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200-year-old ciphers may reveal the location of treasure buried in Virginia

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Re: 200-year-old ciphers may reveal the location of treasure buried in Virginia

#11

Post by mickronome »

tobinfricke wrote: post #4
janwillemb wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem would be to define what is considered a successful outcome, measurable by an automated system.

Indeed, even if you decode the supposedly "cracked" Beale letter, you get nearly complete gibberish: ihaie depos otedi nthec opntt olBed oorta boupf ourmi lesfr ombul ordsi nanep caiat ionor iault sipfe stbel owthe surla csoft hhgto undth sfotl owing artic issbe aongi ngjoi otltt othep artfe swhos lnamf sateg iieti nnumb erthr ffhtt ewith https://nibot-lab.livejournal.com/tag/beale%20ciphers It's almost certainly a h…

It's almost certainly a hoax, but any book substitution cipher is very sensitive to errors both in counting, and in exactly which book. From that perspective, if you remove the spaces, it's almost intelligeble even to a non native speaker. Observe:

  ihaiedeposotedinthecopnttolBedoortaboupfourmilesfrombulordsinanepcaiationoriaultsipfestbelowthesurlacsofthhgtoundthsfotlowingarticissbeaongingjoiotlttothepartfeswhoslnamfsategiietinnumberthr ffhttewith
i haie deposoted in the copntt ol Bedoort aboup four miles from bulords in an epcaiation or iault sip fest below the surlacs of thh gtound ths fotlowing articiss beaonging joiotltto the partfes whosl namfs ate giiet in number thrffhtte with

I have deposited in the county of Bedoort (Bedford?) about for miles from bulords in an epcaiation or vault/fault six feet below the surface of the ground.

Supposedly epcaiation is excavation, that one I didn't get. Some of the latter parts I also have trouble reading without guessing a lot. Like 'joiotltto' and 'thrffhtte'.

Re: 200-year-old ciphers may reveal the location of treasure buried in Virginia

#12

Post by DoctorOetker »

tobinfricke wrote: post #4
janwillemb wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem would be to define what is considered a successful outcome, measurable by an automated system.

Indeed, even if you decode the supposedly "cracked" Beale letter, you get nearly complete gibberish: ihaie depos otedi nthec opntt olBed oorta boupf ourmi lesfr ombul ordsi nanep caiat ionor iault sipfe stbel owthe surla csoft hhgto undth sfotl owing artic issbe aongi ngjoi otltt othep artfe swhos lnamf sateg iieti nnumb erthr ffhtt ewith https://nibot-lab.livejournal.com/tag/beale%20ciphers It's almost certainly a h…

Your frequency plot is very peculiar and almost unexplainable:

1) while it can be explained if the author was intelligent enough to understand letter frequency cryptanalysis, but how widespread would that idea have been in his day and age?

2) even though the symbol frequencies match up, the text seems gibberish, which for now I can only explain as follows:

The author of the pamphlet somehow obtained the 3 original ciphertexts and sincerely believed in their authenticity. (even if his source may or may not have scammed him). He identified the DOI as the correct key for ciphertext 2 (this insight too may have come from the potential source). Trivially the same key is tried on ciphertext 1. The author notices the quasi alphabet and otherwise gibberish. Unable to solve the puzzle he notes that if he cuts up decipherable ciphertext 2 in say 7 letter chunks, they clearly form random parts of english phrases. Similarily he cuts up ciphertext 1 in say 7 letter chunks (but leaves the alphabet part intact), and publishes it, in the hope that someone will find a "weird convincing but failed decoding", such that he only has to restore the ordering of the letters (since he knows how he reordered the 7 letter chunks).

I.e. the pamphlet author might sincerely believe in the authenticity of the originnal ciphertext, but is trying to scam his audience into solving the puzzle for him!

