Re:200-year-old ciphers may reveal the location of treasure ...
by DoctorOetker on Monday June 18, 2018 @10:10AM
(#17338361)
Wow!
What is the probability that a trivial variation on the decoding method results in otherwise unreadable text BUT STARTING with "sited at" ??? roughly 26^6?!?
1) I used/fixed Tobin Fricke's (@tobinfricke) doi-decode.c to first fix the indexing/versions of the Declaration of Independence. The result can be found in the thread:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17337421
2) Due to the quasi alphabetic sequences in beale.1 I came to the conclusion that beale.1 is in fact just scratchpad notes containing fragments of look-up table to use while encrypting, so is not the location file. Bummed at the lack of a location file, I just pressed on out of curiosity for the names file (beale.3)
3) I next tried some trivial variations on the cipher concept (second letter of each word, last letter etc) such that the kolmogorov complexity increase of the decoding would be nearly zero, but always got rubbish.
4) Until I tried a trivial variation (not giving yet, perhaps after convincing myself it is absurd coincidence), giving "sitedat...." with "..." being rubbish text.
EDIT1: the same decoding also contains "twograil" somewhere in the middle, but not as convincing, does "two grail" signifiy something in the area?
What is the probability that a trivial variation on the decoding method results in otherwise unreadable text BUT STARTING with "sited at" ??? roughly 26^6?!?
1) I used/fixed Tobin Fricke's (@tobinfricke) doi-decode.c to first fix the indexing/versions of the Declaration of Independence. The result can be found in the thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17337421
2) Due to the quasi alphabetic sequences in beale.1 I came to the conclusion that beale.1 is in fact just scratchpad notes containing fragments of look-up table to use while encrypting, so is not the location file. Bummed at the lack of a location file, I just pressed on out of curiosity for the names file (beale.3)
3) I next tried some trivial variations on the cipher concept (second letter of each word, last letter etc) such that the kolmogorov complexity increase of the decoding would be nearly zero, but always got rubbish.
4) Until I tried a trivial variation (not giving yet, perhaps after convincing myself it is absurd coincidence), giving "sitedat...." with "..." being rubbish text.
EDIT1: the same decoding also contains "twograil" somewhere in the middle, but not as convincing, does "two grail" signifiy something in the area?