I have done a massive edit to this post, as there are much better sources for the information that I was trying to provide here.  I will mainly focus on my experiences with the ‘heist’, and a general perspective on the process.

There is a lot of information going around and a lot of online activity happening with regard to what is now becoming known as the Stockholm Syndrome ‘heist’.  The purpose of this post is to bring people up to speed with what has happened so far (I’ll try my best).

The heist had its beginning in an email sent out to those subscribed to Derek Webb’s email list on 5/12.  The email was a introduction to some apparent issues that Derek was having with his record label about the upcoming release of his new album “Stockholm Syndrome”.

A second email went out on 5/19, saying that Derek was going offline, and to follow him on a new twitter account: @ssyndrome.  The email was full of underscores in odd places.  Piecing together the letters after the underscores in the message spelled out a secret phrase “paradiseisaparkinglot”, which, as it turns out is a website address.

Both emails were posted at derekwebb.com., (the emails were the only content left on the website, as of the date of the last email).

Going to paradiseisaparkinglot.com, visitors were faced with a strange instruction.  ”Go to Ugly Mugs in Nashville, ask for the Stockholm Latte”.  The page also featured a list of 20 items with download buttons that were disabled, and an rss feed.  The rss feed is a collection of videos, pictures and documents that appear to be clues or bits of information that still have not been fully interpreted yet.

Visitors to Ugly Mug’s in Nashville were given an ‘artifact’, which turned out to be a usb drive that contained a code to be emailed to a provided address.  There were five artifacts deposited in Nashville.  Once all five artifacts were retrieved and the codes emailed out, the first download button was activated at paradiseisaparkinglot.com.  The downloads appear to be bits of an audio file with odd names; the files are referred to as ’stems’.  The prevailing assumption is that all of the stems must be pieced together in order to create a full audio file.

The contents of each one of the drives were a PDF with a validation code, a small audio wav file (one of the stems) and a picture, the contents of which pointed to the location of the next artifact.

Others also found a small hyperlink at the bottom of DerekWebb.com that lead to a form page asking “wha_t do you _wan_t? (erro_r -0558 103)“.  The underscored letters in this spell ‘twtr’.  Checking @derekwebb on twitter for 1/3 at 5:58 gives you the correct answer.  Answering the question correctly takes you to a large picture of Derek with a black eye and a web-address under his eye, black-eye.me.  This leads to yet another submit box with the question “what time it is? (error -0241 120)”.  A twitter post from 1/20 at 2:41 gives you the answer to this question.  Answering correctly gives you a video.  The significance of this video is still in question.

The web was also all a-flutter about what was happening.  A fairly scathing article at Relevant Magazine’s website was posted as the excitement began to build, heavily writing it all off as a publicity stunt.

Then there was silence.  Until the next day, when someone noticed that one of the words in the emails on derekwebb.com had been turned into a hyperlink (r_eal in the second email) and posted it on twitter. The link lead to yet another form submit page, with a form box preceded by the number 1 and enclosed in quotes.  I got into investigative mode and found another hyperlink on the page (trouble in the first email) that lead to the previously mentioned Relevant article.  I figured out that entering the words in quotes from the article in the form box, in order, individually, resulted in a download of a zip file.  The file contained a pre-mix mp3 of “The Spirit vs The Kickdrum” and a text file, containing only the characters 10-2-4.  I blogged more about this here.

The following day, the next set of instructions appeared on paradiseisaparkinglot.com.  These instructions set the hunters to Horizon Records in Greenville SC, where they were to ask for the latest release from Bejerot records.  The requesters received the next artifacts, usb drives with similar contents as before, and codes that unlocked the next set of stems on paradiseisaparkinglot.com.

The next tweet from @ssyndrome came on 5/21: “New instructions coming 05/26. Two cities next week.”  So, apparently the artifact hunters got the Holiday weekend off.

Beginning on Tuesday, May 26, regular instructions were posted that led seekers to cities all over the US, including: Waco, Los Angeles, Decatur(GA), Seattle,  Charlotte(NC), Vienna(VA), Raleigh(NC), Lexington(KY), Dallas, Grand Rapids, St Louis(MO), Birmingham(AL) and Nashville (among others I am sure I left out).

Other significant points of interest in the process:

5/29:  Another word in the emails on derekwebb.com was been hyperlinked.  The word “all” in the first email now points to ssyndrome.info.

Sometime after this, a new link appeared on DerekWebb.com in the first email in the word ‘all’.  @ssyndrome sent out a twitter message that referred to having information for ‘all’ at DerekWebb.com.  Clicking the link took you to ssyndrome.info.  Clicking on the third bar in the barcode picture on the website linked to a movie file.  Some twitter follower found morse code in the video and has translated it – the message states “6 p.m – GPS to follow”.  Further Update:  The 7th stem contains two image files that are named with GPS coordinates:  38.908818, -77.253542

6/11: Three new twitter messages from @ssyndrome:

am i _r_eally trouble_d? are y_ou? _what does that mea_n? te_ll me y_our truth _an_d i’ll tell you mine.

thi_s is s_tupid. who car_es. i’_m leaving. i’m only going to say this _2 times.

You have 12 hours starting now, until Waco time (PM).

The embedded message in the first two twitter posts instructs the seeker to ‘redownload stem2′.  Those who downloaded found a pre-mix mp3 of the new song ‘Freddie, Please’.  The updated stem was only available for 12 hours.

On 6/26, the following instructions were posted: Go to Workplay in Birmingham, AL, go to front desk and ask for two tickets to see the Worboys.  I got the first artifact from this one.  Woohoo!

The first person to get an artifact, got one of a different color than the others (me in this case).  The first one is white, the others are black.

Being the first to retrieve the artifact netted me a Tier 3 pre-order of ‘Stockholm Syndrome (digital and physical) and two free tickets to any show on the ‘Black-Eye’ Tour.

Aftermath:  The seeming culmination of the ‘heist’ was an event in Nashville, where faithful followers gathered for something, but they did not know what it was.  When they arrived, they were greeted by Derek and a representative of his record label, who verified that the controversy surrounding the record was indeed real.  Derek did a short Q & A and the attendees were shown some clips from the documentary video.

During the event, more twitter messages from @ssyndrome were sent, and those who followed the clues received a chance to be shuttled away after the event to an undisclosed location.  The location turned out to be Derek’s house, and the lucky followers were treated to private preview of the album from Derek personally.

On 7/7, ‘Stockholm Syndrome’ became available for pre-order at derekwebb.com.  At this point all of the urls used in the heist were re-routed to the pre-order page.  To my knowledge, no pre-order sales figures have been released, but during the first few days, the pre-order website could barely keep up with the download requests (all pre-orders got an immediate download of some kind).

I downloaded my pre-order several days later (trying to avoid the traffic).  I’ll hopefully be blogging my review at some point.

Tags: derekwebb, ssyndrome