Stump the expert.

by John Doe 45 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  OUTLAW

  Here`s your "Stump" ..Mr.JD Expert..

  What is your Answer?

  

  ........................ ...OUTLAW
• 

  cult classic

  lol @ wildflower and shamus
• 

  HintOfLime

  It's a modifier. There are a little over 17,500 three-letter cominations possible, which should be enough to cover most commonly-used words. For those that cannot be assigned two-letter and three-letter combinations, the numeric suffix is used. Greek letter suffixes are used to indicate actual English suffixes.

  Ah, but you left out the two-letter combinations... bringing the total up to 18,252 possible combinations (ignoring the modifiers).

  I got as far as guessing 'AOR' might be 'but/however', 'and', or such by it's sentence position after the comma, and came up with a few potential words for HUL and AMY, as those are repeated suggesting they are common words, and HUL would be a word subtable for beginning a sentence after a name. I don't think there's enough information to get much further. With only two words being repeated, it's pretty much impossible to do any frequency analysis or verify guesses based on gramatical structure.

  I did some statistical analysis on letter frequency, and monoaphabet substitution just to see if any patterns popped out, but didn't come up with anything. I know you said it wasn't a cypher, so I didn't have high hopes - but seeing as how both messages happen to have word-counts that are multiples of five, I thought I'd try a few transpositions - just in case. Nothing obvious popped out, and I lost interest.

  So.. that's as far as I got. Like you said, if it's a code then it is probably near impossible without the codebook (even police/military consider theft of the codebook a more viable solution than breaking such a code), or without a metric ton of ciphertext and effort.

  - Lime
• 

  John Doe

  So is the expert gonna give me a decoding of my message? Or did I stump the expert?

  Oh come now Leo. Don't insult me with the mundane and trivial. I need a challenge.
• 

  HintOfLime

  Dear Expert: How many sheets would a sheet slitter slit if a sheet slitter could slit sheets?

  - Lime
• 

  hereiam!

  Wow. Lol.
• 

  upnorth

  I think the stump has won
• 

  Leolaia

  Ah, but you left out the two-letter combinations... bringing the total up to 18,252 possible combinations (ignoring the modifiers).

  I even use single-letter non-combinations, but those only add 26 more. :)

  I got as far as guessing 'AOR' might be 'but/however', 'and', or such by it's sentence position after the comma, and came up with a few potential words for HUL and AMY, as those are repeated suggesting they are common words, and HUL would be a word subtable for beginning a sentence after a name.

  Interesting! AOR is not "but" or "and" but it is indeed something of a function word. Yes, HUL and AMY represent common words, but I'm not sure what you mean by "a word suitable for beginning a sentence after a name".

  I don't think there's enough information to get much further. With only two words being repeated, it's pretty much impossible to do any frequency analysis or verify guesses based on gramatical structure.

  Let me give you a little more to chew on. Here is an oft-quoted passage from the NWT:

  FDL IFQ VWQ PAT AGJ IFQ AJZ JTW AGJ JTW, AJZ UYL VWQ AWG FDB ROT.Σ AJZ EG.Σ HBU IZN MJC AGB AKA. AHZ UYT.2 UZI.Σ ALL B AYM IXC LNW.Σ IXC DQA.

  So.. that's as far as I got. Like you said, if it's a code then it is probably near impossible without the codebook (even police/military consider theft of the codebook a more viable solution than breaking such a code), or without a metric ton of ciphertext and effort.

  I agree....decoding is only possible with the codebook. But....there is still some progress than can be made. If you manage to identify the passage quoted above (which has a peculiar syntax if you note the repeating words), then you will know the code equivalents for those words, and I guarantee you that you will discover a very robust pattern that you have not yet noticed. That pattern is a flaw in my system -- I was just a teen and so the code is less than ideal -- so while it will not zero in on specific decodings, it would be VERY helpful in ruling out many potential decodings. I wonder if you can figure out what that pattern is (and I'm not talking about the Greek suffixes, which are even more transparent).
• 

  Leolaia

  Oh come now Leo. Don't insult me with the mundane and trivial. I need a challenge.

  The retort of someone who has been undeniably stumped.
• 

  HintOfLime

  (and I'm not talking about the Greek suffixes, which are even more transparent).

  Yes, I noticed they provided an additional line of attack. If I can identifying which suffix character is what, I can potentially identify unknown words that use them to be a verb or noun, which is another clue. And if you know the verbs, then you can suspect preceeding words to be common adverbs.

  I'll look at your new ciphertext and see if I can spot it. I love codebreaking.

  - Lime