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Help Spies Crack ‘Impossible’ WWII Pigeon Code


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#31 +warwagon

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Posted 27 November 2012 - 17:59

A = 10
B = 3
C = 3
D = 7
E = 9
F = 8
G = 0
H = 8
I = 4
J = 4
K =-7
L = 3
M = 2
N = 11
O = 7
P = 6
Q = 6
R = 10
S = 2
T = 5
U = 4
V =2
W = 2
X= 4
Y =3
Z =4


#32 thechronic

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Posted 27 November 2012 - 18:00

Anyone wanna try using this wheel to see if they can make some sense of this. feel free. give it time to load

http://scratch.mit.e...ethammer/324752

#33 neo158

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Posted 27 November 2012 - 18:02

View Postthechronic, on 27 November 2012 - 18:00, said:

Anyone wanna try using this wheel to see if they can make some sense of this. feel free. give it time to load

http://scratch.mit.e...ethammer/324752

Nice find, I'll give it a try

#34 thechronic

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Posted 27 November 2012 - 18:05

Good luck guys :)

#35 Tyler R.

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Posted 27 November 2012 - 18:09

View Postneo158, on 27 November 2012 - 18:02, said:

Nice find, I'll give it a try

Maybe the numbers at the end have something to do with the sliders?

#36 Teebor

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Posted 27 November 2012 - 18:12

If its world war 2 era you would be better off starting with either enigma style encryption or a derivitive or if we can rely on it being a UK code iirc they used typex machines?

Either way you would probably need one of the code books from the time I suspect.

But still good luck, I will check on this thread from time to time as I find this stuff fascinating

#37 Detection

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Posted 27 November 2012 - 18:17

As the pigeon was found dead with the code still attached to its leg, then we can be pretty certain the message didn't get to the recipient

Messages sent via pigeon would probably be fairly important to the side who sent them / were supposed to receive them or they wouldn't have been sent.

Maybe it would be possible to filter out certain major WW-II events that were successful / known about, due to receiving the message prior to the event, and just look for events that went bad due to lack of communication / surprise attacks ?


Long shot in the dark but might help :)

#38 thechronic

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Posted 27 November 2012 - 18:18

enigma machine allegedly?

http://enigmaco.de/enigma/enigma.swf

copy paste above into browser

#39 Detection

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Posted 27 November 2012 - 18:38

Just specs of ink, or a pattern to line up with the key card ?

Posted Image

#40 +exotoxic

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Posted 27 November 2012 - 18:48

View PostDetection, on 27 November 2012 - 18:17, said:

As the pigeon was found dead with the code still attached to its leg, then we can be pretty certain the message didn't get to the recipient


So since it was never received does that mean the recipients key may still exist?? Or maybe after X amount of time the recipient destroyed it anyway!?!

#41 Detection

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Posted 27 November 2012 - 18:50

View Postexotoxic, on 27 November 2012 - 18:48, said:

So since it was never received does that mean the recipients key may still exist?? Or maybe after X amount of time the recipient destroyed it anyway!?!

Good thinking, probably destroyed but there is a more likely chance of it still existing if they never received it

Either that or every message after this one made no sense because they were always one decryption behind the message :p

#42 pes2013

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Posted 27 November 2012 - 18:52

View PostSPEhosting, on 27 November 2012 - 10:43, said:

if a message was sent, then 2 people knew the decryption if two people know it at least so do many O.o just need to find the grandkids of all the spies in wwII
Who says it was only for one person?

#43 Detection

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Posted 27 November 2012 - 18:54

View Postpes2013, on 27 November 2012 - 18:52, said:

Who says it was only for one person?

There's a good chance that no 'one person' knew the entire decryption key on their own, much like holding the keys to a vault, two people have to unlock simultaneously with a key each

#44 Ambroos

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Posted 27 November 2012 - 19:05

If it is encoded using a one-time pad of the same length (highly likely) it's completely impossible to crack it.

Why?
Because cracking it would return every possible combination of words or sentences of that length. Uncrackable encryption exists but you need a key at least as long as your message.

#45 1941

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Posted 27 November 2012 - 19:16

Without the code book it would be impossible to crack. If it were to be cracked how would it be proved to be the correct message?