Looks like proto-norse?

Apparently.
underneath ‘SFC’ can be ‘Subtract FC’?
and a binary code at the end.

My guess is that the top “paragraph” is just words (1’s 2’s and 3’s just being word boundaries) and the middle equations are just the function used to describe the relationship and differences in the word boundaries to define the actual words. Of course solving that is another story

The first block at the top appears to be comprised of trinary (base-3) values (one bar for 0, two bars for 1, three bars for 2?). The final block could be comprised of binary values (one bar for 0, two bars for 1?)

A few notes on the message.

1. There appear to be 3 (possibly 4) sections. The top part, the middle (which appears to be a symbol translation chart), the three characters below the middle part (more below), and the bottom.

2. The line lengths of the top and bottom sections vary.

3. The top part obviously uses a trinary set of symbols. Line lengths vary from 8 to 15 chars. This would probably exclude meanings that have to do with physical positioning. It also means we’re likely not looking at 8 or 16 bit words.

4. The bottom part obviously uses binary. Line lengths vary from 9 to 37 chars, with most being either 36 or 37 chars in length.

5. If you do numerical counts on the symbols in the middle section, characters appear from 1 to 3 times in the message. This kind of distribution might hint at a polyalphabetic cypher of some kind. Of course, this is a short message.

6. The three characters below the middle section appear to be S (not sure if this is plain text or encoded) | F | C
does SFC mean anything relevant?

7. Some of the odd symbols in the middle appear to be ascii chars. I’m not sure what the others are. Tracking down where else those symbols appear may give a clue regarding the writer of the fax.

8. It might also be worthwhile to check if the fax machine/server has a log of who sent this.

If the center is hex, you can convert it from hex to decimal and you get “17347400615334210681″ if you convert that to “1337″ text, the ways hackers sometimes type, you get “iteataoo6iseea2io68i.” If you break that down you get “I…eat a…i see a…”

I don’t see 1 and A there, but it seems like it

so the ’s’ symbol would be either hex A or 1.

making the 3 symbols below the 2 hex lines:
either: 1FC
or: AFC

it says “WAKE UP SHEEPLE”

I thought there may be hex values there, but the digit 1 and letter A are missing from the mix.

Fermilab people: if you’re going to publish something like this and ask for assistance, publish a better copy. A high-resolution scan of the original would be appropriate. It’s not clear whether breaks in some of the lines are intentional or noise.

Remember the big flap back in 2004 over that forged letter about Bush’s military service? The published version was a fax with some distortion. If the published version had been a high-resolution scan, it would have been clear earlier that the characters matched Microsoft Word output, not an IBM Selectric Composer, and thus could not have been produced in the 1970s.

Looking closely at the tick marks, it looks like some were made top to bottom and some bottom to top. Or at least they have their blobs on top. This means either:
-Writer had the text sideways to how it’s shown.
-Writer spent more time thinking about how certain parts translate.

Also notice that on the bottom there are more tick marks with a corner pointing to the top of the next one. (Including a pair of lines far from each other). It seems like he was in a hurry on that part. Timing analysis anyone?

Also, the dots on the E symbols in the middle seem deliberate. Which other dots look like they came from the original and which from fax/scanner?

Looking at just the top part, if you make groups of three from the symbols, each group has 27 possibilities (3^3=27). You can take this to mean 27 characters: A-Z and a space. If you do the direct mapping of 111=A, 112=B, …, 332=Z, 333=(space), you get

XRYBH PWFTAYHTR KFLCS UYAJ XQJQUYDMIPT

Also, I tried assuming the 2 lines of hex in the middle are MAC addresses. They’re the right length, but they’re not valid MAC addresses (no manufacturer is assigned).

I have decoded the first and the last sections, but the texts look strange…

I know Im probably off base with this, but it sadens me when a code or cipher comes along the first thought of many is to turn it into some binary/hex conversion and then solve for that.

If you are going to build something worth the adventure of figuring out for other than brute forcefulness try adding some spice to things. What things?

Ok int he symbols used above there are some very close approximation to other alphabets, in perticular look at this image
http://strangemaps.files.wordpress.com/2008/01/hensel_1741.jpg

You can see a bit of the Sclavonico in the set as well as some others not on this map.

Also, when you hit things owith 8’s and 16’s (and the magic intervals there of) do not just jump to CHAR() solutions..think of other systems that those bits get used…like say in the i ching or the go board.

Also, try rotation things a bit, or reading them in culturally different ways, properly publish manga should have opened some of you to that…or if your studying tora.

While i do not have a solution for this particular bit I just weanted to drop the above on folks looking for a solution or making new puzzeling fun:)-

-tom

The top and bottom sections appear to be the encoded/encrypted message, the middle section appears to be the two keys used to decode alt. decrypt the two parts.

Each set of ticks has 8 lines. When you turn the image 90 degres to the right (works both ways), you could consider ‘ ‘ being 0 and ‘_’ being 1 (or the other way around) in a set of bytes, one byte per line. This gives only 4 decoding possibilities for theses 2 sets of ticks.

