FBI Challenge

[south]

Bored? With all the languages spoken by DNFers, and our unique abilities to play with words & letters, this sounds like a job for domainers:

MIT prof says FBI's mystery code will be hard to break

Link to FBI page

 

[draggar]

I learned way back in high school that double-encryption works better than anything.

 

[randomo]

I saw this story a few days ago & printed out the messages, have looked at them before going to sleep each night ... but so far my unconscious brain hasn't broken the code.

 

[dn-101]

This is a rather straightforward problem.
As opposed to many modern coding techniques involving non-deterministic methods this one is definitely deterministic.
The first thing to do here is to have several different people transcribe the notes into a digital file. Files should be compared, corrected and analyzed.
After that we apply std deciphering techniques.
If we get, say, 5 people willing to do the grunt work, we can break the code fairly quickly.

And by the way, what do u expect from the FBI? The only thing Herbert Hoover taught them is the art of blackmail and harassing gays by the FBI gays.

:smilewinkgrin:

 

[south]

I saw this story a few days ago & printed out the messages, have looked at them before going to sleep each night ... but so far my unconscious brain hasn't broken the code.

You need to put them under your pillow.

They could start out with a higher resolution image. And if someone wrote out all the actual characters it would be useful. Just tried acrobat ocr, it converts to symbols. Only tried english though.

To view it easier I resized them a bit if anyone wants them:

page 1
page 2

and a pdf

And a zip of the 3

 

[randomo]

And if someone wrote out all the actual characters it would be useful.

People elsewhere have done so. Here's a listing of the characters, obtained from this page:

ALPNTE GLSE-SE ER+E
VLSEMTSE-CTSE-WSE-FRTSE
PNTRTRSEONPRSEWLDNCBE
NWLDXLRCMSPNEWLDSTSMEXL
DVLMT6TUNSE NCBEC


(MUNSAISTENMUNARSE)
KLSE-LRSTE-TRSE-TRSE-MKSEN-MRSE
(SAE6NSESENMBSE)


NMNRCBRNSEP+E2PTEWSRCBRNSE
26MLSE74SPRKSE29KENOSOLE173R7RSE
356LECLGSEUUNUTREDKRSEPSESHLE
6S1MTCSEHTLSENCUTCTRSNMRE
99.84.B2UNEPLSENCRSEAOLTSENSKSENRSE
NSREOUSEPUTSEWLDUCBE(3XORL)


DNMSENRSEIN2NTRLERCBRNSENTSRCRBNE
LSPNSENGSPSEMKSERBSENCBEAVXLR
HMCRENMRESCBE ½MUNDDLSE


D-W-M-YHIL XDRLX


****
*P1*
****

(MNDMXNEARSE-N-STA-KNARE)
*TFRNENPINSENPBSERCBBNSENPRSEINC
PRSENMRSEOPREHLDULDNCBE(TFXLFTCXLULBE)
AL-PRPPITXLYPPIYNCBEMGKSEINLDRCBRNSEPRSE
WLDRCBRNSENTSGNENTXSE-CRSLE-CITRSEWLDNCBE
ALWLPNCBETSMELRSERLSEURGLSNEASNWLDNCBE
(NOPFSENLSRENCBE)NTEGDDMNSENCURERCBRNE
(TENETFRNENCBRTSENCBEINC)
(FLRSEPRSEONDE71NCBE)
(CDNSEPRSEONSFE74NCBE)
(PR+SEPRSEONREDE75NCBE)
(TFNRCMSPSOLEMRDELUSETOTEWLDNINLDNCBE)
(194WLD'SNCBE)(TRFXL)

 

[DomainMagnate]

I can vaguely remember some algorithms and cryptology courses I took way back in the university. I'm guessing it's not that easy otherwise they'd solved it already and there are too many characters to do any brute force attacks, so it's just all about computing power and using advanced breaking techniques.

 

[south]

A couple of other thoughts.

Did he do this for ALL, or most of the notes he had. If he did this to everything he wrote, there should:

a) be something he didn't have to spend 10 minutes to calculate every word, and therefore not be that difficult of a code.
b) be more of it around to compare / analyze against.

If he only did this for these 2 notes:

Is it really his writing?
Is there an algorithm on his ipod/pad/computer/notepad that it could be run through?

---------- Post added at 12:48 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:44 PM ----------

Or maybe he watched this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FZ1M_UmQes


Edit - just read another story on this. Apparently the murder was back in '99

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...o-help-crack-code-in-murder-case-2260827.html

 

[dn-101]

Things to investigate:
Did the shmok know languages other than English?
Get the geo names of his habitat

 

[Ridge]

I don't think its anything but a technique for masking the original text on the paper. somewhere on those pages is the original text unencrypted, the rest is added to confuse.

 

[whitebark]

Often the most obvious answer is the right one. It could be absolutely nothing - it is just meant to divert attention and resources.

 

[picassoface]

He doesn't seem to have been an intellectual, so I believe he used a very simple but almost uncrackable method - the book key. He chose a book, most likely the bible, and used one page (Like John chapter 1). If the letter he wanted to transcribe was, say, an E, he would find the 1st instance of "e" in his "key" and then go forward or backward a set # of letters and That would be the coded letter.
I don't see him carrying around a large bible, so he must have kept one of those pocket New Testaments from the gideons in his pocket.
Would take a couple days to check but it may pay off..........

 

[dn-101]

This is plausible
We can try a whole bunch of methods to crack it.
Just to show that unpaid kids can do what well-paid fbi a-holes can't