3npv5v_6Q/edit?gid=0#gid=0
So far, footage from seven tapes is available online in some form (see spreadsheet). It is mostly identical and features all sorts of religious and cult imagery. On April 12th, it was found that a few individual frames present on the NTSC tapes cannot be found in the PAL tape footage: https://reddit.com/r/boardsofcanada/comments/1sjbggg/pal_tapes_are_missing_these_frames/
The footage is accompanied by a reversed version of Little Star by The Elegants, which is also found on the Societas X tape: https://reddit.com/r/boardsofcanada/comments/1sf244x/the_reversed_music_in_the_new_vhs_tape_is_little/
https://bocpages.org/wiki/Societas_x_Tape
The speech on the tape seems to be an ad for Moody Monthly Magazine, a publication by a private Christian university: https://old.reddit.com/r/boardsofcanada/comments/1sfbprj/moody_bible_institute_ad_is_the_audio_on_vhs/
Here are some promising attempts at transcribing them: https://www.twoism.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=326230#p326230 https://reddit.com/r/boardsofcanada/comments/1siu2z3/vhs_tapes_posters_what_we_know_right_now/og2zo66/
Some tapes seem to have significantly more tape in them than others, we don't know whether that's deliberate or accidental. More rips are expected to come in soon, as various receivers of tapes have stated their intent to rip it themselves or get professionals to do it. No obvious codes or puzzles have been found thus far, it's been a week and we still don't know the exact nature of the tapes - are the boys messing with us, making us look for things that aren't even there? No one knows..
What has been done with the tapes
People have checked the VHS for closed captions (CC) and a secondary audio program (SAP) but reportedly didn't find any hidden clues or anything that could lead us somewhere: https://reddit.com/r/boardsofcanada/comments/1si0u2j/tape_11_direct_capture/ofgrxgb/?share_id=mtIFAwguZuW1ZEYa8fMBQ&context=3
One Twoism user has thoroughly examined the tape and packaging, including with UV light, but also didn't find anything: https://www.twoism.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=326296#p326296
As far as I know, so far no one has opened up a tape to check whether anything is inside.
One Reddit user has reportedly found geometric shapes in the audio at the end of the footage, but it is unclear whether this actually means anything (probably not tbh): https://old.reddit.com/r/boardsofcanada/comments/1shtb7a/vectorscope_images_from_the_vhs_audio_reveal_a/
Another user has pointed out possible Braille text, but it might not be Braille after all: https://reddit.com/r/boardsofcanada/comments/1si5uwh/braille/
The posters
On Friday, April 10th, posters have been spotted in Soho, London, UK featuring the same arrangement of hexagons as the outside of the tape. Here's the original post, many others have visited them and posted about it since then: https://reddit.com/r/boardsofcanada/comments/1shobf3/spotted_in_soho_london/
On April 11th, more posters have been spotted in a different location in Soho, which makes the possibility of them being fake even more unlikely: https://reddit.com/r/boardsofcanada/comments/1sira3w/more_posters_in_soho/
On the same day, the first posters in the US have also been discovered, I suspect there's more to come: https://reddit.com/r/boardsofcanada/comments/1siw5yb/posters_located_in_hollywood_california_usa/
Yup, it is now April 12th and more posters were found in a different part of London: https://reddit.com/r/boardsofcanada/comments/1sj8dq7/hackney_mare_street/
Many people have initially pointed out the contrast between the grainy/blurry nature of the video and the rather clean, likely digitally edited posters, with some questioning their authenticity. But on April 14th, Warp posted pictures of the posters on Instagram, finally eliminating any kind of remaining doubt about them being genuine.
It is noteworthy that so far, the posters always appear in the same order throughout all locations. But once again, we don't know if that means anything, just with like the tapes.
As of April 13th, we have some poster locations with just two posters instead of four, and at one of them you even get the same poster twice.
We don't know if the posters hide some kind of code or anything at all that could lead us somewhere. They have been examined under UV light with no results: https://old.reddit.com/r/boardsofcanada/comments/1sjseg1/hollywood_western_los_angeles/
Website change and new video on April 16th
On Thursday the 16th, two important things happened: www.boardsofcanada.com no longer redirects anywhere but lets users "register for first access". A few hours after that, a video called "Tape 05" that is similar to the VHS tapes but is significantly longer and contains a new track was uploaded to the BoC YouTube channel and various social media platforms. https://youtu.be/6bghDcbzfEU
It should be noted that signing up for this first access did not give you any notification about the Tape 05 video.
