Thomas and the cipher

caddis — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 07:43:18 -0800

Thomas Jefferson's cipher message from Robert Patterson For more than 200 years, buried deep within Thomas Jefferson's correspondence and papers, there lay a mysterious cipher -- a coded message that appears to have remained unsolved. Until now.... To Mr. Patterson's view, a perfect code had four properties: It should be adaptable to all languages; it should be simple to learn and memorize; it should be easy to write and to read; and most important of all, "it should be absolutely inscrutable to all unacquainted with the particular key or secret for decyphering." "In Congress, July Fourth, one thousand seven hundred and seventy six. A declaration by the Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled. When in the course of human events..."

"It was beautiful, kind of like abstract art"

subbes — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 11:08:38 -0800

In March 2007, the FermiLab Office of Public Affairs in Batavia, IL "received a curious message in code" via USPS. In May 2008, scientists posted a facsimile image of the letter to their blog in the hopes of soliciting cryptologists to decipher the letter. A partial solution began to appear by the very next day. Geoff Milburn (creator of the Homebrew Air Conditioner and employee of the Canadian Space Agency) noted that the first and last paragraphs appeared to be in base-3 and base-2, and got to work. By the 17th, he had experimented with possible mappings and reached a solution. Meanwhile, John Graham-Cumming whipped up a Perl program to experiment with the mappings and posted his Perl-decrypted version. The text? "FRANK SHOEMAKER WOULD CALL THIS NOISE," and "EMPLOYEE NUMBER BASSE SIXTEEN." Two months later, the central paragraph remains unsolved, and a Chicago Tribune article has rekindled the web's interest, and spread work and comments on the mystery through blogs and forums. Too simple for you? Well, there's work still to be done on the Zodiac Killer's November 8 1969 cryptogram, the CIA's Kryptos sculpture (previously), the Voynich Manuscript (previously) and the Shugborough House Shepherd's monument inscription. And of course, there's always the Mayday Mystery (previously and previously).

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Thomas and the cipher

"It was beautiful, kind of like abstract art"