Re: 200-year-old ciphers may reveal the location of treasure buried in Virginia

#13

Post by AppleseedJenny »

hagreet wrote: post #6

"As long as a key is available, a substitution cipher is a safe, simple way to encrypt a message." ...quality article

Yeah. They should just use ROT13 as substitution. Then key availability is not an issue anymore.

Re: 200-year-old ciphers may reveal the location of treasure buried in Virginia

#14

Post by yorwba »

hagreet wrote: post #6

"As long as a key is available, a substitution cipher is a safe, simple way to encrypt a message." ...quality article

I can't tell whether you're being sarcastic, but the article is essentially correct. The security of an encryption algorithm doesn't depend on how complex it is if you never reuse the key, because a uniformly random key produces uniformly random output for any input. Only key reuse can introduce statistical regularities that allow cryptanalysis to be applied. The reason most encryption algorithms are more complex than simple substitution is exactly that they are intended to allow applying a relatively short key multiple times, both to encrypt messages longer than the key and to encrypt multiple messages.

Re: 200-year-old ciphers may reveal the location of treasure buried in Virginia

#15

Post by ShorsHammer »

yorwba wrote: post #14
hagreet wrote: post #6

"As long as a key is available, a substitution cipher is a safe, simple way to encrypt a message." ...quality article

I can't tell whether you're being sarcastic, but the article is essentially correct. The security of an encryption algorithm doesn't depend on how complex it is if you never reuse the key, because a uniformly random key produces uniformly random output for any input. Only key reuse can introduce statistical regularities that allow cryptanalysis to be applied. The reason most encryption algorithms are more complex tha…

Also known as a One Time Pad for anyone wanting more info, generally the key and message are xor'd if its digital and that's the entirety of the encryption algorithm.

Used properly it's proven to be unbreakable.

Re: 200-year-old ciphers may reveal the location of treasure buried in Virginia

#16

Post by raverbashing »

hagreet wrote: post #6

"As long as a key is available, a substitution cipher is a safe, simple way to encrypt a message." ...quality article

There's a world of difference between a substitution cypher that maps the same characters to the same code points and one that doesn't.

The former is trivially crackable and the latter is a "one time pad" hard (which is how the texts were created)

Re: 200-year-old ciphers may reveal the location of treasure buried in Virginia

#17

Post by empath75 »

ShorsHammer wrote: post #15
yorwba wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't tell whether you're being sarcastic, but the article is essentially correct. The security of an encryption algorithm doesn't depend on how complex it is if you never reuse the key, because a uniformly random key produces uniformly random output for any input. Only key reuse can introduce statistical regularities that allow cryptanalysis to be applied. The reason most encryption algorithms are more complex tha…

Also known as a One Time Pad for anyone wanting more info, generally the key and message are xor'd if its digital and that's the entirety of the encryption algorithm. Used properly it's proven to be unbreakable.

It’s breakable if you use some publically published document as the key as in cipher 2

Re: 200-year-old ciphers may reveal the location of treasure buried in Virginia

#19

Post by onion2k »

AppleseedJenny wrote: post #13
hagreet wrote: post #6

"As long as a key is available, a substitution cipher is a safe, simple way to encrypt a message." ...quality article

Yeah. They should just use ROT13 as substitution. Then key availability is not an issue anymore.

For extra security it's important to run ROT13 twice.

Re: 200-year-old ciphers may reveal the location of treasure buried in Virginia

#20

Post by shawnz »

yorwba wrote: post #14
hagreet wrote: post #6

"As long as a key is available, a substitution cipher is a safe, simple way to encrypt a message." ...quality article

I can't tell whether you're being sarcastic, but the article is essentially correct. The security of an encryption algorithm doesn't depend on how complex it is if you never reuse the key, because a uniformly random key produces uniformly random output for any input. Only key reuse can introduce statistical regularities that allow cryptanalysis to be applied. The reason most encryption algorithms are more complex tha…

> a uniformly random key produces uniformly random output for any input.

This is clearly not true for a simple substitution cipher though, otherwise it couldn't be attacked with frequency analysis

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