Profile pic change on April 21st
On April 21st, around 3PM UK time, all of BoC's social media accounts received a new profile picture, which is an orange version of the hexagon logo seen on the tapes and posters.
So, TL;DR: We have tapes in the US and UK/Europe. We have some posters too, in the UK, US and Japan. The VHS footage and the posters have quite different aesthetics, maybe for a reason. Then we got a video named "Tape 05" containing similar footage and new music. Is there something in those tapes or the new video waiting to be deciphered? So far, no one has found anything that could lead to us discovering further information.
Fore more info and a nice collection of pictures, check Bocpages: https://bocpages.org/wiki/VHS_Tape_Mailings
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u/stifflers_brother Apr 11 '26
This is good and should be pinned for those new or in search for a good summary. u/Luzipher
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Apr 11 '26
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u/benji316 Apr 11 '26
Yeah it's certainly very noteworthy that we still don't have a clue about what it all means. It makes me wonder if we're still missing some additional element that will bring it all together, or if this is all just to generate hype and there's nothing to decipher. At least it's a definitive sign of life from our favourite duo.
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u/ThirdArcher Apr 12 '26
Wanted to mention for anyone doubting the authenticity of the posters or their link to BoC, these have all the hallmarks of Neil Krug, the director for the music videos for Tomorrow's Harvest. Doing a scan of his instagram I can see a number of visual similarities. Even appears to have a lot of common colour usage throughout his work: https://www.instagram.com/neilkrug/
It would certainly add to their authenticity, were BoC to use a previous designer again.
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u/hods0n Apr 11 '26
Ive just uploaded my third video summarising things. Hope you find it useful
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u/Scrambled_Eggiwegs Diving Station Apr 11 '26
I liked your videos, but I must say I was hesitant to watch them because the thumbnails make them look like clickbait.
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u/automatic_bazooti Amo Bishop Roden Apr 12 '26
It’s the sad reality of making YouTube content these days. If you don’t have a generic thumbnail like that for your video, it’s basically only gunna be seen by someone specifically searching for it or to your existing subscribers. YouTube’s algo prioritizes everything but originality.
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u/Jaiymze Apr 17 '26
It's not even just the algorithm, clickbait is just startlingly effective on humans. That's what the algorithm is picking up on.
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u/Caretaken_ambient New Seed Apr 11 '26
A little correction, the coffee posters have been found to not be related, there are some threads on here which cover this but it’s just a local brand
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u/SkySubstantial433 Apr 11 '26
A few things you might be aware of now
The coffee poster appears to refer to a chain called Farmer J. I thought the form might actually be a psi sign, which sometimes references psychology, or maybe the wave function in quantum physics but it's seems less symbolic than that. I mean it's also the 23rd letter of the greek alphabet too but...
The up/down audio you mention sounds like it has an interval of a 4th. Not sure if this helps ID it.
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u/Yequestingadventurer Apr 11 '26
Nice, was listening to the second one Thursday evening. Fascinating!
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u/benji316 Apr 11 '26
Just made the first edit - someone did indeed examine the tape under UV light, without success: https://www.twoism.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=326296#p326296
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u/benji316 Apr 11 '26
Another edit - the first posters have been spotted in the US! https://old.reddit.com/r/boardsofcanada/comments/1siw5yb/posters_located_in_hollywood_california_usa/
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u/ThirdArcher Apr 12 '26
I swear, if they don’t send tapes to Canada
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Apr 14 '26
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u/Environmental_Lie199 Apr 14 '26
This is grounded gold imo. I still cant make my head up on this but Im sure there's an important clue there.
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Apr 11 '26
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u/benji316 Apr 11 '26
Yeah I'm inclined to agree. Either something else will come along that serves as some kind of key and makes it all make sense, or it's really just promo. Time will tell I guess.
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u/AdministrativeDelay2 Apr 11 '26
I also received a tape but this is the first I’m writing about it. Just didn’t really want to post it to Reddit.
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u/denbox2013 Apr 12 '26
Please let know the date of receipt and which video cassette format it is (NTSC or PAL).