Of course the final code is probably not as simple as what I say above, but the 8 lines per set thing immediately made me think about this, and by the way this would finely match with all these hexadecimal digits.

I understand that the way each set of ticks ends with only whitespace tends to contradict my sheet rotation idea.

Definitely the work of a computer scientist or an IT person, IMHO.

Another thing I see is that several interpreters assume the top is ternary coded, i.e 323233331112132. It could be binary with the spaces representing zeros as well, i.e 1110 1101 1011 1011 1011. Just a thought.

Furthermore, if we have a binary code: it should be counted as zeros. That explains why 0xA and 0×1 are not represented: there would be three white spaces in a row.
If correct, it could be interesting to know if the writer was left or right handed, to help in finding consecutives blanks.
After that, it remains many problems: are blank ones or zeros?
I suggest simple ascii, since it seems that we often have an under or equal to 7 value as first digit if i read correctly.
I’m off, but in ruby script language, use ["01110110111..."].pack(”b*”) and you’ll might get it. But i’m not sure of that. Maybe a love letter to a geek ?

I don’t believe that the top section is sets of ternary values. There are spaces at the front of lines 2, 4 and 5 indicating that the appearance of a space is important. Could this indent be separating certain lines into paragraphs? Unlikely I believe.

Perhaps the top section is actually a stream of ticks and no tick indicates the lack of a tick. Breaking the top line into equally spaced columns would give 56 binary slots.

It is very curious that the code in the middle doesn’t contain a marking for 1 or A (1 and 10 in base 10).

Another point, what utensil was used to make these markings and on what surface!? These are too irregular to be made by a ballpoint pen on a desk. They look very irregular, and seemingly done by hand if you consider the tails on 3 or 4 of the ticks in the third block. My best guess would be some sort of fountain pen or if made recently a rollerball.

I believe the right leaning stroke of the ticks also indicates a left handed person. This could be wrong tho.

Due to the irregularities in each stroke it looks as if each stroke was performed very slowly and deliberately. You can tell the person is getting impatient or tired near the end where the tails on a few ticks show up. The length of the lines gets shorter and shorter in the third block as well.

The code in the middle is very curious. 3 of the symbols have dots somewhere in them. Some of the dots are just photocopy artifacts but the E, 5 and 8 symbols have deliberate dot marks. The O above the 5 has a small line on the right side and a dot above it outside the circle. The 8 looking symbols have inner circles and an attempt was made to connect it to the outside circle in the second one. Perhaps after the inner circle was drawn slightly incorrectly and since the spacing was important a small mark was made to join it to the outside circle.

The second symbol pair (the “i” with a zero below) is interesting. The line through the zero indicates that the writer either had greek or a math background or this was done in a language that needs to differentiate between an O (oh) and a 0 (zero). Also since the letter came from Chicago the language could very well be English.

As for what it all means? I haven’t the foggiest.

Look at the page sideways (clockwise)…

Looks like “Hi”

Could be a clue?

Rotate the page, and you have not 8 trinary lines, but about thirty 8-bit binary lines.

the spacial orientation of the top markings seems significant based on indentation. If you count the space between each line and don’t focus on the lines you get something like morse code, I just glanced at ti quick, but if you assume the first area is a dash and you increment the distances between each letter N+1 < 3 I think the first part comes out to “Dear” My morse is long gone now though. Just a thought - watch the spaces not the lines.

Tell me someone saved the envelope, I hear that paper picks up fingerprints well.

The middle pictograms don’t make sense unless:

1) They are used to produce the output (i.e. some form of composite picture using the symbols). In that case the top and bottom could be the encoded message and the pictures the key. The problem with this approach is that it doesn’t explain why several symbols are repeated in the middle section. If it was just a key each symbol should only need to be presented once.

3) There are supposed to be more letters - using the pictograms. Or some external connection to the pictograms is needed.

4) The top and bottom are some form of encoding of an image or sequence of images that in a crude form show a sequence of pictograms. I find this unlikely though as the symbols are complex and there is a small amount of data in the top and bottom fields.

5) It’s just a prank altogether, or at least the middle section is a diversion that is not connected to the upper and lower sections.

the last part of the code is definitely written in ternary
if you take the || symbols as separators then count the single |s you get this sequence:
312111121113123221312312333112213111332312233333332331231231312333231133223232312312112
with 87 digits.
From the top you got this sequence:
32323333111213233323132212331211133113231223333321212321311331133331333111121133332323221123231333112123133231312
with 113 digits, so both comprise a 200 digit ternary sequence which can be concatenated because of lots of internal repeatings of strings etc…
the next step would be to decode it using the hex key in the middle

some brains at slashdot.org believe they have solved it to a point:

Stanza 1 -> “frank shoemaker would call this noise”
Stanza 3 -> “employee number basse 16″
Middle: probably an employee number, Base 16

http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=555280&cid=23442034

Solved. Check the slashdot comments:

Stanza 1 -> “frank shoemaker would call this noise”
Stanza 3 -> “employee number basse 16″
Middle: probably an employee number, Base 16

Using a base 3 code, let
000=space
001=a
002=b
010=c
…
220=x
221=y
222=z

If |||=0, |=1, ||=2, then the first section can be rewritten as:
020 200 001 112 102 000 201 022 120 012 111 001 102 012 200 000 212 120 210 110 011 000 010 001 211 211 000 202 022 100 201 000 112 120 100 201 012
(errata: the line break at the end of line 6 has broken a symbol in two, and one of the symbols in line five is wrong)
Then the first section reads:
“Frank Shoemaker would call this noise”.

