ed@oakhill.UUCP (Ed Rupp) (07/13/84)
For those of you who didn't see it, my second posting contained the
cyphers, the DOI, my notes and the pamphlet. <149@oakhill>. For the
record, I don't know if the cyphers are real or not, and haven't been
convinced one way or the other. I do know that I'm hooked on the subject
as a puzzle and take the stance that there is a solution. Here are my
comments on the subjects raised by Marc Kenig and Jim Gillogly:
Legalities.
I'll worry about legalities when I crack the cyphers. :-)
Why is B2 the easiest to crack?
Because it doesn't contain information that is sensitive.
Why is B2 so verbose?
As mentioned by another author, "Telegraphese wasn't invented until
the telegraph!" Besides this, the time involved gave Beale plenty
of opportunity to encode the messages. He had (at least)
from January 1822 to the spring (March?) to work on the cyphers
while staying at Morriss' inn.
Transporting gold/silver from Santa Fe.
What about river boats? Once you get to the Mississippi it
should have been easy to get to Virginia.
Also note what B2 says about exchanging some of the cargo for
jewels "to save transportation". Might this imply that they were
paying someone to move it for them?
Why use DOI for B2, then less obvious keys for B1/3?
See my notes about possibly using the DOI for generating a one-time
pad. It's clear to me that B1 is related to the DOI because of
the strings. Even if it's a hoax, the Gillogly strings imply
the originator used the DOI somehow.
No Spanish records of the expedition?
Why would there be records? While you're at it why not wish
for articles in the Virginia newspapers like: "Beale expedition
finds gold/silver, buries it in local cemetery".
The Gillogly strings.
(1) If B1 and B3 were just part of a hoax, why put the strings in
at all? Wouldn't it be better to make them really
random to keep people searching for the right key document?
(2) The only reasonable conclusion I can draw is that the key to
B1 is related to the DOI also. This does not rule out
that another document might also be used, but I think
I can count on the DOI as being part of the key.
(3) I concur that Hammer's "pun" suggestion is not the solution for
the reasons you mentioned. What about my suggestion
of a table with the alphabet along the axes and filled
with numbers from the DOI?
(4) The strings as a "signal" to the decoder: Probably not a
signal from Beale to Morriss because Morriss was supposed
to have the key anyway. The strings are definitely a signal to
the codebreaker.
(5) "doodle" hypothesis: Why repeat the same letter?
Or why not put perfect strings in more places?
Why does B2 reference B1 & B3?
This is the best argument I've heard from the hoax side of the
fence. I can't think of anything plausible but note that the
numbering of the cyphers is in question. The BCA literature
contains speculation that the ciphers were on 8 sheets of
paper, but I think this related to Clayton Hart.
Errors in B2.
Mostly the result of misnumbering the DOI at a few line breaks.
Correcting for this, there are only two or three places where the
cyphers are in error. In these cases the same number is used for
different letters. The originals were subject to copying errors
when the pamphlet version was being written. Also, errors do not
imply pain. Errors imply sloppy work.
B3 too short.
The expedition was made up of close friends: If only a few
families were represented in the party then B3 could be much
shorter than one would expect.
The Originals are missing.
This is, to put it mildly, "unfortunate". Extremely frustrating is
more like it. The Hart version of B2 has obviously been adjusted
to match the DOI, creating decades of confusion until the pamphlet
was found. Ward's version of the DOI has corrections applied to it
too, but not the same ones as I use. I may be too close to my own
work, but I think my explanation of how the errors in B2 came about
are more plausible than the Ward pamphlet corrections. If true,
this leaves only Morriss or "Beale" as originators of the hoax. Or
maybe you believe that Hart created the cyphers, wrote the pamphlet
and his booklet "The Beale Ciphers", with the pamphlet version
having subtle errors and the alphabetical strings in B1, then
grossly changed B2 in his document?
---------- end of comments, begin new questions ---------
What about all of the "fives" floating about in all 3 cyphers?
(1) B2 prefers numbers divisible by 5 (and 10), B3 avoids them.
Each cipher prefers one remainder: B1%5==1, B2%5==0, B3%5==1
and avoids another: B1%5==2, B2%5==4, B3%5==0.
See my notes for details.
(2) An unexpected number of the elements beyond ~900 in B1 are
divisible by 5. (this is kinda weak)
(3) 1005=X in B2 which is hard to explain since no word near
that in the DOI even contains an X.
(4) A shift of 5 for elements above 600 in B1 extends the
longest string, and changes one string from AABAD to AABCD.
The author of "The Beale Papers"
What progress has there been in identifying the author of
the pamphlet? In the June '82 BCA newsletter Aaron mentions that
he has a small list of candidates and remarks that interest
will either increase greatly or subside to a few diehards
if he has correctly identified the author.
The hoax hypothesis.
To my knowledge, there is no evidence one way or the other for the
hoax theory. So far, all details of the story that can be checked
out (by somewhat fanatical researchers) have proven true: Mrs.
