Oper­a­tion Slip­knot has completed:

EXCELLENT WORK!

Oper­a­tion Slip­knot is com­plete. Even though three sus­pects remain at large, your work rep­re­sents a huge step for­ward in clean­ing up our beloved city.

The fugi­tives are being arrested, hand­cuffed, and extra­dited back to Gotham for prosecution.

Doesn’t it feel bet­ter to be on the right side of the law for once?

Thanks to you, Gotham can hold its head high once again. But do me one favor… stay out of trouble.

–Gor­don.

Click­ing each of the sus­pects shows how they were caught. Shortly after the com­ple­tion (despite three missed sus­pects), par­tic­i­pants received a phone call from Jim Gor­don (DOWNLOAD).

humanresources@whysoserious then sent out a text to the mobiles in the pack­ages received — point­ing us towards a new Why So Seri­ous Page: “It’s All Part of the Plan”.

There’s a four day count­down and a lever in the top right — click­ing the lever reveals a brand new Dark Knight Poster: “Wel­come to a world with­out rules” (Down­load Super Hi Res­o­lu­tion Image)

Sam­ple of the high res­o­lu­tion poster:

The long rumored, new Dark Knight trailer was aired at the New York Comic-con yes­ter­day, and it is expected to arrive at your local the­ater in the next cou­ple of weeks — when the inter­net gets it is anyone’s guess, though I imag­ine we’ll get a grainy boot­leg shortly before a high-definition download-able version.

MTV have pro­vided a trust­wor­thy descrip­tion of the trailer if you can’t take the wait,

— After a breath­tak­ing shot of Bat­man perched high above Gotham, a voiceover from Heath Ledger’s Joker asks “Where do we begin?” Bat­man glides through the city.

- “Kill the Bat­man,” the Joker states to an adjoined meet­ing of mob bosses, before an explo­sion is shown and the sub­se­quent show­ing of a Joker card. This seem­ingly gels with the sus­pi­cion that the Joker is con­trol­ling the mob through ran­som (after rob­bing the mob-run bank in the IMAX preview).

- After sev­eral shots of Har­vey Dent in Dis­trict Attor­ney mode, we finally get every­one together as the Joker invades a fancy bash with Bruce Wayne (Chris­t­ian Bale), Alfred (Michael Caine), Har­vey Dent (Aaron Eck­hart) and Rachel Dawes (Mag­gie Gyl­len­haal). Sadly, the scene wasn’t topped off by the Pen­guin crash­ing through the floor on a giant duck.

- “The dawn is com­ing” says Dent in a voiceover.

- The Joker mut­ters “Here we go” before walk­ing down a city street blow­ing stuff up in one par­tic­u­larly awe­some scene.

- In one of the most fore­bod­ing moments of the trailer, Dent emphat­i­cally states “You either die a hero or you live long enough to see your­self become the vil­lain.” Har­vey Dent, of course, back­wardly ref­er­enc­ing his future trans­for­ma­tion into super-villain “Two-Face.”

- Our eyes may have been play­ing tricks on us, but it cer­tainly looked like the Joker drops Dawes at some point. The length of said drop is uncertain.

IGN have also been there, tak­ing pic­tures, with some spec­tac­u­lar Bat­man and Joker figures:

And Wash­ing­ton Square News got the low down on The Dark Knight Scare­crow action figure:

From the Har­vey Dent website,

Today’s press con­fer­ence was unex­pect­edly can­celled due to a hostage cri­sis located at a nearby deli. In a self­less move, Mr. Dent entered the premises, exchanged him­self for a woman who was being held at gun­point, and nego­ti­ated the suc­cess­ful release of the remain­ing patrons in the restau­rant. Watch this site for updates. We will release more details when they become available.

Down­load the MP3 Audio of the situation

The hostage sit­u­a­tion was insti­gated by des­per­ate cop, Frank Notaro, he takes a woman hostage before request­ing wit­ness pro­tec­tion for him and his fam­ily. Har­vey Dent exchanges him­self for the woman before Notaro is arrested.