In the last section, the double bar is a gap between symbols. Again, |||=0, |=1, and ||=2. The last section can be rewritten as:
012 111 121 110 120 221 012 012 000 112 210 111 002 012 200 000 002 001 201 201 012 000 201 100 220 202 012 012 112
(errata: the line break at the end of line 2 has broken a symbol in two, and there is a duplication of a whole triad in line 5)
Then the last section reads:
“employee number base 16″

Presumably the three symbols before the last section is the employee number of the author (S252 in base 16).

Not sure about the middle section (apart from it acting as a decoder for the employee number).

Have you tried looking at it at a sharp angle from the top?

The supposed “key” is intriguing.. if it’s a lookup table, why tell us three times each what the symbols are for 6,E and F? and twice each for 2,3,9 and D? It may be significant.. If you map out an occurrance chart:
F = 3
E = 3
D = 2
C = 1
B = 1
A = 0
9 = 2
8 = 1
7 = 1
6 = 3
5 = 1
4 = 1
3 = 2
2 = 2
1 = 0
0 = 1

now suppose the entries in the “tick mark paragraphs” indicate choices. So the top paragraph starts with 3232333311… so (6|e|f)(2|3|9|D)(6|E|F)(2|3|9|D)(6|E|F) (6|E|F)(6|E|F)(6|E|F)(0|4|5|7|8|b|c)(0|4|5|7|8|b|c). Of course, there’d be many possible ways to group these, but assuming every 2 is a nibble in a byte, then you could start spelling things out.. for example: 69 6d 6e 6f 74 (imnot, or “im not”). It’s 1:30 am and I’ve had enough fun..

Maybe just a piece of music

It might be that the top two parts are a a “Rosetta Stone”, the same phrases in the same order, to teach mapping from the vertical stroke language to the hex/symbol language.

And then the real message is in strokes down below, first to be translated to hex/symbols, and then to … ?

The complete answer to this puzzle is :

FRANK SHOEMAKER WOULD CALL THIS NOISE
(hexadecimal code)
EMPLOYEE NUMBER BASSE SIXTEEN

First section : substitute ‘|||’ with ‘0′, ‘|’ with ‘1′ and ‘||’ with ‘2′ (note that some ‘|’ are incorrectly grouped) then decode 000=” “, 001=”a”, 002=”b”, 010=”c”, etc. (= alphabetical order in base 3)

Third section : count the number of ‘|’ between ‘||’ and do the same decoding

My guess is the the employee with ID 2812 (AFC in hex) worked on the AFC, the absorber focus coil - a coincidence Shoemaker would have called noise.

http://www.gmilburn.ca/2008/05/17/fermilabs-strange-letter-progress/

I noticed that there are 8 rows of symbols in the first ‘paragraph’

The fact that the rows don’t start off vertically aligned made me think that the symbols are in vertical clusters instead of horizontal.

Vertical combinations give:
A7,FF,D9,7E,83,FF,51,FE,
87,FD,7A,FF,87,7D,FA,AD,
D6,6F,DB,BD,C6,3F,EA,FD,
D7,2A,F6,DC,BE,68,F6,1C,
EA,1E,E4,7E,98,FE,66,D8,
26,E6,FA,C0,3C,F2,BC

I’m not sure if I lined up the last 7 characters right or not.

It is gibberish in ASCII, but it breaks away from the base 3 pattern everyone is looking for.

I haven’t tried the third paragraph yet.

try finding the alt code for the middle symbols

I have to agree that there is something more to the symbols.

I would like to agree with noll and say that there is something more to the code, but

Frank Shoemaker was a Princeton prof who did/does (I’m not sure) work at Fermi Lab on Magnetics (I think)

The Greek letter Phi is a symbol for magnetic flux.

Wonder if this is a something that the author thought Shoemaker would have ignored, but the author thinks is more than just noise?

Well.

(F0BE58F2FD63)16 is (1021201020002210220002102012212)3
and
(6C79D2E493E6)16 is (120122022010222011200012221210)3

But i can’t decrypt it using same way. Am i going in wrong direction? lol

Ok, i made something interesting, but i can’t estimate what the result is.

How to do it: take 1st symbol of 1st row of middle section of the letter (which is “F”), and “sum” it with 2nd symbol of 2nd row (which is “C”); continue to do the same moving right. Last, 12th, byte will be “36″, - “sum” of the last symbol of the 1st row and 1st symbol of the 2nd row.

Why to combine HEX symbols in such a way? Well, since last, 3rd row of middle section is: “s F C”, which could be interpreted as “sum F and C”, which leads to described combinations.