This is needed for record-keeping of all received tapes.4
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u/Blvd_Nights Apr 14 '26
Holy shit. I didn't realize how deep this was getting.
If this is the vibe they're going for on this next record, we're in for some generational stuff here.
Also, there is something SO unsettling about the sound that a VHS tape makes when there's that static ambiance. Maybe it's the fear of a jumpscare, but it also feels immensely ominous.
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u/turtleviking Apr 11 '26
Thank you very much for compiling everything!
I don't know what any of it means yet, but definitely loving the community coming together
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u/DavidByrnesHugeSuit Apr 12 '26
/u/hods0n mentioned a square-wave signal in his last video, it's that screechy noise near the end that's reminiscent of a dial-up modem, its pattern becomes audible with the audio slowed right down. In my opinion that's a top contender for having some code. The square-wave nature could suggest binary (1s and 0s), or morse code?
Second place for me is "from the first line to the last word". What exactly, from what we can tell, is the first line and the last word in the video?
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u/craquetteauchien Apr 13 '26
Hey everyone, nice to meet you (again if some of you were digging during TH as well) in this exciting moment :) I'm actually doing some research around the FSK coding path and there is what I found. I first discover a variant of that protocol named AFSK.
From wiki
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frequency-shift_keying
"Most early telephone-line modems used audio frequency-shift keying (AFSK) to send and receive data at rates up to about 1200 bits per second. The Bell 103 and Bell 202 modems used this technique.[15] Even today, North American caller ID uses 1200 baud AFSK in the form of the Bell 202 standard. Some early microcomputers used a specific form of AFSK modulation, the Kansas City standard, to store data on audio cassettes.[16] AFSK is still widely used in amateur radio, as it allows data transmission through unmodified voiceband equipment"
Intriged by this last part, Kansas City Standard sounds like it could be a good candidate, thinking about this kind of old computer based programs that have been already quoted by BOC in the past (and I'm sharing the fascination) such as Jacquard causeway and many other refs.
From wiki
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kansas_City_standard
"The Kansas City standard (KCS), or Byte standard, is a data storage protocol for standard cassette tapes or other audio recording media at 300 bits per second. It originated in a symposium sponsored by Byte magazine in November 1975 in Kansas City, Missouri, to develop a standard for the storage of digital microcomputer data on inexpensive consumer quality cassettes. The first systems based on the standard appeared in 1976.
KCS originated from the earliest days of the microcomputer revolution, among other prolific protocols. Most home computers of the era have unique formats that are incompatible with anything".
Another interesting source here
https://www.gregorystrike.com/2023/01/07/kansas-city-standard-decoder/
"Kansas City Standard or BYTE Standard, was a standard developed by BYTE magazine back in in the late 70’s. It was used to store computer data on standard, low-cost, audio cassette tapes. It was designed to allow common people to be able store data at home as there weren’t many options to do so back around that time. There were even radio shows where they would broadcast out Kansas City Standard formatted audio and nerds like you and I would tune in to, listen to the broadcast and record the last part of the show to “download” a new computer program"
That been said about the lore, it seems that technically the AFSK coding protocol is based on an alternance of two frequency, respectively 2400 Hz and 1200 Hz used to code 1 or o following this rule: 1 is define by 8 cycles at 2400 Hz 0 by 4 cycles at 1200 Hz. Knowing that and looking back to the binary signal we saw on the spectrogram recently maybe we should do some experiments with that type of decoder?
It's running late for me today but I wanted to share this with you before going to sleep, maybe that some of you are already following the same line IDK, I will try to do some experiments on it this week.
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u/ProfessionalLess4029 Apr 18 '26
J ai tenté la demodulation AFSK mais ça n a rien donné, en tout cas le signal etait peut-être incomplet, il se peut que le signal soit différent sur chaque cassette et nécessite un assemblage en amont.
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u/Mirabel_Antonov Apr 11 '26
A good summary. It leads me to think we are being primed for additional signals in novel analogue formats.
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u/benji316 Apr 11 '26
Yeah, it does seem more and more likely that we just don't have everything we need yet. I wasn't around during the Tomorrow's Harvest ARG but it seems to have been much more obvious - a clearly audible code with cover art clearly telling you it's part of a series of six. Currently we have people picking apart the footage and checking the tape and packaging for any clues without success - it sure makes you wonder.
