Cipher Riddle

gin007 · 2011-06-22 13:42:51

Hi guys,

I'm trying to solve a series of ciphers that appeared in the London Times in 1823. Here are all eight messages - the only thing I may not have properly transcribed is the spaces (it was hard to tell in a lot of instances). In fact, I suspect that every series of three stars (***) signifies the end of a word, rather than anything to do with any spaces, so you may be able to ignore the spaces all together. Further I suspect every single star (which only appear in the 3rd message and on) only separate pairs of letters - therefore, I think a pair of letter ='s one letter. Again, these assumptions could be wrong. So, if anyone is able to decipher these, I would be very appreciative!

AB-BU-CT*** AA-EE-EF*** FA*** EA*** ASAT-BU

EA*** AF-EH*** FC-BV*** AB-BA ET-AR-CR*** FE-BL-CO*** A6-EJ-b-EG-in-CX

EA*** FA*** FB* BL*** AR* AU* AW* BG

AJ* EE* EF*** AB* EJ* BA* C3*** EA*** FC* CF***

FB* CR*** AL* CQ* EH*** EB*AJ*** AJ* ED*** FE*CQ*** AS*AT*ET*BT* CP*** AT* EE***

AB* ET* BW* EJ* BT* CS* EJ* BA* CT*** AJ* EC*** AT* EE*** FB*CG*** FF* CR*** FG*BV* CT*** EB* AJ***

EA*** EB* AJ* EE*** AZ* EH*CR*** FC*BF*CM*** FE*CO*CQ*CT* EW*** FG* BV* CB***

FA*** AJ* EC*** AQ* AR* AU* AW*BU*** AB*B A***FE* CB*** FC* BF* CM*** FF* CA*** AL* EH* CP***

bobbym · 2011-06-22 16:06:54

Hi gin007;

Welcome to the forum. I traced this down to the agony column of the London Times. I have to confess that the rest of that column is just as confusing as the coded part.

gin007 · 2011-06-22 16:59:36

Thanks for the welcome - yes, some messages are confounding/confusing but some are really interesting! I've been working on the other ciphers and I've solved most of them (simple substitution ciphers), but this one is a bit more difficult. These are the pairs of letters and their frequency that they appear:

A6
AA
AB 5
AF
AJ 7
AL 2
AQ
AR 3
AS 2
AT 4
AU 2
AW 2
AZ

BA 4
BF 2
BG
BL 2
BT 2
BU 3
BV 3
BW

C3
CA
CB 2
CF
CG
CM 2
CO 2
CP 2
CQ 3
CR 4
CS
CT 4
CX

EA 5
EB 3
EC 2
ED
EE 5
EF 2
EG
EH 4
EJ 4
ET 3
EW

FA 2
FB 3
FC 4
FE 4
FF 2
FG 2

So, interestingly, the first letter in each pair is either A, B, C, E, or F. Of course, that means any letter could involve 5 possible pairs if my theory is true >_< I feel like I'm making it too hard as the other ciphers around that time were very, very simple.

bobbym · 2011-06-22 19:28:22

Hi;

Has anyone ever solved it? I could not find a single solution mentioned anywhere...

gAr · 2011-06-22 21:56:59

Hi,

Some hints are provided in the introduction
http://www.archive.org/stream/agonycolu … g_djvu.txt

but could not find anything for the ones here.
Chances are there that the plaintext may not be in english!

Without knowing the context, it's difficult to guess.

gin007 · 2011-06-23 04:38:22

It is pretty obscure, so I would be surprised if there were any solutions online. I strongly suspect it is in English because this was published in the London Times. While there are some messages in other languages in the Agony Column, I haven't run across any that have been in a cipher.

I was hoping someone who had more experience with frequency analysis and solving more difficult substitution ciphers might frequent these forums and see this thread. More difficult ciphers require frequency analysis and often the presence of short words words can help break it. I couldn't find a cipher forum, but I'm sure there must be one somewhere with people with loads more experience ...

bobbym · 2011-06-23 10:59:55

Hi;

It is pretty obscure, so I would be surprised if there were any solutions online.

The fact that it is so old and there are no solutions suggests it is very difficult.

I was hoping someone who had more experience with frequency analysis and solving more difficult substitution ciphers might frequent these forums and see this thread.

I am sure gAr put it through whatever he has as did I. Isn't it a little short for frequency analysis to be of much use.

Experience does not guarantee a solution. Take Kryptos for example:

http://www.wired.com/science/discoverie … ff_kryptos

I am not saying that it is undecipherable ( no pun intended ). I am just saying that if someone does not want their code cracked they could succeed.

gAr · 2011-06-23 17:17:55

Hi gin007,

You counted the frequencies considering all the lines from one message.
But in the archive, it looks like they have appeared on different days, some are years apart.

