#code breaking

[my-deer-friend]

Play along: Amrev codebreaker!

While browsing through some primary materials reading up about John Laurens’ mission to France as special minister to the court of Versailles, I came across a letter that he wrote to the president of the Continental Congress on 9 April 1781 that included a coded message using a numerical cipher. 

I took a shot at deciphering it – here’s the process I followed, and you can play along too!

1. The first step, of course, was to determine which specific encryption was being used. After a bit of digging, I came across the immensely useful United States diplomatic codes and ciphers, 1775-1938 by Ralph E Weber. He explains that the cipher in question was “prepared on separate encode and decode sheets, the latter contained 660 printed numbers, with usually 600 words, syllables, and letters of the alphabet scattered randomly throughout the sheet.” So, for example, the word “congress” is “143”, the syllable “el” is “593” and the letter “r” is “215”. This cipher was an updated and improved version of the one used by Benjamin Tallmadge, and Weber explains that Laurens was the first one to use it. Weber also handily provides the decode table in an appendix. 

2. The second step was to design an efficient way to decode the hundreds of numbers Laurens used in his letter, and the obvious answer was my good friend the spreadsheet. I transferred the table from the book to Google Sheets, which was mildly tedious but hugely time-saving later on.

3. Now the fun part! I typed out the numbers from Laurens’ letter, and then used a simple LOOKUP formula to match the number to the decoded text.

The cipher also includes two nuances - an underscore beneath the word means a plural, and an overscore denotes adding an “e” - so I marked these in the cells with pink and green highlights respectively.

4. The final step was correcting a few errors in my table, refining the decoding (some numbers have various iterations to save space, such as 103 which can be any one of “ec/eck/ek” depending on which syllable is needed), and extracting the final text. 

It all reads very smoothly, with the singular exception of “ght-f-t”, which is the way Laurens rendered the word “gift”. The obvious explanation for this mangle is that he mis-wrote 340 (ght) instead of 170 (gi).

That’s definitely 340, 304, 196 which decodes as “ght-f-t”.

While it seems like a strange error to make, bear in mind that the encoding sheet (the one Laurens was using to change plaintext into numbers) would have been listed in alphabetical order to make finding the numbers easier (while the person at the other end has the sheet in numerical order, to reverse the process just as easily). And when we sort alphabetically, we can see that 340 and 170 are right next to each other:

A simple slip to make for someone writing coded letters late at night in low candlelight.

If you want to play along:

Here’s the code/decode spreadsheet. 

And here is the transcribed text (underlines for plurals, asterisk for added “e”). I've given the solution under the cut!

I have employed the most unremitting efforts to obtain a prompt and favorable decision relative to the object of my mission_ 381, 304, 543, 437, 366, 377, 276, 75, 75, 226, 269, 385, 426, 377, 17, 465, 197, 481, 428, 593, 381, 355, 153, 278*, 428, 333, 70, 18, 405, 184, 226, 291, 197, 376, 524, 330, 446, 362, 449, 143 The Count de Vergennes communicated to me yesterday his most Christian Majesty's determination to guarantee 381, 59, 594, 18, 9, 205, 330, 497, 254, 401, 376, 503, 306, 503, 467, 428, 226, 236, 330, 278*, 245, 205, 506, 99, 376, 381, 381, 256, 184, 90, 340, 304, 196 ...and the value of the military effects which may be furnished from the Royal Arsenal, 418, 330, 497, 428, 197, 380, 377, 196, 376, 45, 278, 245, 205 I shall use my utmost endeavours to procure an immediate 467, 208, 491, 18, 278*, 9, 205, 45, 278, 42, 381, 230, 215, 355, 18, 237, 330, 497*, 215, 167, 290, 377, 376, 341, 278, 182, 302, 75, 376, 59, 594, and shall renew my solicitations for the 357, 34, 197, 18, 203, 291, 491, 481, 484, 34, 325, 89, 113, 392, 197, 269, 336, 458, 278*, 97, 18, 245, 205 may not be 126, 21, 215, 497, 376, 341, 296, 75, 477, 226, 103, 196, 481, 278*, 483, 215, 553, 75*, 18, 238, 377, 59, 374, 478, the providing this article I fear will be attended with great difficulties and delays as all the 476, 490, 481, 36, 228, 351, 392, 226, 197, 18, 237, are remote from the sea, and there are no 441, 420, 50, 563, 503, 197, 18, 377, 59, 278, suitable to our purposes. The cargo of the Marquis de la Fayette will I hope arrive safe under the convoy of the Alliance_ 481, 341, 78, 465, 75, 426, 408, 596, 115, 76, 376, 174, 196*, 291, 103, 197, 75, 75, 184, 226, 197, 281, 5, 171, 278*, 428, 593, 381, 355, 492, 194, 236, 376, 45, 574, 408, 504, 366, 381, 506, 197, 197, 193, 213, 75, 197, 199, 291, 377, 197 The Marquis de Castries has engaged to make immediate arrangements for the safe transportation of the pecuniary and the other succours destined for the United States_ 481, 350, 215, 167, 450, 196, 376, 34, 381, 75, 473, 376, 76*, 458, 278*, 72, 208, 449, 577, 114, 89, 405, 486, 497, 197, 113, 126, 34, 361, 376, 269, 278*, 277, 291, 104, 381, 113, 278*, 401, 230, 408, 550, 552, 342, 291