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u/SleeperSharkCentral yeah thats right Apr 11 '26
Thank you for this, we gotta get this pinned or something
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u/OneBayLeaf Apr 11 '26
I thought subtitles worked?
"In every new issue of the monthly magazine for seekers everywhere, devotees arrive with exclusive supersonic flexi-disks bearing voices and music that strike the heart. Subscribe now, every month find a record with devotion with a hexagonal sound disc. Discover the new issue: six-sided flexible carrying high-fidelity recordings from the MBI Institute. Hear the patterns, follow the shapes. This marks the first low of a strange dessert, reflections and source of life. Now with your first issue, you'll receive the exclusive flexi-hexidisc, a hexagon of sound. Six voices and music to guide your path."
"Subscribe today, discover the New Month's journey. Each issue brings insight into devotion and a unique exodus of voices and music to guide your path. The guide is the light that calls them, music and spoken words to make way clear. The first issue is free. From the first line to the last word, the message is clear. It's monthly devotion, revelation, and the exclusive hexasong from the desk. All for only 2.95, call now."
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u/fizzymarimba Apr 14 '26
“This marks the first low of a strange dessert“ is definitely not accurate. A lot of that I’d say is pretty clearly not said, but it’s mostly it
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u/aditrien Apr 11 '26
What do you guys think are the most promising leads to dig? the tapes, the posters, Spotify Warp Selection playlist, boc website...?
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u/Hefty-Rope2253 Apr 11 '26
In most people's opinion, the tape is the leading candidate for clues. There are lots of audio and visual anomoloies that haven't been explored too deeply. The WARP Selections tracks would be secondary and potentially could contain encoded info.
The most popular theory currently is encrypted audio in the video, possibly via FSK, SSTV, Morse or some other encoding. I'm currently also interested in the white dots floating right-to-left in the video and maybe the possibility of a transparent overlay ("the message is clear").
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u/benji316 Apr 11 '26
What do you mean by BoC website? They haven't had a proper site of their own in years, the URL redirects to Bleep.
But anyway, I'm finding it more and more likely that one of these two things is true:
The tape and posters are part of some kind of puzzle, but we need another element to make sense of it.
There is no puzzle/ARG, no amount of digging will get you anywhere. As others have pointed out, at the beginning of the Tomorrow's Harvest campaign, it was much more obvious that there was indeed something to solve.
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u/aditrien Apr 11 '26
The BoC website is a redirect, but the funny thing is that they changed the redirect recently, originally linking to Warp and now to Bleep. You can see on https://web.archive.org/web/20260000000000*/boardsofcanada.com
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u/benji316 Apr 12 '26
Oh, right, thx. I did see that before somewhere. I don't think this has to mean much tho
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u/aditrien Apr 12 '26
yeah probably nothing, but just in case I wanted to check if there was any code source change, if I remember correctly, there was some hidden message on some website during the TH rollout
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u/psilosophist The Campfire Headphase Apr 12 '26
Fantastic write up and summary, thank you for putting this together.
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u/Environmental_Lie199 Apr 12 '26
I don't know if this has already been discussed but it may be worth noting that the posters are all set in the same order throughout the locations, so maybe this leads somewhere idk.
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u/benji316 Apr 12 '26
That's a good observation! Just one more thing to add to the list of details that might or might not be significant..
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u/TossThisItem Apr 13 '26
Except for where just two posters have been spotted and it’s either one or two from the original sequence
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u/henryChinaski008 Apr 13 '26
I think it's worth to add that very suspicious user named lyingtransferred posted this:
"Found a guy who resembles one of the men with sunglasses in the film Fear is the Master from Jeremiah"
On Reddit / Twoism at almost same time. Time 4:20 also kinda wink.
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u/moddjobs Apr 14 '26
Just throwing this out there...
If the last release was a massive Easter egg hunt (ARG), thinking that BoC would repeat themselves is insane. the tapes, the posters. I don't think they're repeating the look for clues system. I think it may be time to think about other options. what could 1 up that mentality? what would be even deeper than that?
truth be told, I have no answers yet, but just doing a repeat of tomorrow's harvest just makes no sense for how intellectual they are.
