amlovell@phoenix.PRINCETON.EDU (Anthony M Lovell) (09/28/87)
I'm interested in finding if there are any people in Netland who have done anything at all with the Beale Ciphers. Send me some mail, I'm interested in hearing about approaches taken by other people. Tony Lovell .... amlovell@phoenix.princeton.edu
whp@apr.UUCP (09/30/87)
I was recently reading D. Denning's book on "cryptogaphy and data security"; she reports findings by J. Gillogly in 1980 (I have a reference if you want) that tend to show that they are a hoax. In B1, deciphered using initial letters of Declaration of Independence, the following sequence shows up in the plaintext: ABFDEFGHIJKLMMNOHPP. The finst F is encrypted as 195 and word 194 begins with a C. Also the last H is encrypted as 301 and word 302 begins with an O. Somebody named Hammer claims to have found 23 encryption errors in B1, so its likely that F for C and H for O were typos, and that the sequence should be: ABCDEFGHIJKLMMNOOPP. You must admit this is an unlikely sequence to turn up unless the DOI is the key and the message is a hoax. I will be the first to admit that it is also possible this sequence is a clue. I wonder what famous books, authors, or documents in the early 1800s have the Wayne Pollock initials MOP (the only doubled letters)?
jim@randvax.UUCP (09/30/87)
In article <785@phoenix.PRINCETON.EDU> amlovell@phoenix.PRINCETON.EDU (Anthony M Lovell) writes: >I'm interested in finding if there are any people in Netland who have >done anything at all with the Beale Ciphers. Send me some mail, I'm >interested in hearing about approaches taken by other people. I wrote a paper a few years ago for Cryptologia, in which I found that if B1 is "decrypted" with the Declaration of Independence (the key to B2), the result is largely garbage, but with a couple of alphabetically increasing strings. One is quite long; I don't remember the exact string, but it is of the form ABFDEFGGHIJKLLMMNO or something of that sort. Way too long to be accidental. I presented it as something a would-be decryptor of B1 must take into account in any alleged decryption, since it can't arise by chance. I personally feel that it's a pretty good demonstration that the Beale Ciphers are a hoax. Needless to say, Dr. Hammer and the Beale Cypher Association don't agree. -- Jim Gillogly {hplabs, ihnp4}!sdcrdcf!randvax!jim jim@rand-unix.arpa
jim@randvax.UUCP (Jim Gillogly) (10/01/87)
In article <282@apr.UUCP> whp@apr.UUCP (Wayne Pollock) writes: > Somebody named Hammer claims to have found 23 encryption >errors in B1, so its likely that F for C and H for O were typos, and that the ^ | This should be B2, the document that described the contents of the treasure. >sequence should be: ABCDEFGHIJKLMMNOOPP. You must admit this is an unlikely >sequence to turn up unless the DOI is the key and the message is a hoax. -- Jim Gillogly {hplabs, ihnp4}!sdcrdcf!randvax!jim jim@rand-unix.arpa