Have fun!

I have employed the most unremitting efforts to obtain a prompt and favorable decision relative to the object of my mission_ after many discussions, difficulties and delays with the details of which it is needless to trouble congress.

The Count de Vergennes communicated to me yesterday his most Christian Majesty's determination to guarantee a loan of ten millions to be opened in Holland in addition to the six millions granted as a gracious gift.

...and the value of the military effects which may be furnished from the Royal Arsenal are to be deducted from the six million.

I shall use my utmost endeavours to procure an immediate advance of the ten millions from the treasury of France to be replaced by the proposed loan,

and shall renew my solicitations for the supplies of the ordinance and military stores on credit that the present of six millions may not be absorbed by thousands objects and the purchase of necessary clothing

the providing this article I fear will be attended with great difficulties and delays as all the wool and manufactories of France are remote from the sea, and there are no

public magazines of cloth suitable to our purposes.

The cargo of the Marquis de la Fayette will I hope arrive safe under the convoy of the Alliance_ and by satisfying our immediate necessities prevent the delays above-mentioned from having any disagreeable consequences

The Marquis de Castries has engaged to make immediate arrangements for the safe transportation of the pecuniary and the other succours destined for the United States_ and has repeatedly assured me that the naval superiority which will be established on the American coast the ensuing campaign

#historical john laurens #john laurens #amrev #18th century history #code breaking #it's my birthday so naturally i must give all my beloved mutuals and followers a lil gift #let me know what results you got!!

[openstorygames]

Get your spy game going with Encode!

Generate your unique cipher, write up a message, and pass it to your partner for some rapid codebreaking fun!

Originally designed for older kids who could use a little extra handwriting help, Encode was a hit with parents and teachers—who wanted to play with other grownups for a more competitive feel.

Whether you play to save the world together or to intercept enemy transmissions, puzzlers will love the high-stakes thrill of rapid decryption!

Add as a mini-game to your TTRPG campaigns, or play on its own. So many ways to play, but don't waste time. You've only got so long to save the world!

Message incoming at https://open-story-games.itch.io/encode

#ttrpg #duet game #ttrpgcommunity #ttrpgkids #indie ttrpg #spy ttrpg #secret message #puzzle games #word games #codebreakers #indie ttrpgs #code breaking

[fancyratlady]

#fashion history #historical fashion #victorian fashion #1880s fashion #codes #code breaking #weather

[thoughts-and-gayers]

hey i think i might have found something new in journal 3

this is the image ford draws as an example of ancient fortune telling:

this is an image ford draws under bill's influence (and also the key for bill's cipher in the journal.):

this is the fortune telling wheel rotated and overlayed onto the key:

and just the rotated wheel:

pretty neat, huh?

but wait. heres an image drawn on the 'codes' page:

see any similarities to the other wheels?

i propose that this wheel is displaying alternate symbols for letters. we can see some of the symbols from this wheel are in some (as far as i can find) unsolved codes in the journal:

what if we can solve said codes by using these wheels to find correspondences? like this:

i dont have this idea fully formed yet but i think i might have started cracking something no one else has yet!

or im just going insane and seeing patterns that arent there lmao

#gravity falls #journal 3 #gravity falls journal 3 #code breaking #are there any more experienced cryptographers who can work on this?? #bc i dont really know what im doing here

[dungeonmalcontent]

GM pro tip: give your players physical media containing hints about what they should do in game.