Resulted string of data: FC 07 B9 ED 52 8E F4 29 F3 DE 66 36 - was inserted into separate file named 1.com, saved, then that .com file was launched from windows’s CMD in this manner: “1.com > 1_report.txt”. Error on launch was ignored. Resulting 1_report.txt file is 770 bytes, i have no idea at all what this data is (but i really can see that certain parts of that file are NOT purely random, since some structure is there).

Using Funduc software Hex editor, i made HEX dump of the 1_report.txt file. Here it is:

000000 b8 ff ff 50 50 eb 02 37 02 80 7c 01 3a 75 06 26 83 06 37 02 ёяяPPл.7..|.:u.&..7.
000014 02 ac aa 0a c0 75 fa 26 89 3e 98 02 26 ff 0e 98 02 26 8a 26 .¬Є.Аuъ&.>..&я…&.&
000028 a1 02 80 c4 40 26 88 26 3c 02 e8 5b 02 e8 9b 03 0e 1f 80 3e Ў..Д@&.&
00003c b0 02 00 74 0c 50 ba 58 02 eb 93 81 3e bc 23 08 23 75 03 eb °..t.PєX.л..>ј#.#u.л
000050 75 90 81 3e bc 23 fc 22 75 03 eb 7f 90 81 3e bc 23 14 23 75 u..>ј#ь”u.л…>ј#.#u
000064 03 e9 ab 00 81 3e bc 23 39 23 75 03 e9 c4 00 81 3e bc 23 6b .й«..>ј#9#u.йД..>ј#k
000078 23 75 03 e9 b1 00 81 3e bc 23 77 23 75 03 e9 a3 00 81 3e bc #u.й±..>ј#w#u.йЈ..>ј
00008c 23 20 23 75 03 e9 b4 00 81 3e bc 23 83 23 75 03 e9 e5 00 81 # #u.йґ..>ј#.#u.йе..
0000a0 3e bc 23 91 23 75 03 e9 c2 00 81 3e bc 23 45 23 75 03 e9 ba >ј#‘#u.йВ..>ј#E#u.йє
0000b4 00 81 3e bc 23 aa 23 75 03 e9 c7 00 e9 ca 00 e9 d1 01 80 3e ..>ј#Є#u.йЗ.йК.йС..>
0000c8 b6 02 ff 75 06 b8 01 00 e9 29 ff c6 06 b6 02 ff e9 ff fe 80 ¶.яu.ё..й)яЖ.¶.яйяю.
0000dc 3e b0 02 00 74 06 b8 01 00 e9 14 ff fe 06 b0 02 c7 06 4d 02 >°..t.ё..й.яю.°.З.M.
0000f0 7f 01 8c 1e 4f 02 81 3e bc 23 6b 23 75 03 e9 96 01 80 3e 7d ….O..>ј#k#u.й…>}
000104 22 ff 75 05 c6 06 7d 22 00 e9 ca fe e9 84 01 80 3e c2 22 00 “яu.Ж.}”.йКюй…>В”.
000118 74 06 b8 01 00 e9 dc fe fe 06 c2 22 c6 06 7d 22 01 e9 ae fe t.ё..йЬюю.В”Ж.}”.й®ю
00012c e9 ab fe c6 06 b3 02 01 eb 01 90 89 36 b1 02 c6 06 b0 02 00 й«юЖ.і..л…6±.Ж.°..
000140 c6 81 3e bc 23 fc 22 75 03 eb 7f 90 81 3e bc 23 14 23 75 03 Ж.>ј#ь”u.л…>ј#.#u.
000154 e9 ab 00 81 3e bc 23 39 23 75 03 e9 c4 00 81 3e bc 23 6b 23 й«..>ј#9#u.йД..>ј#k#
000168 75 03 e9 b1 00 81 3e bc 23 77 23 75 03 e9 a3 00 81 3e bc 23 u.й±..>ј#w#u.йЈ..>ј#
00017c 20 23 75 03 e9 b4 00 81 3e bc 23 83 23 75 03 e9 e5 00 81 3e #u.йґ..>ј#.#u.йе..>
000190 bc 23 91 23 75 03 e9 c2 00 81 3e bc 23 45 23 75 03 e9 ba 00 ј#‘#u.йВ..>ј#E#u.йє.
0001a4 81 3e bc 23 aa 23 75 03 e9 c7 00 e9 ca 00 e9 d1 01 80 3e b6 .>ј#Є#u.йЗ.йК.йС..>¶
0001b8 02 ff 75 06 b8 01 00 e9 29 ff c6 06 b6 02 ff e9 ff fe 80 3e .яu.ё..й)яЖ.¶.яйяю.>
0001cc b0 02 00 74 06 23 6b 23 75 03 e9 b1 00 81 3e bc 23 77 23 75 °..t.#k#u.й±..>ј#w#u
0001e0 03 e9 a3 00 81 3e bc 23 20 23 75 03 e9 b4 00 81 3e bc 23 83 .йЈ..>ј# #u.йґ..>ј#.
0001f4 23 75 03 e9 e5 00 81 3e bc 23 91 23 75 03 e9 c2 00 81 3e bc #u.йе..>ј#‘#u.йВ..>ј
000208 23 45 23 75 03 e9 ba 00 81 3e bc 23 aa 23 75 03 e9 c7 00 e9 #E#u.йє..>ј#Є#u.йЗ.й
00021c ca 00 e9 d1 01 80 3e b6 02 ff 75 06 b8 01 00 e9 29 ff c6 06 К.йС..>¶.яu.ё..й)яЖ.
000230 b6 02 ff e9 ff fe 80 3e b0 02 00 74 06 b8 01 00 e9 14 ff fe ¶.яйяю.>°..t.ё..й.яю
000244 06 b0 02 c7 06 4d 02 7f 01 8c 1e 4f 02 81 3e bc 23 6b 23 75 .°.З.M…..O..>ј#k#u
000258 03 e9 96 01 80 3e 7d 22 ff 75 05 c6 06 7d 22 00 e9 ca fe e9 .й…>}”яu.Ж.}”.йКюй
00026c 84 01 80 3e c2 22 00 74 06 b8 01 00 e9 dc fe fe 06 c2 22 c6 …>В”.t.ё..йЬюю.В”Ж
000280 06 7d 22 01 e9 ae fe e9 ab fe c6 06 b3 03 e9 a3 00 81 3e bc .}”.й®юй«юЖ.і.йЈ..>ј
000294 23 20 23 75 03 e9 b4 00 81 3e bc 23 83 23 75 03 e9 e5 00 81 # #u.йґ..>ј#.#u.йе..
0002a8 3e bc 23 91 23 75 03 e9 c2 00 81 3e bc 23 45 23 75 03 e9 ba >ј#‘#u.йВ..>ј#E#u.йє
0002bc 00 81 3e bc 23 aa 23 75 03 e9 c7 00 e9 ca 00 e9 d1 01 80 3e ..>ј#Є#u.йЗ.йК.йС..>
0002d0 b6 02 ff 75 06 b8 01 00 e9 29 ff c6 06 b6 02 ff e9 ff fe 80 ¶.яu.ё..й)яЖ.¶.яйяю.
0002e4 3e b0 02 00 74 06 b8 01 00 e9 14 ff fe 06 b0 02 c7 06 4d 02 >°..t.ё..й.яю.°.З.M.
0002f8 7f 01 8c 1e 4f 02 81 3e bc 23 ….O..>ј#

