Read about those two cases and you simply will be impressed…both appear to be spy related somehow
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taman_Shud_Case
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isdal_woman
(The Isdal woman was obviously eliminated by the KGB, possibly for her role in some airplane bombings a few days earlier. She had arrived from Geneva only days after the attack.)
I ran some solid decrypto work over the Tamam Shud cipher and at least would say that in fact it has a solid structure, e.g. the repeating digraph in the first line 1 – ABAB.
In fact this cipher appears to be an easy one compared to the 340, 408 or to Edward Elgars’, especially if someone assumes that it exists of four words only. The author has interrupted his lines, although there was still some space to continue writing which indicates that each line represents one single word.
Letter frequency indicates a latin/dutch/german language, with one cipher symbol representing an overall of 18% of the whole cipher.
However italian/spanish/portuguese may be ruled out due to the length of the words (spanish mainly uses very short words). French would be a good match, better even than German, as some words match the cipher structure of line 3 quite well (3rd and 8th letter are the same).
However after handling 350,000 English words and 260,000 German words as well as a similar amount of French words (plus ~90,000 Spanish and 580,000 Italian ones), I meanwhile came to the conclusiion that the cipher cleartext – if it is a simple substitution cipher – is definitely NOT in English, German, French, Italian or Spanish language.
Of course there still are many other possibilities, such as the cipher text being Persian or Russian (moreless ruled out due to the 18%..) or the text simply being not a cipher at all..according to the frequencies it could even be a rather unknown language such as ‘Chuuk’ from the north of Australia (Micronesia) or the more common ‘Farsi’, the language of the author of the book with the ‘Taman Shud’ note..nevertheless I’d suggest to stop with that one as it still could be some notes of a persian tailor who sewed the note into the Somerton man’s suit..
http://www.cryptogram.org/cdb/words/frequency.html
QT
*ZODIACHRONOLOGY*
I’ve always loved the Taman Shud case, it’s so intriguing.
My feeling with the cipher was that it was a key to be used in conjunction with the ‘rubaiyat of omar khayyam’ book somehow, probably in tandem with the number sequence that was also discovered hidden in his clothing. I’m a rank amateur when it comes to cryptography, does a 3-key cipher become an absolute impossibility to solve?
I’d not heard of the Isdal woman before, thanks for the heads up, I’ll have a read of that one now…….
Check out my website: www.darkideas.net
I’ve always loved the Taman Shud case, it’s so intriguing.
My feeling with the cipher was that it was a key to be used in conjunction with the ‘rubaiyat of omar khayyam’ book somehow, probably in tandem with the number sequence that was also discovered hidden in his clothing. I’m a rank amateur when it comes to cryptography, does a 3-key cipher become an absolute impossibility to solve?
I’d not heard of the Isdal woman before, thanks for the heads up, I’ll have a read of that one now…….
Be aware..it’s even more creepy..if possible at all..
QT
*ZODIACHRONOLOGY*
Both the 2nd and 4th lines start:
MLIA
I would look at that.
Basically though it is too short to solve.
The facts seem to point to Boxall but he was found alive.
Perhaps he was Reynolds?
Or a Russian spy?
The last words of Poe were "Reynolds"…
Cue Twilight Zone music…
MODERATOR
Both the 2nd and 4th lines start:
MLIA
I would look at that.
Basically though it is too short to solve.
The facts seem to point to Boxall but he was found alive.
Perhaps he was Reynolds?
Or a Russian spy?
The last words of Poe were "Reynolds"…
Cue Twilight Zone music…
That ‘Jestyn’ can’t be alright..the body was found close to her home, although shoes indicated he did not walk whole day long through the are. Also she had given a false name. Her real name was Powell, Lawson gave it as Mrs. Thompson. The other murders seem to have happened because a man had identified the body as a Carl Thompsen..and did a Mrs. Elizabeth Thompson made a false identification, later recalled it.
And to do it best, ‘Jestyn’ gave a ‘The Rubaiyat’ to Boxell. Well of course not lacking another body with the book on his chest, only feet away where Boxell had received the book from her. Three men, three ‘The Rubaiyat’ book parts (Boxall, the note in the suit and the book on the chest of Joseph (George) Saul Haim Marshall). Two of the three men dying..this lady has a lot to explain, and so does Boxall imo.
QT
Boxall and the unidentified man could both have been her ex-lovers from wartime, with the real father trying to convince her to ‘come back’. Ended up with digitalis or some other indegestible stuff..poor guy.
*ZODIACHRONOLOGY*
Guess he smoked a Strophanthin or Digitalis cigarette…
http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/history … ton-beach/
QT
*ZODIACHRONOLOGY*
Did cross-check approximately 20 different languages on the Tamam Shud cipher. None of it works as substitution cipher, at least not if the last word is indeed 13 letters long. Not Farsi, German, English, Zulu, Romanian, Polish etc., none of it worked. French and Italian got close to it, but didn’t work either. Could still be e.g. Latin.
A better guess might be that it was encoded with a certain key someone needs to decipher it. Therefore transforming one symbol into different cleartext letters (polyalphabetic). Or that it is nonsense, after all.
Will check out some more languages but got my doubts that there will be a solution. After doing so I’d give the cipher up as an ‘unsolvable’ one.
QT
*ZODIACHRONOLOGY*
Quicktrader.. I did a lot of research into the Taman shud code many years ago… I don’t believe it to be a secret code as such.. I think it’s from 1933 to 1945? International code of signals.. A method for all ships to communicate with. When you look right into it you can see the Two letter code frame.. It actually tells a story . Two ships in danger. AB = abandon ship, Ai = I will not abandon you. Etc. usually sent by morse flag or light. I have workings on it and will pm them if you want.. I was after someone to debunk my theory but that never happened.. An interesting case it is indeed. I am " friends" with jestyns grand son.