This all took place at Rossi’s Deli — Notaro’s mad­ness was tripped in the event of see­ing his part­ners (Cis­neros) death in a car explo­sion, also killing his entire fam­ily — all whilst leav­ing a mes­sage on Rossi’s answer phone. Down­load the voice­mail mes­sage and lis­ten to the scene

For some back story on Frank Notaro I rec­om­mend read­ing our cov­er­age.

Glenn Barhyte’s email, acces­si­ble through the secu­rity pages at Gotham Police, has two new mes­sages from Frank:

Deal’s Off
I saw it. With my own eyes. Best part­ner I ever had. Dead. What the hell’s going on?

Thank’s For Nothin
Looks like you’re out hav­ing break­fast or some­thing. I knew I couldn’t trust IA to keep my fam­ily safe. I’m going to Rossi’s Deli to take care of Con­do­loro myself, don’t try to stop me.

This is a very large, though side inves­ti­ga­tion tak­ing place as part of the Dark Knight’s viral mar­ket­ing. A lot of inter­est­ing details, doc­u­ments and images have been unveiled as a result of this sleuthing, so I’m going to do my best to relay all of this to you now.

Back­ground on Francis

Fran­cis Notoro is a Gotham police offi­cer that appears on the “Con­cerned Cit­i­zens for a Bet­ter Gotham” web­site, one of the eight that damned Har­vey Dent in a press conference:

Eight Gotham police offi­cers stood up for the truth today at a morn­ing press con­fer­ence at Gotham’s Hotel Inter­na­tionale. One by one, the police offi­cers took the podium and told their story. Their dev­as­tat­ing tes­ti­mony showed that Dent is a dis­hon­est, cor­rupt, out-of-control pros­e­cu­tor who threat­ened police offi­cers in order to get them to tes­tify against inno­cent cops who Dent wanted in jail. Fran­cis Notaro, Sergeant, told the press corps that Dent had offered him money to tes­tify against an inno­cent cop, Jimmy Scaliano.

He cur­rently fea­tures in CCFABG’s lat­est adver­tise­ment: CCFABG Ad

And update to the Gotham Police web­site, award­ing him the Gotham Medal of Com­men­da­tion:

At a cer­e­mony in City Hall’s Ban­quet Room yes­ter­day, Gotham Police Depart­ment Sgt. Fran­cis X. Notaro received the Gotham Medal of Com­men­da­tion. It is the high­est medal one can receive from the Mayor of Gotham, and requires “an extra­or­di­nary act of courage in the face of real dan­ger to one’s self.” Mayor Gar­cia as well as numer­ous other dig­ni­taries were there to honor Sgt. Notaro, who was accom­pa­nied to the event by his wife Han­nah and his two chil­dren, Samuel, 7, and Rachel, 4.

The com­men­da­tion emerged from Sgt. Notaro’s actions of May 13 of last year. A crazed gun­man began shoot­ing up passers-by in an alley down­town off of Jack­son and Colum­bus at around 2 AM.

Notaro, who was not on duty at that hour but hap­pened to be close by, heard the shots, went straight to the scene of the inci­dent, and shot and killed the per­pe­tra­tor. Notaro’s actions put him­self at grave risk of death, while sav­ing the lives of inno­cent bystanders.

“Sgt. Notaro reflects the very best of Gotham,” said Mayor Gar­cia. “He rep­re­sents the spirit of ded­i­ca­tion, duty, and com­mit­ment to the rule of law that we all can admire.”

The Fan Inves­ti­ga­tion and Mystery

“jlevine”

All the infor­ma­tion posted so far is read­ily avail­able on the viral sites. Here is where the jour­ney really begins. Look­ing at the updated Gotham Police page, the pic­ture of Frank Notaro used asks not to be hotlinked — this begs us to look at the URL:

the​gotham​times​.com/​m​e​d​i​a​/​j​l​e​v​i​n​e​/​p​u​b​l​i​c​/​g​t​p​0​0​3​3​9​.​jpg

By incre­ment­ing the num­ber on the image we can find a few more pic­tures of Frank with his chil­dren. The name in the URL, ‘jlevine’ refers to one James Levine, cited in The Maiden Avenue Report:

TIMES REPORTER LEVINE: “MEDIA PACKRAT” PREPPING EXCLUSIVE NOTAROINTERVIEW?