Cheers.

There is no need to keep speculating on the first and third ciphers - they have been solved!

The second one has not, however. The ‘S’ symbol on the third line could be 1 or A, as neither of these are used in the previous two lines. But what do those two lines mean?

Facts:
-The letter was received on the 5th of March 2007.

-The author is critical about something - could it be some new experimental data?

-Employee number for identification purposes - after all a cipher author wants his work to be matched to him when its decoded.

What happened on or before 5th of March 2007?

I came up with an article in Fermilab Today about some data from the HyperCP experiments ‘hinting’ at the existence of the Higgs boson (http://www.fnal.gov/pub/today/archive_2007/today07-03-07.html). Its conceivable that the author was part of the very same experiment and privy to the data, which would have been gathered a few days back.

I took me several weeks to break this code, but I am 100% sure that I’ve done it! Below is the deciphered code:

DEAR SIR,

CONFIDENTIAL BUSINESS PROPOSAL

HAVING CONSULTED WITH MY COLLEAGUES AND BASED ON THE INFORMATION GATHERED FROM THE NIGERIAN CHAMBERS OF COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY, I HAVE THE PRIVILEGE TO REQUEST FOR YOUR ASSISTANCE TO TRANSFER THE SUM OF $47,500,000.00 (FORTY SEVEN MILLION, FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND UNITED STATES DOLLARS) INTO YOUR ACCOUNTS. THE ABOVE SUM RESULTED FROM AN OVER-INVOICED CONTRACT, EXECUTED COMMISSIONED AND PAID FOR ABOUT FIVE YEARS (5) AGO BY A FOREIGN CONTRACTOR. THIS ACTION WAS HOWEVER INTENTIONAL AND SINCE THEN THE FUND HAS BEEN IN A SUSPENSE ACCOUNT AT THE CENTRAL BANK OF NIGERIA APEX BANK.

WE ARE NOW READY TO TRANSFER THE FUND OVERSEAS AND THAT IS WHERE YOU COME IN. IT IS IMPORTANT TO INFORM YOU THAT AS CIVIL SERVANTS, WE ARE FORBIDDEN TO OPERATE A FOREIGN ACCOUNT; THAT IS WHY WE REQUIRE YOUR ASSISTANCE. THE TOTAL SUM WILL BE SHARED AS FOLLOWS: 70% FOR US, 25% FOR YOU AND 5% FOR LOCAL AND INTERNATIONAL EXPENSES INCIDENT TO THE TRANSFER.

