haddad@polya.STANFORD.EDU (Ramsey Haddad) (03/04/88)
Can anyone decrypt the following: 122, 151, 164, 175, 184, 203, 221, 272, 278, 287, 323, 356 Some background: This sequence comes from Denning's great cryptography book that has been refered to a couple of times earlier in the newsgroup. On pages 122, 151, ... instead of having a normal page headnote, reminding the reader about the topic of the chapter, she has the string ``ABFDEFGHIJKLMMNOHPP''. Surely this can't be accidental. This sequence of page numbers must have a meaning. First attempt: Earlier in the book, Denning discusses how the string ``ABFDEFGHIJKLMMNOHPP'' arose in connection to the Beale Ciphers. In one Beale Cipher, the number X should be replaced by the first letter of the Xth word of the Declaration of Independance. Does anyone have an on-line version of the DOI, so that we can check if that is how to decrypt the above string? If this doesn't work, does anyone have any other ideas? -- Ramsey W Haddad
jackm@devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV (Jack Morrison) (03/05/88)
In article <2109@polya.STANFORD.EDU> haddad@polya.STANFORD.EDU (Ramsey Haddad) writes: >Can anyone decrypt the following: > 122, 151, 164, 175, 184, 203, 221, 272, 278, 287, 323, 356 >one Beale Cipher, the number X should be replaced by the first letter >of the Xth word of the Declaration of Independance. Does anyone have >If this doesn't work, does anyone have any other ideas? Did you try the 122nd, 151st, etc. words in Denning's book itself? [poster [nitpick [override [text...] -- Jack C. Morrison Jet Propulsion Laboratory (818)354-1431 jackm@jpl-devvax.jpl.nasa.gov "The paycheck is part government property, but the opinions are all mine."
jim@randvax.UUCP (Jim Gillogly) (03/09/88)
In article <2109@polya.STANFORD.EDU> haddad@polya.STANFORD.EDU (Ramsey Haddad) writes: > >Can anyone decrypt the following: > 122, 151, 164, 175, 184, 203, 221, 272, 278, 287, 323, 356 > >Some background: This sequence comes from Denning's great cryptography >book ... [In the running head of] pages 122, 151, [is] >the string ``ABFDEFGHIJKLMMNOHPP''. Surely this can't be accidental. ... > >First attempt: Earlier in the book, Denning discusses how the string >``ABFDEFGHIJKLMMNOHPP'' arose in connection to the Beale Ciphers. In >one Beale Cipher, the number X should be replaced by the first letter >of the Xth word of the Declaration of Independance. Does anyone have >an on-line version of the DOI, so that we can check if that is how to >decrypt the above string? As it happens, I have a copy of my 1980 Cryptologia paper, which has the numbers I used to find the above string. The Denning page numbers give (fanfare, please) 122 151 164 175 184 203 221 272 278 287 323 356 F I O M I E B T T N E P In the spirit of Beale efforts of bygone eras, we should award a prize for the best anagram of the above. JAW? The vowel/consonant ratio is bang on for English (should be 40% vowels), but that's not too much higher than the initial letters of the DOI in general (eyeballing the table, so no number at hand). I don't know what it means -- it doesn't seem to correlate with either the preface (do we include the title page?), the intro, or the section on the Beale stuff (include the title there?). If you number the words in the Intro (ignoring the figures) it's interesting to note that 122, 151 and 164 all begin lines, but don't give any useful plaintext. However, this suggests that the considerable regularity in the differences might be consistent with choosing the same word of the line, which might simplify the search. Good luck... -- Jim Gillogly {hplabs, ihnp4}!sdcrdcf!randvax!jim jim@rand-unix.arpa [HASA: U (Spam) division]
haddad@polya.STANFORD.EDU (Ramsey Haddad) (03/10/88)