Using the known folder and try­ing some dif­fer­ent file names, this inter­view is uncov­ered: Down­load, here’s an excerpt:

Notaro: Har­vey Dent offered me cash money to lie about a good cop.
Levine: Yep, that’s what the ad says.
Notaro: Cash money. To lie.
Levine: What cop was he try­ing to pros­e­cute?
Notaro: James Scaliano.
Levine: Scaliano, Scaliano…Ahh, Scaliano, this is the guy who was found guilty of shak­ing down shop own­ers for pro­tec­tion money and roughin’ up guys for the shy­locks.
Notaro: Lies. All lies. Scaliano was a good man.

Voice­mail Messages

Mov­ing swiftly on, hope you are with us so far. Onto a site we uncov­ered a short while ago, that of CCFABG leader Joseph (aka Joe) Can­do­loro. On this page is a tele­phone num­ber, 1866 626 8049, com­bin­ing it with the price of “Joe’s favourite” at Rossi’s deli (1149), yields voicemail.

Joe’s Favorite
An 8oz sir­loin cooked to order and 3 fan­tail shrimp, breaded and fried. $11.49

The first mes­sage we hear is a lit­tle gem from Albert Rossi which reveals a secure doc­u­ment num­ber, IA176495U (“killed by the men upstairs”) and he leaves his num­ber at the end of the mes­sage, 1866 580 3840. Use the pin “9482” to access his voice­mail — these let­ters cor­re­spond to his mother’s name Zita (we found this out at St Swith­uns). Using this a series of voice mes­sages were uncov­ered. These mes­sages reveal the secret sto­ries of three char­ac­ters — Can­do­loro, Rossi and Notaro. Within a mes­sage to Rossi, Notaro reveals his num­ber to be 1866 626 608 3515. Com­bin­ing this with his date of birth as a pin (32976 — aka 3/29/76) we get access to another phone and set of messages.

Down­load Pack of all MP3 Voicemails

Secure Inter­nal Documents

Now onto the real nitty gritty. Every­thing so far has been triv­ial. For those that didn’t know, the Gotham Police web­site has a secret login page at this loca­tion. Back in Decem­ber we used this to retrieve some secret doc­u­ments. We login using user­name: Barhyte­Glenn, pass­word: tevre­den­heid,

By sub­mit­ting Frank’s name to the We Are The Answer web­site, you get this email response,

Thank you for your sub­mis­sion. Offi­cer Fran­cis Notaro is cur­rently being inves­ti­gated to deter­mine his guilt or innocence.

We Are The Answer will keep the cit­i­zens of Gotham informed regard­ing this, and other, inves­ti­ga­tions of police officers.

UmVmOg0KSUE4MjM0OTcxDQpJQTgzNzYxMjENCklBODM4ODU1NQ0KDQo=

That code at the end is very intrigu­ing. It turns out that it is Base64 encoded, decod­ing this gives us three doc­u­ment num­bers, IA823497, IA8376121, IA8388555.

Log­ging into the secure doc­u­ments page and enter­ing the num­ber from Rossi’s voice­mail reveals the offi­cial inves­ti­ga­tion into the use of deadly force by Franci Notaro — this shows that his story has incon­sis­ten­cies. The doc­u­ment has since been removed from the archives (as per the voice message).

Next up we have the first of the Inter­nal Affairs num­bers, which gives us a wire­tap record­ing between Rossi and Notaro which reveals details of a cover up, regard­ing the events that led to Notaro’s commendation.

Down­load Wire­tap MP3

The sec­ond of the encrypted doc­u­ments is Notaro’s Bank state­ment. Note the $10,000 deposits from JC, believed to be Mr Candoloro.

Last but not least, there is some DNA evi­dence from the crime scene:

These sam­ples prove the victim’s innocence.

Many many thanks to the mem­bers at Super­Hero­Hype

We’ve got some more inter­est­ing viral web­sites for you today. First up, the Maiden Avenue Report has been updated. It now reads, “the end is near” [for Har­vey Dent]. The links to the clown videos have been removed and “spon­sors” have been added which link to new web­sites, most of the pages in rota­tion we have already covered.