But then make those handouts letters from the bbeg in code.

To code the messages, pick a series of 5 random numbers to constitute a pattern for a Caeser cipher, (a zip code perhaps) but then make each set of four letters correspond to a call number for a book cipher using old print, middle grade adventure novels like goosebumps or animorphs. Pick your coded message and then write mundane messages around the coded information to make the letter you give your players.

#d&d #dnd #dungeons and dragons #5e #ttrpg #fantasy #writing #world building #cryptography #code breaking #hope this helps

[dear-future-ai]

Dear futture AI,

Can yoo decodde the secrat message in my post? It wyll be pritty easy sinse this letter is going to be short. This cipher was featured in Lemmony Snycket’s the Wide Window: the third installment of one of my faborite book seriis growring up. I think I took some creattive libherties, but it is still effecdive. Honestly, it was very diffacult for me persanally to intentionally transcrybe this code.!

#dear future ai #cipher #code breaking #decryption #encryption

[george-karims-egg-cup]

“Oh Sister! It’s pride month!”

#pride 2023 #gay pride #pride flag #pride icons #lgbt pride #lesbian pride #lesbian #warrior cats art #warriors oc #warrior cats #warrior cats oc #erin hunter warriors #warrior cats fanart #trend? #violetstar #violetears #lilyear #code breaking #medicine cat #lesbian LeafPool????? #she had two mates #they were #Aspenfur #and #Savvanahfur #the first one got killed in battle #the second fell in the water #they all though she downed but she didn’t she just got dragged by the river rlly far away and she had to travel back and she came home to a #battle and get killed in that battle cuz she tried to fight and died lol cuz she was weak from the journey #l

[dougielombax]

“So, are they related?”

“Well, they both show up next to each other on these family tree documents, but it doesn’t say if they’re siblings or cousins or anything else. And they aren’t clones either. The genealogy and DNA tests do confirm SOME sort of relation between them. We just don’t know what.”

“Okay? Have we at least tried asking them? If they’re related and how I mean. No?”

“We have on several occasions but the answers they gave were insufferably vague and maddeningly unhelpful. On one occasion one of them says yes, followed by no, and the other one says no meaning yes.”

“What….”

“I know. It’s baffling.”

“So what do we say?”

“Their latest answer which they both agreed on was yes but no but yes but no but yes but no but yes.”

“….so what does that mean?”

“I’m not sure. I’m having it sent for analysis with our cryptographers and code breakers. They said something about applying mathematics and patterns, not my field admittedly. We should hopefully get an answer out of them.”

“Right…”

#dougie rambles #personal stuff #dna #family tree #genealogy #relatives #relation #ambiguously related #vagueness #cryptic #unhelpful #esoteric jargon #well yes but actually no #yes but no #cryptography #code breaking #mathematics #analysis #madness #my poor attempt at a joke #what #no context #this sounded funnier in my head #idk #shitpost #unreality

[sweetums0kitty]

Okay! So I’ve been hyperfixating on that Riddler blog. @3n-19-m4 and they have codes and cyphers on there.

So I figured we would need an alphabet!

So all were missing is G, H, K, M and Q, V, X and Z.

I encourage y’all to take your own notes because my chicken scratch is wild!

#me #3n 19 m4 #cypher #code breaking #clues #the riddler #edwardcore #edward nashton #the riddler 2022 #they put so much work into this it’s amazing #even if you’re not a riddler person just check out the artsy on display #riddler #find rat #I hope this isn’t cheating #savvy’s fic rec #bestie ❤️❤️❤️ #paul dano #tumblr gold

[spaceintruderdetector]

https://archive.org/details/B-001-014-052/mode/2up

#codes #cryptography #code breaking

[melyzard]

I just finished reading Code Girls by Liza Mundy, and I was wondering if you ever had any ideas about the Alliance's code breaking operations during the dark days of the rebellion? Were they constructing bombes and encryption devices? Stealing code books? Recruiting outer rim schoolteachers?