Morriss' obituary verifies that she died in Ward's house. Ward's
application to the Library of Congress for the copyright of The
Beale Papers has been retrieved. Is there any evidence that *any*
statement in the Ward pamphlet is false? I would really like to
see some so I could put this damn thing down. Finding a rough
draft of "The Beale Papers" among Edgar Allen Poe's effects would
qualify. :-)
Ed Rupp {ihnp4,seismo,gatech,ctvax}!ut-sally!oakhill!edcbspt002@abnjh.UUCP (07/15/84)
<TJ Beale was as ficticious as this line> Ed Rupp replies to some of the evidence against the Beale Ciphers being legit in his article. I reply to his rebuttal (for at least those points which I am responsible). >Legalities. > I'll worry about legalities when I crack the cyphers. :-) No problem, I just thought you'd like to know of some of the headache of finding them. It may not be worth all the fame! >Why is B2 the easiest to crack? > Because it doesn't contain information that is sensitive. No sensitive info? Well, I don't know why talking about a hoarde of gold would be 'sensitive' (sarcasm). If you found it, would you give a 'parts list' of the hoarde to the NY Times? How about your local 'Holiday Inn' manager? Seriously, arent most treasure maps MAPS, with only tantalizing hints of the treasure? Of course, there's no reason to expect 'TJ' to follow any logical course, since logical activity goes out the window when you're talking megabucks (or at least they were in those days...). >Why is B2 so verbose? > As mentioned by another author, "Telegraphese wasn't invented until > the telegraph!" Besides this, the time involved gave Beale plenty > of opportunity to encode the messages. He had (at least) > from January 1822 to the spring (March?) to work on the cyphers > while staying at Morriss' inn. 'Verbose' is one thing, just-plain-odd use of language is another. His style is not only verbose and repetitive, but also seems anachronistic. You expect to find a 'thee' or 'thou' in the text, it's so (for lack of a better word) prosaic. By TJ's time, modern English had definitely taken hold. But, I have no better rebuttal to this objection to my objection, so call it an even match on this point. >Transporting gold/silver from Santa Fe. > What about river boats? Once you get to the Mississippi it > should have been easy to get to Virginia. > Also note what B2 says about exchanging some of the cargo for > jewels "to save transportation". Might this imply that they were > paying someone to move it for them? Security become a vast problem if we include 'movers' or any persons not in the raiding party. You know, "loose-lips", greed and all that... Granny: "Jethro, where'd you get that nugget 'o gold and that them there jewelery?" Jethro: "Oh, just some guys with a bunch of big boxes and shit eating grins had me take 'em up the river a spell..." Uncle Jed: "Boy, get me my gun, we is going huntin for some Virginians!" Jethro: "Why, yes sir uncle Jed, and I remember exactly where I left em off..." >Why does B2 reference B1 & B3? Maybe TJ just plain mis-numbered them or wrote and encoded them out of order. It would be in character! Actually the ordering can be satisfactorally explained. To wit, I think that TJ would've written the text B1 immediately after burying the treasure so not as to have to rely on a faulty memory, or if he went and died suddenly, or something like that. Then he would encode it first since it was written first, and not change the wording in it for reasons of accuracy. Now sometime later he writes B2, referring to an extant B1, and an as yet to be (or already) written B3. Then he numbers them wrong or in chronological order. QED But I'd still expect a READ ME FIRST message on top of B2. It may have been there, or maybe Ward just got lucky. Can you imagine him deciphering number 3 first: "Oh hell, just a bunch of names, & I was hoping for buried treasure or something. Oh well guess it'll make good fire-lighters..." -------end of rebuttals--------------------- I think it's a little futile employing arithmetical analysis to the search for an answer. Chances are you'd run into too damned many coincidences. Besides, I seriously doubt that TJB would have used math at all to encode. Perhaps the perponderance of mod 5 and mod 10 numbers is due to the fact that 5 and ten are pretty popular numbers (what with money and all that). (Don't get me wrong, real statistical analysis is another thing...) More through historical and sociological study is needed, especially to reveal a hoax in the case of the Beale ciphers. Unfortunately, the more of that what is applied to the Beale Ciphers, the MORE they seem like hoaxes! Marc Kenig, "not that I wouldn't be the first one to man a shovel and help ...abnjh!cbspt002 you dig if you DO figure it out...."
smb@ulysses.UUCP (Steven Bellovin) (07/17/84)
The Gillogly strings. (1) If B1 and B3 were just part of a hoax, why put the strings in at all? Wouldn't it be better to make them really random to keep people searching for the right key document? As Kahn points out in "The Codebreakers", most people regard cryptanalysis as akin to magic -- black magic. If you can't comprehend how someone is going to crack your cipher, there would seem little point to using random numbers instead. Besides, most folks aren't particularly good generators or recognizers of random strings (see Knuth Vol 2).