THE TRANSFER IS RISK FREE ON BOTH SIDES. I AM AN ACCOUNTANT WITH THE NIGERIAN NATIONAL PETROLEUM CORPORATION (NNPC). IF YOU FIND THIS PROPOSAL ACCEPTABLE, WE SHALL REQUIRE THE FOLLOWING DOCUMENTS:

(A) YOUR BANKER’S NAME, TELEPHONE, ACCOUNT AND FAX NUMBERS.

(B) YOUR PRIVATE TELEPHONE AND FAX NUMBERS — FOR CONFIDENTIALITY AND EASY COMMUNICATION.

(C) YOUR LETTER-HEADED PAPER STAMPED AND SIGNED.

ALTERNATIVELY WE WILL FURNISH YOU WITH THE TEXT OF WHAT TO TYPE INTO YOUR LETTER-HEADED PAPER, ALONG WITH A BREAKDOWN EXPLAINING, COMPREHENSIVELY WHAT WE REQUIRE OF YOU. THE BUSINESS WILL TAKE US THIRTY (30) WORKING DAYS TO ACCOMPLISH.

PLEASE REPLY URGENTLY.

BEST REGARDS

Both Frank Shoemaker and Pierre Piroue are long-time friends and colleagues of mine (both retired from the Princeton Physics Department.) I spoke to both of them today. Both are amused by all of this, but both say they know nothing of this whatever (and I believe them).

Frank was the designer of the original Fermilab Main Ring of magnets (while on leave from Princeton), and, as mentioned, a collaborator on the Fermilab MiniBooNE experiment.

Pierre, by the way, checked and confirmed that his (long-dormant) Fermilab ID number is, indeed, 252.

[...] the 15th of May, Symmetry Breaking put out this call for help. It seems that the PR department of Fermilab received a (handwritten) letter in code. A high [...]

Oh well. Again: can anyone explain to me what these 770 bytes i got yesterday are?

I repeated procedure today, and once again i got very same 770 bytes file. Then i fixed length of 1 row in my HEX editor to be 16 bytes, printscreened all the data, and went to pbrush. I found that data have (no doubts) artificial structure, with some parts smaller and larger repeating, and with some unique (amongst these 770 bytes) parts.

I colored some bytes and uploaded the pic into imageshack.us service. You can see the pic here:

http://img354.imageshack.us/my.php?image=report1yg1.gif .

So, once again. What the heck is these 770 bytes, obtained from executing .com file which was created directly from middle part of the letter?

With regards to the symbols in the center of the letter, on the 2nd line as people pointed out, the greek symbol PHI is shown with a ‘7′ underneath and on another site (I don’t remember the URL) they said that the symbol above the ‘E’ was the backwards SGA symbol for ‘E’… in fact it’s the SGA symbol for ‘M’.

Now we have 2 letters from 2 different alphabets… I’m not saying that the HEX value underneath isn’t significant in some way… but what if the symbols represent letters from a variety of languages? (Past & present)

My theory:

This is deliberately only part of the puzzle. The middle part is probably a hash or checksum some sort. It was sent by someone connected to the company so they could, at some future date [possibly in court], prove their involvement in a project of some sort.

People do this in computer security sometimes: just send hashes to public mailing lists. At a a later point, they can use that to prove they had Some-FIle on Some-Date.

My guess is that if you correctly apply the key in the middle to the correct ID number, the symbols will draw the final message.

Maybe whoever sent this was trying to say that, random
data which would be called noise by shoemaker, can contain
information from outer space sent in the form of neutrinos.

Employee 11510, I believe.

or 11512? I’m tired. That’s my final guess today.

PJ, why do you think so? Opinions are nothing without resoning, you know.

There are abundance of certain bytes (like “23″, “3E” and few more), some areas repeat for 2 times or 3 times, there are really non-noisy-like sequance “FF FF 50 50″ at the start. I’m not software engineer, but i assume these could be “operating system standard sequences”, or whatever, no problem.

What made me really curious us that in very many places we see repeating of 3+ bytes sequences with a fixed, repeating cycle length of 17 bytes. I won’t mistake if i say that 17-bytes cycle (at least partial) is most frequent one in the file i got.

What makes me suspicious about the data i got is one common thing with other parts of the letter: some repeatable length (of the string / cycle) value, being not exactly “round” (16 is round number in HEX world), but very close to it.

Also, try to generate .com file using another manner of combination values from 2nd part of the letter, and you will see NOTHING in response. As far as i know, even most simple computer program perform several operations to produce some *output*, in certain order, and with certain rules. I can’t say what is probability of “random” sequence of bytes being able to output *anything* back to the screen, since, as i said, i’m not software engineer; but my “amateur” estimate, for now, is that such probability is “very low” tops, to “practically impossible” worst. In other words, i estimate such probability as something like 0.0001 or much less.

That’s why i’d like to know “why” the data i got seems being the noise to you, PJ.

Cheers.

when i was young, my grandfather would create puzzles using positive images. the solution to the puzzle wouldn’t be found in the positive, but instead the spaces between. a simple example would be to create “|_||__|||_|” the “|” symbol is a diversion from the truth. it’s the “_” that is important. he created these puzzles to train me to “read between the lines” as it were.

