SOLVING CIPHER SECRETS Edited by M
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SOLVING CIPHER SECRETS Edited by M. E. Ghaver INTERESTED FANS SEND IN SOME LIVELY CHAT-AND SEVERAL NEW PUZZLERS ARE OFFERED FOR HUNGRY HEADS ID you ever have trouble in occasionally, notwithstanding our combined solving some particular efforts to the contrary. cipher? And did you ever This, by way of introduction, fans, to a feel like running the party sort of " get-together " celebration that we ragged that contrived the have planned in this article. affair? It's just this way. So much has been Well, that's how Frank Spalding, of received from cipher enthusiasts in the way Wrangell, Alaska, must have felt about the of interesting questions, general comments, cipher of Foster F. V. Staples, in the June ciphers, and methods of solving them, that 6 " Solving Cipher Secrets." the only adequate way to cope with the sit• " If I could have caught him last night— uation, and thus to discharge this duty to June 7," writes Mr. Spalding, " he would our readers, is for us all to get together in have had to do some tall explaining." an entire article devoted to that purpose. Nevertheless, Mr. Spalding succeeded in So let's pull up our chairs and talk things solving this cipher, as well as all the others over. It may be that your particular ques• in that issue, although he confesses that tion will not crop up. Btit in that event when he had finished the lot he was " not a you will find another case that covers the good Christian any more!" same ground more completely. Our Alaskan correspondent, who, inci• To open our first session, then, let's give dentally, takes much pleasure in making the ciphers of secret organizations some con• life a burden to the great North American sideration, for almost every secret society grizzly, has mentioned, along with several has one or more private ciphers known only other fans, certain errors discovered in the to the initiated. texts of our ciphers. Some of these are for official purposes It is almost an impossibility to avoid only, as for example, the mnemonic ciphers mistakes of this kind. They are of frequent used in rituals, or the ciphers used for trans• occurrence even in military messages, where mitting passwords, or other essential secret of all places accuracy is an unquestionable information. In some organizations, how• necessity. ever, other ciphers are provided members All of the ciphers printed in this maga• for purposes of secret correspondence. zine are carefully checked at every stage We have here a letter inclosing a crypto• of their journey up to the printed page. gram written in a very clever cipher of this Nevertheless, a few errors have occurred, kind. Those who have carefully studied the and they will probably continue to occur tallies in FLYNN'S for August 15 and Sep- S14 FLYNN'S tember 12 should have no great trouble in many devised methods of their own to take solving it, however. care of the emergency. One correspondent sends in an outline of his treatment of the DE.4R SIR: cipher. In reading over your department on ciphers, I was reminded of an old cipher system that DEAR SIR: was devised for an old lodge of mine that has I note that you speak of having a system since passed out of existence. It was invented of solving the Nihilist cipher. I have also for secret lodge communications, and while evolved a system, which I thought might it is comparatively simple, I do not know be of interest to you, although I should im• of a- case of its secret having been penetrated. agine yours would be very similar to mine. With that in mind I am inclosing a little My system is based on the fact that some message so written, and e-xtend a dare to you certain numbers admit of but a single inter• and members of this department to read the pretation. For instance, 22 gives us A for message the writer intended to convey. both message and key letter, and jo gives us H. DEARMOND HUTSON. E for both. South Bend, Indiana. On the other hand, 66 will give us a possi• CIPHER No. 1. bility of any letter in the alphabet for either A. K. G. S. Code message or key letter. 14-30-12-48-36-42-42-36-46-54-46-26-36-42- My first step is to set down the message 54-44-30-22-24-44-22-54-14-16-24-28-34-14- in one or more lines with plenty of space be• 52-38-14-54-26-24-36-14-52-26-36-28-36-30- tween each number, each group being num• bered consecutively. I have taken Cipher 44-54-44-38-14-54-16-36-54-14-36-54-16-44- No. 4 from the June 6 issue as an example. 28-36-14-44-28-24-16-55-4-30-44-18-36-14- 26-44-54-46-44-14-52-26-36-28-36-30-44-54- Belov/ each group I place its possibilities. 44-18-52-54-46-26-36-42-54-12-24-4-54-16- Thus gro7tp I could be b-c-d-e-g-h-ij-k. 18-44-38-22-36-48-54-44-38-14-54-26-44-38- The next thing is to see if there are any 8-54-44-30-22-28-36-16-54-16-36-54-52-18- single letter possibilities. In this we are for• 50-44-40-30-52. tunate, as group 6 gives us E. A glance at group 5 eliminates the possibil• Often such ciphers are not original, espe• ity of a single letter key, since it does not con• cially if used in purely local organizations. tain E. Or if intended to be original, they frequent• Now as to a two-letter key, all the even numbered groups show E as a possibility. ly turn out otherwise. Selecting group g as an odd numbered group Thus we have a letter from J. G. Meer- with the smallest number of possibilities dink, Hoboken, New Jersey, who writes (b-c-d-e), it will be seen that while B oc• that he used the Augustus cipher, described curs as a possibility in all odd numbered groups, C-D-E do not occur as possibilities in FLYNN'S for February 21, when but a in group 5. These are accordingly canceled, schoolboy, in a secret society they had in leaving only E as the possibility for the odd their school at the time. numbered groups. And another from James R. Heeney, We are therefore pretty safe in assuming Newark, New Jersey, who says that he had that BE is the kejr^vord. Applying this key to the cipher we dope out that " KNOWL• been using the Nihilist cipher—see FLYNN'S EDGE IS POWER." for March 28—with some friends without HAROLD H. BROWN. any previous knowledge of it. Their varia• Red Bank, New Jersey. tion used a twenty-six-letter alphabet, Z z 3 s 4 S ^ 7 S g etc. being assigned the value 56. 37 48 46 67 43 30 a6 37 27 eU. Perhaps some more of our readers have B-JC c-p a-p b-z a-m B-E a-e b-k B-E etc. knowledge of secret society ciphers that they c-ij d-o B-<? c-y B-Z B-Z> c-ij C-d no longer have any reason to keep secret. d-h E-M c-n d-x f-g C-c d-h e-g h-k d-m B:IV E-G If so, send them right along to puzzle the ij-ij e-1 g-u fans. f-k h-t g-ij ij-s Speaking of the Nihilist cipher, its thun• h-h k-r ders are still crashing on far-off horizons. m-p Great interest was displayed by the fans in n-o this cipher, and in methods of- solving it. The above table has been prepared in Before the special method of solving this accordance with Mr. Brown's method with cipher was published in the June 27 issue, the exception that we have taken the liberty SOLVING CIPHER SECRETS 315 to use a different arrangement of pairs that The first digit—2 in this instance—is now will be found a material aid in working transferred from the number representing the first letter of the message, to that represent• out very short messages. The letters have ing the last, no matter what the length of the been paired so that the sum of their numeri• message may be. The present example will cal substitutes is always equal to the now appear thus: 1-31-54-2. cipher substitute above. Thus, in group i, We will now consider the hyphen as join• B-(i2) plus K-(25) equals 37; c-(i3) plus ing the two digits of a number instead of separating them. The new numbers thus ij-(24) equals 37; and so on. formed—13-15-42—are referred back to the Any letters assumed to he in the key- checkerlioard square, giving CER, the en• in this case B and E—will thus necessarily ciphered form of the message PLY. be paired with the only letters that could Any one knowing the method can decipher any message written In it providing that he result in the message from their use—in this use the square in its original form.