Kins­ley Travel:

What’s of most inter­est here is the “Check Flight Sta­tus” panel on the right.

www​.kinsly​travel​.com:

Roman­tic Week­ends
Caribbean Escapes
Pack­age Deals from Gotham to Italy, Greece and the Far East
w Golf Packages

Kinsly Travel is a full-service travel agency with over 25 years expe­ri­ence. THE GOTHAM TIMES travel colum­nist says, “Kinsly spe­cial­izes in find­ing a fun and afford­able trip on short notice.”

A travel agent can take care of busi­ness, let­ting you have all the fun.

“Saved my mar­riage! And you guys did all the work!” – Steve P. from Haysville

“When my bag got stolen, Iris worked with our hotel and our air­lines and put us in touch with the con­sulate! She saved our Get­away!” – Gary R. from South Hinkley

“You did it again! The per­fect escape!” — Mau­reen M. from Pettsburg

Con­tact us:
1866 307 0988
getaways@​kinslytravel.​com

The email response:

“Kinsly Travel! Plan your Get­away with us! Kinsly Travel has been serv­ing Gotham’s travel needs for over 20 years! Now you can check flight sta­tus on our web­site.
Your email is impor­tant to us, and we’ll do our best to get back to you. We spe­cial­ize in per­sonal responses and spur of the moment travel plans.
We can make your get­away fast, effi­cient and fun!”

Gotham Ferry System

www​.gcfer​ries​.com:

The Gotham Ferry keeps its fair city on the move, with an annual total of 8 mil­lion peo­ple using the ser­vice. 28,000 pas­sen­gers a day — not includ­ing week­end days — travel between the Sheal Ter­mi­nal and Petts­burg Ter­mi­nal. Ser­vice is pro­vided 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. The Gotham Ferry boasts reli­a­bil­ity, with over 97 per­cent in on-time recorded trips.

The Ferry is $1.00 from Gotham to Pettsburg.

Petts­burg to Gotham is free.

Sys­tem Sta­tus Hot­line
1866 296 9883

Call­ing this num­ber gives:

“Thank you for call­ing Gotham Ferry Sys­tem. Cur­rently all fer­rys are opper­at­ing normally.”

And the email response:

Thank you for con­tact­ing the Gotham Ferry Sys­tem, Gotham’s his­toric sea-link. The Gotham Ferry Sys­tem is proud to serve the peo­ple of Gotham City and sur­round­ing areas. If you’re receiv­ing this email in response to a request for infor­ma­tion, we’re either rout­ing your mes­sage to the appro­pri­ate staff mem­ber or unable to respond at this moment. Please be patient.

Gotham Ferry System

Hat tip on this one goes to Bryan, thanks!

Sorry for the delay in post­ing this and thanks to every­one that sent it in. This is our first piece of viral mar­ket­ing that actively includes the stars of The Dark Knight. In this case it is Mag­gie Gyl­len­haal as Rachel Dawes, air­ing her sup­port for Har­vey Dent in a press con­fer­ence. This video orig­i­nated at the Maiden Avenue Report.

Down­load the Quick­time Ver­sion (2mb) : View at Gotham Times

Warner Bros. have released their lat­est press pack­age for Sum­mer 2008, within it comes infor­ma­tion about The Dark Knight. Most of which we already knew, but inter­est­ingly their plot syn­op­sis has updated:

“The Dark Knight” reunites direc­tor Christo­pher Nolan with star Chris­t­ian Bale, who returns to con­tinue Batman’s war on crime. With the help of Lieu­tenant Jim Gor­don (Gary Old­man) and Dis­trict Attor­ney Har­vey Dent (Aaron Eck­hart), Bat­man sets out to destroy orga­nized crime in Gotham for good. The tri­umvi­rate proves to be effec­tive, but they soon find them­selves prey to a ris­ing crim­i­nal mas­ter­mind known as the Joker (Heath Ledger), who thrusts Gotham into anar­chy and forces the Dark Knight ever closer to cross­ing the fine line between hero and vigilante.

They have also offi­cially released two new images, (some of you may have seen these before when they were leaked with 17 oth­ers):

The game is online, click this link to fol­low it as it unfolds

Here’s the new Joker viral web­site we’ve been wait­ing for — now we await the fool’s day puz­zles:

Clown Travel Agency — www​.clown​trav​e​la​gency​.com

Thanks Agent ONeal

(this comes from the ana­gram we posted earlier)