If we armed to a matrix, replacing the symbols ” |=1; ||=2; |||=3″ we will conform a matrix whose sum of the sum of columas=240 and the sum of the sum of the rows =240. This is irrelevant.

May 20th I posted that the BASSE misspelling could be either an indicator that the ternary decryption is a red herring, or more likely just a mistake. Upon closer examination, it’s definitely not a mistake — the author has left a clue that the misspelling is deliberate. Here’s how:

Many have noted that the layout of the upper section is very regular, following strict line lengths of 47 characters (strokes or spaces). The bottom section, however, is even more deliberate. Here there are 85 characters per line AND they are always right justified with a stroke in the last position. In order to achieve this, indentations of 0, 1 or 2 spaces occur at the beginning of each line.

The double S of BASSE occurs on the fifth line, and if you look closely you’ll see that a double space occurs after the first S, and there is a smaller than usual gap between the next two strokes. This is the only double space in the lower section, and yet it wasn’t strictly necessary in order to maintain the right justification — the author could have just added an extra leading space. He/she is clearly indicating that the misspelling is not accidental but deliberate.

Another oddity in the lower section is that the final line is indented two spaces (like the line above it). Why bother on an incomplete line? It suggests that the spacing is necessary for another part of the decryption. For example, the center glyph/hex codes may represent indices into the upper and lower sections (i.e. a book code), and the indices are position-sensitive.

Has anyone tried converting the hex to binary with spaces for zeros (the whole on off concept) to see if it makes sense?

|||| | ||||| | || ||||| |||||| ||| |||| || |||| ||| || ||| | | ||||||||

Probably not even close, but was a first glance reaction. *shrug*

PJ, thanks for the explanations of your PoV (point of view that is).

Answering your question: when i said “Resulted string of data: FC 07 B9 ED 52 8E F4 29 F3 DE 66 36 - was inserted into separate file named 1.com” - i meant using HEX editor. Result is the file 1.com with length of 12 bytes. If i would create a file typing ASCII symbols like “FC07B9…” (no spaces) or “FC 07 B9…” (with spaces), then file would have length of 24 bytes or 35 bytes accordingly, which is NOT the case. Also, it would be very rude mistake “in definitio”, since HEX codes are to be writtin in HEX form to *remain* HEX codes, right?

So, once again, surely i used HEX editor and wrote HEX codes just like they should be handled: in HEX form. I thought it’s obvious.

Your point about oh so many various processors is not so solid as you think, since Windows XP do NOT execute the code i give to it using Windows XP’s runtime routines: instead, windows call for compatibility program, named “haspdos.sys”. This program then execute .com file itself. So, in fact, we speak about DOS program (or at least “fake”-program). DOS-like operating systems are evolving for 20+ yaers now, and level of compatibility in DOS environments is much higher than in more widespread and complicated OSs like Windows XP. Also, DOS is rather simple environment, and as such support for it is often implemented into oh so various OSs.

Next, your point about little size of the program and inability to produce longer strings from shorter initial forms - is also at least disputable.

There’s computer .com virus with length of several dozen bytes. I can hand-write it into .txt file using windows notepad, save the file, rename it to .com and launch it, and then it will hit victim’s computer as well as other computers connected to 1st one. Another example is classic not-more-than-65Kb demoscenes, which are able to produce Gigabytes of output graphic data from their rather small initial code.

But your other statements are quite solid… Especially the one about coordinates. 12 bytes of data from middle section of the letter, in my version being HEX “FC 07 B9 ED 52 8E F4 29 F3 DE 66 36″, could be interpreted as 4 bytes for each of 3 physical dimensions, which would produce extremely precise coordinating… Or, it also could be interpreted as 3 bytes for each of 3 physical dimensions, plus 3 more bytes for *time*. And that already would be “somewhere, somewhen”, still with very good precision.

Interesting.

Try changing the HEX to TRI space with bars within every 2nd letter and ignore any numbers you come across within those bars and that should give you a clue… further more i have come up with a partial decypher… food seems to be of importance to our “John Doe”. Funny since i’ve spent countless hours attempting to break the code on this seemingly pointless yet interesting message, if it could be called such a thing. Pointless at times seeing as if you apply arithmatic to cracking the letters and vice versa then you’ll come up with more than just “aithdgcsln” nonsense.

Aleksey, here’s an IA-32 (x86) dissassembly of your code:

cld
pop %es
mov $0xf48e52ed,%ecx
sub %esi,%ebx
fisub 0×36(%esi)

This is garbage that does nothing useful, as expected. I seriously doubt that the section would be a computer program of any sort.

Ideas concerning transcription of the symbols are more interesting. Or the hex string could simply be an encryption key like some people have suggested.

No offense Aleksey, I don’t think you know much about computers

Hi David Harris and everyone !

Everybody seems to assume that every information on the letter is intentional. So you speculate on the importance of the extra “S” in “BASSE”.
But nobody so far has written anything about the graphical arrangement of the sections among each other (except me;-).

Please ask yourself : what is the importance of the blank sections on top and in the middle of the paper ?

