I've cracked the code!

[Adam Black]

Yup. Ten years old when I made that.

As for the seventh-from-left character on the final line: That's not a slip of the pen. It's a valid character.

[spaceace76]

so that's 31 characters..... wow....


i find myself more confused than i was before

[Adam Black]

[Melvar]

Remember, he knows IPA, so it’s quite possible that even at that time, he had an idea of phonetics. Perhaps there is a letter for [ʃ] <sh>, and one each for [θ] <th> and [ð] <dh>. There may also be perhaps thirteen distinct vowel letters, or letters that represent phonemes which do not occur in English, such as [x] or [β]. Letters that represent more than one phoneme, like <x> for /ks/ in English, may also appear, and be hardest to decode.

[Adam Black]

I've actually written codes using IPA symbols as reference, but didn't do that until later--when I was 12 or 13 or so.

I found them much harder to read/memorize, to tell the truth.

[the_red_ecks]

i have been out of it for a while but has anyone checked the lettering on the gun to the lettering here? we were given the name of the gun in a post a long time ago. is there any correlation?


EDIT: oops.. chalk another on up to me keeping my mouth shut before i get all the facts.

[Frumious]

RE: solving it

I'm a little worried by the total lack of repeated letters in the longer cipher. Makes me wonder if there's a special symbol/code for repeated letters or something

[spaceace76]

RE: solving it

I'm a little worried by the total lack of repeated letters in the longer cipher. Makes me wonder if there's a special symbol/code for repeated letters or something

that's what ive been thinking. it would explain a lot, but it would also make the puzzle a shitload harder to solve.

hmm....
26+5=31
maybe the most common 5 letters are duplicated to reduce the number of digraphs, trigraphs, etc?

[Cederfern]

uhmm wow... i am not very good with codes.... but i just want to say one thing...



1f fon cgu L6gq fy!s' s6uq w6 g bw*

[Kreox]

1f fon cgu L6gq fy!s' s6uq w6 g bw*

NI!

[Cederfern]

oh snap! the g is wrong! oh that's not good, i need a different font of g, this style g wont make a decent character, it looks wrong.


well maybe if you squint and maybe tilt your head it kind of looks right...



If you cant figure out what it says, i will happily post a spoiler

try reading it with the back of a CD (reflect it upside down: ! cgu fhb6 nbs!q6qomui)

[Melvar]

If we're getting down to this, I have a signature. Somewhat audacious, perhaps, and perhaps only half true. _¯|- █ıı¦=;-|=!
|
V

[Cederfern]

okay, yeah, i totally cant decode for crap

[Mephistophiles6]

Hey guys, just started reading Locus today, and this is my first post here, so please be gentle (unless your a smoking hot lady who likes bondage, just kidding!) Anyway, this thread caught my eye and I would like to know, where can I find the original image of the code so I can start working on it. I have been interested in cryptography and cryto-analysis for several years and even have several books on it, including an old Army TM manual on it. Dont worry, it has been declassified and approved for my ownership of it as I am ex-military personnel.

[Adam Black]

Welcome to the locus forums, man! I would've approved your message earlier, but i'm on vacation and slacking off pretty badly.

Check the first page of this thread for some more readable scans I posted of this code. And good luck!

[Max320]

is there any system of seperating words from each other in your language?
or do you just write:
"likethisandthenthedecoderissupposedto stick spaces on his own?"

Anyways, i'd try it, but i don't know where to find a decoding program, and the hardest code i've ever cracked was the stick and dots one in the 3rd artemis fowl book(not the fairy alphabet, the other one in the eternity code book)

there's no such thing as uncrackable.
once you get a letter, you can build a phrase around it, and once you have a phrase, you have the whole language laying at your feet.

if i had several weeks, several hundred pages, and a long enough code fragment, i'd probably be able to decode it old school style.
that is, if it's built around an actual language. if you invented one, i'd have a major problem ><

although your idea reminded me of the time a few friends of mine learned tolkein's quenya, altered the alphabet slightly to make it uncrackable, and passed notes around in the class in what seemed like giberrish.
the whole class laughed when the teacher caught them doing that, and when he tried to read he'd have that "WTF?!" expression.

[Adam Black]

is there any system of seperating words from each other in your language?

There is indeed! There's also punctuation and everything else a language requires. Even numbers.

if i had several weeks, several hundred pages, and a long enough code fragment, i'd probably be able to decode it old school style.
that is, if it's built around an actual language. if you invented one, i'd have a major problem ><

It's built around English, because that's the only language I knew when I was 10.

although your idea reminded me of the time a few friends of mine learned tolkein's quenya, altered the alphabet slightly to make it uncrackable, and passed notes around in the class in what seemed like giberrish.
the whole class laughed when the teacher caught them doing that, and when he tried to read he'd have that "WTF?!" expression.

That's awesome.

[Max320]

There is indeed! There's also punctuation and everything else a language requires. Even numbers.

hmm...
so, punctuation reduces 2 letters, which leaves us with 29.
space might also be a character, so that leaves us with 28...
I doubt you've added numerals into the code, but the same rune used as a dot could also be used as space...
so maybe 30 characters?

*goes back to the big code fregment and searches the code*

edit1:
I may have found the rune used for spacing words.
on the first row, the 4th rune from the left, then again at spot #10, and again at #17 and at #20.

[spaceace76]

punctuation reduces 2 letters, which leaves us with 29

there are at least 4 common punctuation characters, 14-19 depending on how each is represented in the cypher.

I may have found the rune used for spacing words.
on the first row, the 4th rune from the left, then again at spot #10, and again at #17 and at #20.

seems possible. that character is the most common, used 39 times.

the section of code i find most interesting is the first six characters of the last two rows. they're identical... it's a sexgraph (no idea if that's the real/correct term but it sounds great) and probably a nice clue for us. of course it is surrounded by our most common (possible space) character. maybe not so much help after all

Does anyone know of a web based frequency analyzer that includes punctuation in it's analysis? I haven't found any and any digraph/trigraph studies are useless without this function.

[Melvar]

Does anyone know of a web based frequency analyzer that includes punctuation in it's analysis? I haven't found any and any digraph/trigraph studies are useless without this function.

Why don’t you just write one?

[leob]

OK, I really have cracked it - the larger segment first and then the smaller original segment. Do I get to claim my signed print now or am I too late to the party?

[Adam Black]

According to your PM, you have indeed cracked the code! Congratulations!

Check your PM.

[spaceace76]

DAMN! my one shot at redemption...

oh well, enjoy your prize leob, and will the answer be posted?

[leob]

Well .... I don't know whether I should post the answer, but I can give you a couple of clues :

- there is indeed a character which stands for a doubled letter (obvious when you think about it)
- there is more than one rune representing the letter 'e'

The rest should be obvious!

[the_red_ecks]

Clatto Verata Necktie!