And the cryptosysstem can also be shifting, vignere etc. (or any rotor machine??)

Also, in the archive the messages contain a lot od white spaces and periods. Or is it some corruption during digitization?!

Anyway, may I know what's your source of the messages?

Lastly, I wonder whether the paper published it without knowing the plaintext and the method for enciphering? It could be an outlaw broadcasting his message!!

gin007 · 2011-06-23 19:18:31

Yes, the source of the messages is Alice Clay's "Agony Column of the Times 1800-1870" which is digitized on Google, but I also have a hard copy of the book from a non digitized source. The google PDF is a good copy but when I searched the text, the digitized OCR version that popped up had odd characters inserted. The only characters I did not type were the periods, as they appear after every letter. I believe the typesetter also placed a space after every period and *, and then 2 spaces where I have indicated one space. So, I have condensed the message from E. A. * * * E. B. to EA*** EB as it really seemed pointless to put a period after each and every letter and a space after each letter with two spaces after (what I presume is) word breaks.

Yes, the ciphers appear over several years. The first one appears in 1821 and the last in 1824, but they are generally addressed the same way (E.A. is the first "letter" in both a message in 1821 and in 1824). Two appear in 1821, 4 appear in 1823, and the last two appear in 1824. However, several of the same letter combinations appear in all the messages, which leads me to believe the code wasn't changed between the years (because of the variety of letter combos one can have with 2-letter combos starting with A, B, C, D, & F).

I still question whether a solution would be online - not because it is difficult (and I'm not saying it isn't!) but because it really has been a book in limited circulation until recently. Google just released this book onto the interwebs within the past year, and I don't think people are beating down the door to read it. Before it was available online, it was difficult for me to get ahold of one in hard copy (in 2005 or 2006); although I finally found one via ILL from the other side of the country - and if I recall correctly, there were only about 4 copies in public libraries in the US - the others did not circulate (because of the age and scarcity of the book).

I can guess with 99.9% certainty that the Times had no idea what the method for enciphering was. I've solved many of the other ciphers in the Clay book (they are practically all simple substitution ciphers ), and a few of them deal with ongoing petty crime, and a few mention death (whether from murder or natural causes is unclear). At any rate, the Agony Column was the fore-runner of our classifieds, and any one could place any message there - but they did not have to reveal the plaintext to the publisher. Most individuals disguised their messages to keep it from prying eyes (a lot of messages were for secret lovers), and that undoubtedly included people working at the paper. Papers like the Times didn't care what the message was, they just published whatever someone wanted to pay to put in the Agony Column.

Today, I ran across a cipher from around this time called the ADFGX cipher (which can actually use any 5 letters), the forerunner of the ADFGVX cipher. It seems similar in that the first letter is one of five letters, but the rest doesn't match up. I think it might still be related to this code somehow, and I need to do a little more research. One side may be ABCDF and the other side might be a word or phrase to create the solution matrix. Anyway, I learned today that whoever encoded this message in the early 1800s wasn't messing around - this was pretty advanced for the time in which it was published, if it is related to the ADFGX cipher, which only appeared after the telegraph was in use.

gAr · 2011-06-23 21:50:19

Hi,

Okay. Thanks for sharing your observations!

In your first post,
you thought pair of letter ='s one letter, and *** is a space.

AB-BU-CT*** AA-EE-EF*** FA*** EA*** ASAT-BU

In that case, FA***EA, 2 one letters in a sequence appears unlikely.

I'm unable to come up with something. The ciphertext is too little.

Even if all the messages are enciphered in the same manner, the key used could be different.

If you break the code, please tell!

When searching around, I came across this: http://jnicholl.org/Cryptanalysis/Challenges/

Math Is Fun Forum

#1 2011-06-22 13:42:51

Cipher Riddle

#2 2011-06-22 16:06:54

Re: Cipher Riddle

#3 2011-06-22 16:59:36

Re: Cipher Riddle

#4 2011-06-22 19:28:22

Re: Cipher Riddle

#5 2011-06-22 21:56:59

Re: Cipher Riddle

#6 2011-06-23 04:38:22

Re: Cipher Riddle

#7 2011-06-23 10:59:55

Re: Cipher Riddle

#8 2011-06-23 17:17:55

Re: Cipher Riddle

#9 2011-06-23 19:18:31

Re: Cipher Riddle

#10 2011-06-23 21:50:19

Re: Cipher Riddle

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