And I again ask is it possible that there is information hidden (e.g. by using invisible ink)?
Please Dave, can you clear that matter for us by examining the ORIGINAL sheet of paper? Simply put a hot cup of coffee on top of it (the cup, not the coffee for a minute or so to heat it somewhat.

And I would like to get access to a scan image of the original sheet. I tried to look at the color separations separately (red, green, blue) of the available scan image but, alas, to no avail. I simply do not know what is noise from the fax and what may be useful information. Ah, and make it a color scan. A greyscale scan is not what I need.

Regards
tc

P.S. to Aleksey : your attempt is to far fetched. Sections 1 and 3 were solved with simple methods. Section 2 has to be solved in a similar easy way, because the writer wants to be understood !! It makes no sense to cypher the second section as machine code without any hint to the receiver about doing so.

Just something I’d like to mention that I’ve not seen others talk about. The stuff in the middle could be high/low on top of each other.

F0BE58F2FD63
6C79D2E493E6

F6 0C B7 E9 5D 82 FE 24 F9 D3 6E 36
246 12 183 233 53 93 254 36 249 211 110 54

If I did the conversions right… Which also happens to be 64 bits. (Back in my day.. We were happy to have 64 bit encryption and we liked it, up hill, both ways, in 3 feet of snow.)

1111011000001100101101111110100101011101100000101111111000100100

Also a pattern of big small is in the numbers…
BsBBss BsBBss (more then 128 or less then 128)

BSBBSSBSBBSS 866 one of the Short touches of Grandsire Triples… Any of this ring a bell for anyone? (heh) Bell ringing? There is a ‘bell tower’ listed as being at Fermilab. Our dear Frank Shoemaker might consider bells to be ‘noise’.

So many things it could be… The human mind LOVES to find patterns…

Has anyone considered treating the “trinary”/”binary” sets as a handwritten black & white bitmap?

I mapped out the top section using excel for a sense of character placement, and, assuming the period was intentional, the full string length was 361 (19^2). I’m going to try drawing the image as a 19×19 bw bitmap (MS Paint) so that I can play with it.

(Just another way to look at this)

Aleksey,

I have to correct you here:

> 1. Sections 1 and 3 were NOT solved with simple methods;
> people who solved them used SCRIPT (computer program),
> which made billions of calculations before finding some
> promising letter-replacing pattern. So, you are wrong
> here.

You are quite mistaken. I solved the top code in 10 minutes with pen and paper, immediately recognizing it as a base-3 code. It is quite trivial and a common cryptographic coding approach, and certainly requires no computer. The bottom code took longer — about 30 minutes, only because it took time to recognize that the double-strokes were character breaks. Otherwise, it was no more difficult than the top. I’m quite sure that the first person to solve these parts did so even faster than I did, and did so without a computer. –Rob

Aleksey, my opinion:

1) Although it’s not me who decoded section 1 et 3, they were more “encoded” than cyphered. The encoding method was relatively simple. The amount of computer calculation (not much actually!) that was needed is irrelevant.

2) The author should have the desire to be understood because his message precisely is a message. It’s an enigma to be solved.
If the guy didn’t want to be understood, he would have prefered real, strong and reputed encryption algorithms such as the ones provided by PGP (e.g. DES, Blowfish, etc…).
Moreover, he sent this to a wide audience at the fermilab, so it shouldn’t be for himself for remembering his passwords, for example.

3 and 4) Hex doesn’t imply computer code, it’s just a convenient way to represent binary and binary is universal… Imho, it just shows that the guy knows base sixteen, in addition to base two and to base three. Great chances are he’s some scientist, so he’s educated…
I think you couldn’t expect much from it, if second section was cpu code, much less than “hello world”. And it should at least be hosted in another program to work, like “good old” DOS virus routines you’re talking about (and like real virii btw). Anyway, personally, I don’t feel it, it would be inelegant…

If you want, you still can try it as java or perl bytecode. But frankly, I don’t think the guy who wrote this is a computer geek, a techie…

Eric

@Aleksey
FWIW, this crypto (if it can really be classified as a crypto, not sure..) can also be cracked using computer scripts and massive computation:
!seineew era sreenigne epacsteN

I doesn’t make it any less trivial for a ten year old with a pen and some paper to crack, though.

Then again, just because parts 1 and 3 are “easy” doesn’t mean 2 has to be trivial as well. It clearly isn’t easy as in obvious or it would have been cracked by now, considering it took half an hour or so th crack the others.

Hrm.. or Maybe not.

debofklingon@MHB

More random letters trying to make a pattern there of… Grr.

Hrm. Seems my software likes to eat bits.
It’s safer to ignore anything i’ve posted, unless it inspires you to double-check output.

*sad sigh*

Anyways, we still have middle section not solved, eh?

I got a thought: since section 3 is coded using same logic (but with a different symbol’s layout), perhaps middle section is also coded using same logic - and again, another symbol system.

Perhaps after some convertions that HEX could turn into same system of lines and spaces, that is. 96 bits are quite enough for a few short words being coded there.