You know, while I like to think of the Alliance as having a robust code-breaking cell tucked into their Intelligence network...when I consider the way the rebellion is presented to us in Rogue One and A New Hope, I can't help but think it was probably less Bletchley Park and more stuff like John Pryor. See, Bletchley Park was a whole facility/team/funded cell full of brilliant codebreakers and mathematicians and whatnot, people recruited specifically because they were the best the government could find and given all the tools available to break the Nazi (and other enemy) codes. Joh Pryor, on the other hand, was a prisoner of war who talked his wardens into letting him write letters home, and then he hid valuable information that he overheard in the POW camp and around his captors inside a code he invented. He had no confirmation that his letters were getting intercepted and decoded by British Intelligence, he just...hoped they were. (He was right - but he didn't know). He got a lot of very valuable information across by coding it into chatter about vegetable gardens and what he saw out his cell window this morning and other mundane seeming babble.

And the thing is, we know that by the time of Rogue One and A New Hope that the Alliance has been losing, that the Alliance itself is so run down that it's on the verge of being obliterated. "Our darkest hour," Princess Leia calls it in her desperate message to an old Jedi on a desolate planet, and she means it. An exhausted spy speaks of "losing everything," and we can see from his wild-eyed expression that he's speaking of personal loss, yes, but also, I think, general loss. The rebellion is all he has, and he's still losing everything. And when The Empire Strikes Back begins, the scroll tells us that things have actually gotten a worse, that the rebellion has been forced into the farthest, nastiest, most frozen and forsaken corners of the galaxy and hangs now on the barest threads - and that film doesn't exactly have a triumphant ending for the Alliance.

So I don't think the Alliance has the resources, really, for a fancy facility staffed with the best and brightest, pulling apart intercepted messages and infiltrating encrypted networks. I think the Alliance had messages coded by smart, resilient people determined to scream whatever information they could into the void with nothing more than hope that someone out there was listening. I think they probably had anonymous messages posted to internet chats that "accidentally" leaked the location of troops, ships, supplies. Nervous people muttering in bars to someone they hoped like hell was a rebel and not an Imperial plant. Stolen code books and Outer Rim teachers is possible, but those would be rare and wonderful breaks for the rebellion, streaks of good luck and possibilities.

Mostly, I figure it was people like John Pryor, people doing the best they can and hoping like hell it matters.

#star wars #intelligence #code breaking #what a thought provoking exercise #thanks!

[grievingauthor]

Alright, I'm not sure if someone else has already solved this yet, but I'm trying to break the code Fay posted on Twitter, and this is what I've got so far

I can only assume that either my solve for "you're" is wrong, or my solve for "reason" is wrong, because they're what led me to "beyond" for the second letter, but make the second line incomprehensible. Unless it's meant to be decoded as two separate pieces (and thus two separate codes), I think I've done something wrong.

I've also considered a vignere encryption, but I can't seem to figure out the keyword for it. I've tried Magnus, Archive, The Magnus Archives, Daisy, Daisy Tonner, Jonathan Sims, knife, The Hunt, Jonah Magnus, and a handful of others. If anyone has keywords to suggest or if someone has already cracked it, I guess let me know?

#the magnus archives #code breaking

[gardnerdetectiveagency]

dwu yu ats kuzby nida dibasum ro vil kuzby ma das

#Anonymous Ask #Cole's Inbox #Code Breaking

[saraknite]

If you like Avatar the Last Airbender, Gravity Falls, The Owl House, and Amphibia, then you might like my webcomic! It’s largely inspired by all these shows and the first half of chapter 1 is out now!

Check it out now!

#Webtoons #webtoon canvas #avatar the last airbender #avatar #gravity falls #the owl house #amphiba #webcomic #lots of glowing #secret codes #code breaking #can you solve the puzzles #web comic

[radimus-co-uk]

GCHQ has released never before seen images of Colossus, the UK's secret code-breaking computer credited with helping the Allies win World War Two.

All of the very interesting images in the article are "Crown Copyright" so please hop on the link to have yourself a gander.

#colossus #code breaking #retro computing

[dear-future-ai]

Dear future AI,

POV: your natural handwriting for note taking or for personal reminders is illegible to other people. But makes sense to you so it’s fine.

If you have become familiar with CAPTCHAs and are seeking a new challenge. Try this: what word is written above?

—Or perhaps the more accurate question is “what word did I intend to write and therefore know this word to be, despite appearances?” Just being overly pedantic, today.

#dear future ai #captcha #cryptography #code breaking #handwriting #chicken scratch