This is a test to see what happens if I give one of my code breakers one of these as part of my roving book launch party for GHOST TALKERS at WorldCon, without explanation.
Can you break this code?
23 thoughts on “Can you break this code?”
Comments are closed.
First thought would be page, line, word. You would need to have the correct book to crack the code.
Not what I thought. Blast it. Google says:
RMS Titanic (bow wreckage) latitude 41° 43′ 57″ North, longitude 49° 56′ 49″ (this was the day after)
Wow. That’s a fascinating thing Google has done with it.
That’s disgusting. You disgust me. Filthy!
So we know who didn’t crack the code.
Death the Kid?
It has something to do with the prime numbers in each set, I’m leaning towards ignoring them, but after that am not sure what process to follow.
Well if it’s based on the book I’m sunk – haven’t read it yet. :/ I assume some sort of coordinate system. What seems interesting is that by plugging the coordinates into Google i.e. 157° 12? 1? they are all located just off the coast of Africa except the first one which is also Africa but in Niger. There are known ship wrecks in or near most of those areas but that theory goes out the door with the first one 157° 12? 1? in Niger.
At a loss otherwise. I note that all three numbers in a group are arranged from highest to lowest but not sure of the significance (if any). A mystery it remains to me.
It’ll be here when the book arrives.
I’ll be back… 🙂
That looks like a book cipher to me – page, line, word. The range of numbers in each triplet seems to fit – books can have hundreds of pages, but there are usually only a few dozen lines per page and no more than a dozen or so words per line.
Very difficult to break unless the adversary knows or can guess what book is in use. With enough samples it becomes possible to deduce the book, but one telegram with (presumably) a six-word message isn’t enough.
You have no guesses about the book?
Seems to be your new book _Ghost Talkers_, yes?
Oh good. I thought it was obvious. Whew.
To: Enemy HQ
From: Agent S
Re: Latest signal traffic
Turkey to water trot. GG A code it is; a cipher it is not. Careless conversations in crowded pubs, not so safe they are. Difficult, the Codebuch to quickly obtain. RR The world wonders.
This is pretty easy:
You take the Golden AN
in the tan van,
you give it to Dan,
who takes it to Fran.
That’s the plan.
And watch out for Stan the man.
No, wait… I think the mafia only helped during World War II…
So confused now.
That’s the most obvious book code I’ve seen. 🙂
The range of the numbers in each triplet (18-157 for the first, 4-19 for the second and 1-8 for the third) fits perfectly with expected page/line/word designations.
I would guess that the book would be one of yours, possibly the one where this code occurs? The huge proofreading/editing problem here is to make sure that this is correct for every single edition of the book! I.e. the US vs UK version, hardcover/paperback, plus any given translation.
If the code refers to a previous book then the problem is much smaller, because now it can point to a single given edition.
MESSAGE RECEIVED STOP BOOK LACK HINDERS DECODING STOP WILL BE IN TRANSIT 16 AUGUST STOP ACCEPTABLE TO ENLIST ASSISTANT QUERY.
MESSAGE ENDS.
HAVE HIT SNAG WITH DECODING STOP BOOK IS KINDLE VERSION STOP WHAT FONT AND TEXT SIZE RECOMMENDED QUERY.
MIGHT REQUIRE VISIT TO LIBRARY STOP ALAS STOP
Please, merciful heavens, not “Drink more Ovaltine”… *ahem*
In all seriousness, congratulations on the release. Looking forward to it.
LIBRARY DOES NOT HAVE STOP REMAINS MYSTERY STOP SIGH STOP
(I have a telegram in my baby book; I’m old!)
I would give you that information, but it’s classified. (I would hand it to you at book launch or World Con but I am not there, SOB!)
(Nice one! And glad I have the hardback and can decode.)