11-03-2012, 09:28
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#1
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Quiet Professional
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Fayetteville
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Skeleton of hero World War II .................
Skeleton of hero World War II carrier pigeon found in chimney with a secret message still attached to its leg
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...#ixzz2BApHv6pt
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"....................The former probation officer and his wife Anne, both 74, unscrewed the capsule and found a hand-written message inside on a ‘cigarette paper thin’ piece of paper.
It has been sent to code breakers at Bletchley Park in Buckinghamshire, the intelligence centre where work to crack the Nazi Enigma code shortened the war by years, and to their modern-day counterparts at GCHQ in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, who also are trying to decipher it.........................."
I was thinking about putting this in the 18E section since it deals with commo...
Still interesting. Wonder if they will be able to break it?
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Pete is offline
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11-03-2012, 09:53
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#2
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Area Commander
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One of the commenters deciphered it: "Be sure to drink your Ovaltine." 
Pat
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PSM is offline
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11-03-2012, 10:33
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#3
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Area Commander
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Quote:
Originally Posted by PSM
One of the commenters deciphered it: "Be sure to drink your Ovaltine."
Pat |
Damn you Pat ..... I just spit my chocolate milk all over my laptop.
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Sdiver is offline
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11-03-2012, 10:55
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#4
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Quiet Professional
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The first and last group repeat should ID the cypher pad (or at least the system) used. After that it's a job for the archivists or a supercomputer.
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A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear.
~ Marcus Tullius Cicero (42B.C)
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Peregrino is offline
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11-03-2012, 12:33
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#5
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Quiet Professional
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One time pads are pretty tough to break, that's why they were used. If they don't have the pad(and they shouldn't have it), I doubt if it can be broken...
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mark46th is offline
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11-03-2012, 15:06
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#6
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Quiet Professional
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I guess if it was a German message, you could use one of the surviving Enigmas.
Not sure what the Allied encryption system was then.
If it was from a trigraphed one time pad in groups, I don't see how it could be cracked, regardless of the computing power.
TR
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The Reaper is offline
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11-03-2012, 16:26
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#7
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A more detailed story on the pigeon and message as well as an uncopyrighted picture of the message (attached here):
http://www.thehistoryblog.com/archives/21065
Additional article from Bletchley Park:
http://www.bletchleypark.org/news/docview.rhtm/675670
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BKKMAN is offline
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11-03-2012, 18:39
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#8
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Given the 5 letter groups plus the way it begins and ends with the same group, I would say it was from a one-time pad
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mark46th is offline
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11-03-2012, 18:51
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#9
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Area Commander
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I wonder if they keep sufficient archives to lookup what NURP 37DK76 was carrying.
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Badger52 is offline
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11-03-2012, 19:32
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#10
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Area Commander
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Badger52
I wonder if they keep sufficient archives to lookup what NURP 37DK76 was carrying.
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Given amount of records that World War II generated, I'd not be surprised if the documents ended up victims of squabbling archivists higher up in the pecking order who competed for roosting space for other files.
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Sigaba is offline
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11-03-2012, 19:35
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#11
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Guerrilla
Join Date: Apr 2006
Location: Phoenix, AZ
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Yes, it very much looks like the output of a one-time pad...
If the key was truly random, and the pad was used properly (only once, then destroyed), then no, they won't be able to break it unless they have it archived somewhere...which isn't terribly unlikely...seems like the sort of thing GCHQ would still have in a vault somewhere...
The reason it's unbreakable, regardless of computational power being applied, is that the only possibility for cryptanalysis is brute force...which will return every possible combination.
Consider a simple example(Warning: oversimplified explanation follows!):
AS38M MUYR5
This could return any possibility; 10 letter word, two 5 letter words, five 2 letter words...any of which may make sense. There's no way to know when you've found the correct key, because there will, invariably, be at least two combinations that "make sense."
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Irishsquid is offline
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11-03-2012, 20:01
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#12
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Quiet Professional
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All they really need to do is figure out if the other copy made it to it's destination. According to the form, two were sent.
__________________
A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear.
~ Marcus Tullius Cicero (42B.C)
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Peregrino is offline
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11-05-2012, 14:30
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#13
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Whoever wrote it kept it brief, an indication of an experienced cryptographer/telegrapher, someone who has cranked the generator a few times and understood how quickly an RDF unit can pinpoint your location......
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mark46th is offline
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11-23-2012, 05:46
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#14
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Area Commander
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Update:
Still looking to get some assistance from Bletchley Park...
Quote:
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Those who are still alive are likely to be in their nineties but their memories may be sharp enough to recognise the type of code used, and explain how it could be deciphered.
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukne...on-cipher.html
"Yes, well, without it's matching inbound pad I'm afraid it's quite impossible. More tea anyone?"
Stories from GCHQ of that era are some quite entertaining stuff, though, and a hat-tip to them.
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"Civil Wars don't start when a few guys hunt down a specific bastard. Civil Wars start when many guys hunt down the nearest bastards."
The coin paid to enforce words on parchment is blood; tyrants will not be stopped with anything less dear. - QP Peregrino
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Badger52 is offline
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11-23-2012, 07:11
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#15
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BANNED USER
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Pigeon enthusiasts - commonly known as "fanciers" - have called for Mr Martin's mysterious military bird to be posthumously decorated with the Dickin Medal; the highest possible decoration for valour given to animals.
Why? It failed. Probably should open a 15-6.
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Dozer523 is offline
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