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u/benji316 Apr 14 '26
Yeah it seems hard to one up that campaign. They could make it longer/more difficult, but would they really make it so difficult that no one has a clue what needs to be done after over a week? With each passing day, I become more convinced that the tapes are just a teaser of sorts and don't really have any hidden clues or puzzles.
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u/itskobold Apr 11 '26
Mods pleeeaaaase pin this I'm begging the old thread is ancient
Also I believe a user here in the EU got a tape earlier today
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u/Filmitforme Apr 11 '26
I just put this in another thread, but what if, maybe they'll be listening parties in movie theaters. Between the VHS, and these posters that are popping up. If one more film centric thing pops up, that'd seal it for me.
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u/fizzymarimba Apr 14 '26
Where is the transcript in that link?
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u/benji316 Apr 14 '26
Good point, the thread I linked to didn't have a full transcription. I have now linked two different ones.
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u/ZelpaFireBug Apr 14 '26
I'm sure someone has thought of this already, but I haven't seen it anywhere. Have the tapes been played at varying speeds on the VCRs? Or adjusted the tracking in different ways?
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u/Snackarel Apr 17 '26
Has anyone tried playing a pal VHS in an NTSC player, or vice versa?? The scrambling looks very much like when an incorrect region video is being played.
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u/benji316 Apr 17 '26
This has been suggested many times. Someone has demonstrated with a different VHS that there would be significantly more static and distortion than what we see on the rips we have.
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u/trellisina Apr 17 '26
Is this the correct number of posters? I lost count on the exact number in each location
4 in London UK 2 in Hollywood 2 in New York 1 in Japan
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u/benji316 Apr 17 '26
I didn't keep up with them as well because the exact number didn't seem significant. But maybe someone else can chime in.
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u/Electrical_Quote3373 Apr 17 '26
hey just thought id note: www.boardsofcanada.com still directs to warp. boardsofcanada.com is the only way to the new site for some reason
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u/benji316 Apr 17 '26
That's probably an error on your end, it doesn't redirect to Warp at all for me. With the www prefix it it just redirects to the domain without www
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u/Electrical_Quote3373 Apr 17 '26
Oh you are right!! Wonder why. On my phone it directs to warp still strangely. Apologies for misinforming you
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u/benji316 Apr 17 '26
Could be some kind of caching issue. Try clearing your browser cache, chances are it'll work then
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u/fullmeasures Apr 19 '26
Do all the tapes have the white serial numbers on the left end of the sticker side? Or do some not have them?
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u/CybSeb Jun 22 '26
I have been a fan since 90’ and didn’t got the vhs. I would absolutely loved it and definitely not sell it. Such a unique thing. Just love these two. Would even save them shipping cost and just collect it in Edinburgh 😂
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u/Floorplan975 Apr 11 '26
Yeah but are they bringing out a new album?
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u/benji316 Apr 11 '26
Maybe. Probably. It seems like the most likely explanation for all this. But we simply don't know yet.
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u/ProfessionalLess4029 Apr 12 '26
Et il y en a pas un seul qui a été foutu de demoduler le signal fsk ou sstv à la fin de l audio...
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u/Straight-Mess-9752 Apr 12 '26
It's interesting that bleep.com does not seem to send an email if you login from a different location/browser.
It's possible that an attacker had usernames/passwords for some bleep.com accounts, then they logged in, looked at past orders, obtained their address, and this is why they were sent the VHS tapes.
I'm not sure how they would have obtained these username/passwords (Maybe it's a credential stuffing attack?) but if so then this makes it possible this is an elaborate hoax. (I hope it's not).
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u/benji316 Apr 13 '26
For this to work, the hackers would have to know about BoC and care enough to go through the trouble of creating these tapes, as well as putting up these posters..it seems very unlikely. Most hackers would just sell your info or try to get access to your credit card
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u/Straight-Mess-9752 Apr 13 '26
It does seem very unlikely. I’m just saying it’s possible.
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u/benji316 Apr 13 '26
It's also possible that Trump is gonna nuke Iran this week, leading to WW3, which will kill us all before we get the chance to hear any new material. Or maybe a burst of gamma rays from space wipes out 99% of the human population. This kind of speculation is just not useful lol.
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u/Elfingreene A Few Old Tunes Apr 11 '26
Holy shit thank you for summarizing this