In article <316@markle.randvax.UUCP> jim@randvax.UUCP (Jim Gillogly) writes: >In article <2109@polya.STANFORD.EDU> haddad@polya.STANFORD.EDU (Ramsey Haddad) writes: >> >>Can anyone decrypt the following: >> 122, 151, 164, 175, 184, 203, 221, 272, 278, 287, 323, 356 >As it happens, I have a copy of my 1980 Cryptologia paper, which has the >numbers I used to find the above string. The Denning page numbers give > >(fanfare, please) 122 151 164 175 184 203 221 272 278 287 323 356 > F I O M I E B T T N E P > Mike Rose (mbr@lanl.gov) told me that he had seen the solution before, that the code was based of the Declaration of Independance, and that he believed that the answer was: DO NOT BREAM THIS. Since this was more letters than I had posted numbers, he wondered if I had missed some numbers. I was horrified to find that I had. Hence, I tentatively accepted his answer, and assumed that the `M' was either because (1) Denning could find no `K' in the nearby text, or (2) the Beale ciphers had encoding errors, and so she inserted an intentional one as an inside joke. I didn't check the Declaration of Independance myself, because I hoped that someone would have an on-line version that would save some tedious counting and reduce the possibility of errors. And alas, Jim Gillogly has such a set of numbers, and they don't seem to make sense, yet. 122 138 151 164 175 184 203 221 241 272 278 287 323 356 D O N O T B R E A M T H I S F ? I O M I E B ? T T N E P Oh yuck.-- Ramsey W Haddad
chris@mimsy.UUCP (Chris Torek) (03/11/88)
In article <316@markle.randvax.UUCP> jim@randvax.UUCP (Jim Gillogly) writes: > 122 151 164 175 184 203 221 272 278 287 323 356 > F I O M I E B T T N E P >In the spirit of Beale efforts of bygone eras, we should award a prize >for the best anagram of the above. JAW? Well, my initials are `act', not `jaw', but having a handy anagram program, I took a stab at it. I found 109 anagrams of four or more letter words, using /usr/dict/web2 as a dictionary; the most amusing of these (in my opinion) are `befit pimento', `fine temp obit', and `finetop timbe'. There were no anagrams that used all the letters. If only this included a `c', I could get `net topic? fib me!' (A full scan of all two or more letter words found 26,239 anagrams of `fiomiebttnep' in about 8 minutes of cpu time on a Vax 8600. If anyone cares, I can mail it; it is 426062 bytes of junk, though, and obviously I have not read it all myself.) -- In-Real-Life: Chris Torek, Univ of MD Comp Sci Dept (+1 301 454 7163) Domain: chris@mimsy.umd.edu Path: uunet!mimsy!chris
mbr@beta.UUCP (Mike Rose) (03/12/88)
In article <2126@polya.STANFORD.EDU> haddad@polya.UUCP (Ramsey Haddad) writes: >Mike Rose (mbr@lanl.gov) told me that he had seen the solution before, >that the code was based of the Declaration of Independance, and that >he believed that the answer was: DO NOT BREAM THIS. Well, actually I didn't see it anywhere, so it's just my guess. >tentatively accepted his answer, and assumed that the `M' was either >because (1) Denning could find no `K' in the nearby text, or (2) the >Beale ciphers had encoding errors, and so she inserted an intentional >one as an inside joke. (1) is possible, as there are no words beginning with "K" in Denning's DOI. But I also suspect some variant of (2); it's the old problem of "how do you know when you've broken the cipher". >I didn't check the Declaration of Independance myself, because I hoped >that someone would have an on-line version that would save some >tedious counting and reduce the possibility of errors. Denning has a DOI fragment in her book. It even has the words numbered. For numbers past the end, wrap back to the beginning. Mike Rose mbr@lanl.gov
haddad@polya.STANFORD.EDU (Ramsey Haddad) (03/12/88)
In article <16397@beta.UUCP> mbr@beta.UUCP (Mike Rose) writes: >In article <2126@polya.STANFORD.EDU> haddad@polya.UUCP (Ramsey Haddad) writes: >>Mike Rose (mbr@lanl.gov) told me that he had seen the solution before, >>that the code was based of the Declaration of Independance, and that >>he believed that the answer was: DO NOT BREAM THIS. > >Well, actually I didn't see it anywhere, so it's just my guess. It was unclear from your original personal message to me whether you had solved it yourself or whether you had been shown it by someone else. I was trying to avoid making it appear that you claimed credit for something that you might not have been claiming credit for. Anyway. Working backward from "DO NOT BREAM THIS", Jim Gillogoly pointed out to me that, indeed, this answer will result if one takes the original numbers mod 107, yielding the sequence: 15 31 44 57 68 77 96 7 27 58 64 73 2 35 D O N O T B R E A M T H I S Or as you now word it: >Denning has a DOI fragment in her book. It even has the words numbered. >For numbers past the end, wrap back to the beginning. Acknowledging your observation that: > it's the old problem of "how do you know when you've broken the cipher". I will now, nevertheless, consider this to be solved. Thanks everyone, -- Ramsey W Haddad