The Big Case: who took the cookie jar?

The Big Case: who took the cookie jar?

Every Wirebook lesson hides one piece of a secret picture. Collect a stamp and its piece appears. Then use what you've learned to crack the final mystery at the Byte Bakery — and if you solve it, a secret door may open…

The case of the missing cookie jar

Late one night, the Byte Bakery's famous cookie jar vanished from the page at /jar. Five suspects were online at the time. Check each clue to clear the innocent ones, then name the culprit. Anyone can play, but every clue links to the lesson that explains it.

Crawlya polite search crawler
Slowpokethe bakery's own tired server
Fishhooksender of fake messages
Peeperan ad tracker
Grabby Bota greedy scraper bot

Clue 1: the sign on the door

robots.txt (the bakery's sign for bots)
User-agent: *
Disallow: /jar

Crawly's notebook
03:10  read /robots.txt
03:10  saw "Disallow: /jar", skipped it
03:10  waited 10 seconds, visited /menu

Did Crawly go into /jar?

Yes, crawlers go everywhere No, it read the sign and skipped /jar Only on Tuesdays

Stuck? Lesson 17 has the answer

Clue 2: the server's diary

Slowpoke's diary (the bakery's server)
03:12  suddenly 900 requests in one minute!
03:12  replying 503 Service Unavailable to everyone
03:12  replying 429 Too Many Requests to one greedy visitor

What does a 503 Service Unavailable reply mean?

The server is too busy or down right now The page has moved house You typed the password wrong

Stuck? Lesson 5 has the answer

Clue 3: a suspicious message

Message to the baker
"Good news! Your cookie jar was found. Collect it here:
https://bytebakery.com.jar-claim.net/collect"

The baker's note
Didn't click. Typed the bakery's address myself instead.

Who really owns that link?

bytebakery.com jar-claim.net collect

Stuck? Lesson 16 has the answer

Clue 4: the cookie notes

The baker's browser
Block third-party cookies: ON

Peeper's notes, one jar per website
recipes.example     AD-7731
zoo.example         AD-2208
bytebakery.example  AD-5190

Could Peeper join up the baker's visits to find where the jar was kept?

Yes, it's the same tracker on every site No, each site gave it a separate jar with a different ID Cookies can open locks

Stuck? Lesson 18 has the answer

Clue 5: the door log, then make your accusation

The bakery's door log at 03:12
03:12:01  GET /jar  200  visitor: GrabbyBot/1.0  (never read /robots.txt)
03:12:01  GET /jar  200  GrabbyBot/1.0
03:12:02  ... 900 more times in one minute ...
03:12:05  GET /jar  429 Too Many Requests  GrabbyBot/1.0

Who took the cookie jar?

The Big Case: who took the cookie jar?

The secret picture

The case of the missing cookie jar

Case closed!

The real lesson inside the joke