jamesturner, Subject: UK spies unable to crack coded message from WWII carrier pigeon Fri Nov 23, 2012 9:41 pm
This was on NBC national news tonight — a cipher found from WWII attached to the leg bone of what remained of a carrier pigeon, just found in a chimney in England. I’m really bad at understanding the cipher conversations, but I wonder if the experts on here might be able to crack this one in no time flat. This is the pdf link:
UK spies unable to crack coded message from WWII carrier pigeon
I was at least able to pick up that it begins with "AOAKN" and ends with the same.
Quicktrader, Subject: Re: UK spies unable to crack coded message from WWII carrier pigeon Sat Nov 24, 2012 8:56 am
This was on NBC national news tonight — a cipher found from WWII attached to the leg bone of what remained of a carrier pigeon, just found in a chimney in England. I’m really bad at understanding the cipher conversations, but I wonder if the experts on here might be able to crack this one in no time flat. This is the pdf link:
UK spies unable to crack coded message from WWII carrier pigeon
I was at least able to pick up that it begins with "AOAKN" and ends with the same.
…of which e.g. AOA or AKN could be some code book information, in combination with the date sent it might be deciphered. The UK had similar codes like Enigma and is there some additional info on this board:
http://zodiackillersite.forummotion.com … ght=pigeon
In Germany they had various ‘Kerngruppenbuch’ or ‘Kerngruppenhefte’ to decipher such (complicated) Enigma chiffres. Various means they had some for each department over the years..
Without these (UK) chiffre booklets it is impossible to solve (as we don’t have a Polish ‘bomb’ to crack this polyalphabetic cipher). At the time the pigeon started, the Germans used three wheels on their Enigma, while UK already had five and later up to eight wheels. Germans instead added some electronic device to create electronic connections between the alphabets, which they could change even during the ciphering process.
Therefore impossible to solve the cipher without the UK chiffre booklets. There is more information about Enigma than about the similar system in UK. However there are some US guys who deciphered like 20-30 such chiffres, as US and UK coordinated their chiffre mechanism with each other (allies). I already did sent them the cipher with a polite request to publish it if they can make it. No answer / info until today, probably not yet solved.
QT
jamesturner, Subject: Re: UK spies unable to crack coded message from WWII carrier pigeon Sat Nov 24, 2012 9:37 pm
Thank you, quicktrader — it would be interesting to eventually find out what the message said and what stage during the Battle of Britain that it was sent.
Quicktrader, Subject: Re: UK spies unable to crack coded message from WWII carrier pigeon Sun Nov 25, 2012 5:25 am
Thank you, quicktrader — it would be interesting to eventually find out what the message said and what stage during the Battle of Britain that it was sent.
Well, the date is written on the note… what I rather’d like to know is how one might read the signature? This could give a hint on which Division / keybook should be used to decipher it..
QT
jamesturner, Subject: Re: UK spies unable to crack coded message from WWII carrier pigeon Tue Nov 27, 2012 9:51 pm
That would be cool if it did turn out to be from the Enigma project.
Quicktrader, Subject: Re: UK spies unable to crack coded message from WWII carrier pigeon Wed Nov 28, 2012 3:35 am
That would be cool if it did turn out to be from the Enigma project.
The UK machine was called TYPEX and should the MK-II model be the right one (due to the date the message had been sent).
AOAKN as ‘code’ of the cipher at the start and the end would set the rotors in the right position:
This is how the operator could set the rotos to its right position, e.g. AOAKN. In the picture a 4-rotor-machine is shown, Typex had five rotors therefore AOAKN is the position of its rotors.
QT
traveller1st, Subject: Re: UK spies unable to crack coded message from WWII carrier pigeon Tue Dec 04, 2012 10:40 pm
some pics on the casebook site re the pigeon.
http://forum.casebook.org/showthread.php?t=7150
traveller1st, Subject: Re: UK spies unable to crack coded message from WWII carrier pigeon Sun Dec 16, 2012 8:32 pm
Cracked apparently
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20749632
doranchak, Subject: Re: UK spies unable to crack coded message from WWII carrier pigeon Sun Dec 16, 2012 8:35 pm
A skeptical response from Nick Pelling:
Is Gord Young the new Starliper?
doranchak, Subject: Re: UK spies unable to crack coded message from WWII carrier pigeon Sun Dec 16, 2012 8:45 pm
Another skeptical response:
http://www.enigmaticape.com/blog/pigeon-code-almost-certainly-not-broken
traveller1st, Subject: Re: UK spies unable to crack coded message from WWII carrier pigeon Sun Dec 16, 2012 8:47 pm
Could be Dave,
I think Smithy should try them with his solution. lol.
glurk, Subject: Re: UK spies unable to crack coded message from WWII carrier pigeon Mon Dec 17, 2012 5:20 am
What a horrid excuse for a "solution." I’ve always hated the use of anagrams in solutions, now we have another bad one using acronyms.
I think when we see these, and the "solver" says it only took me X (minutes, hours, days) where X < 20, well, we know it’s bad already.
-glurk
entropy, Subject: Re: UK spies unable to crack coded message from WWII carrier pigeon Mon Dec 17, 2012 7:30 am
What a horrid excuse for a "solution." I’ve always hated the use of anagrams in solutions, now we have another bad one using acronyms.
I think when we see these, and the "solver" says it only took me X (minutes, hours, days) where X < 20, well, we know it’s bad already.
-glurk
Agreed. It sounds almost reasonable but when you can just pick random words that begin with each letter, the solution becomes very arbitrary. If the appropriate words were that easy to figure out for this guy, they would have been a piece of cake for the enemy intercepting the message. It also employs the old favorite method of ignoring any part of the cipher that you can’t present a solution for. If I can’t provide a valid explanation for it, it must be meaningless filler in the middle of the cipher.
smithy, Subject: Re: UK spies unable to crack coded message from WWII carrier pigeon Mon Dec 17, 2012 7:48 am
My solution was far better. It took me nearly three hours too, so it must be right.
Quicktrader, Subject: Re: UK spies unable to crack coded message from WWII carrier pigeon Mon Dec 17, 2012 9:09 am
My solution was far better. It took me nearly three hours too, so it must be right.
‘HELP I’M STUCK IN A CHIMNEY’ is still the best…legendary pigeon joke. Now the forensic: How did the birdie get into the chimney? CO-intoxification? Anybody an autopsy report out there?
QT
entropy, Subject: Re: UK spies unable to crack coded message from WWII carrier pigeon Mon Dec 17, 2012 11:11 am
My solution was far better. It took me nearly three hours too, so it must be right.
Nah, smithy. There’s a lesser known corollary of Occam’s Razor which tells us that the quickest solution is always the most accurate. Nice try though, mate.
