I think they are more interested with this line

"“Even if we found out that he was writing a grocery list or a love letter,” Olson said, “we would still want to see how the code is solved. This is a cipher system we know nothing about."

rather than the results as well they probably very well know it is nothing related to his murder.

synapse

China13814 Posts

March 30 2011 04:06 GMT

#102

On March 30 2011 09:41 Slithe wrote:
I find it really hard to believe that the FBI would not be able to at least roughly decipher this if it's some variety of substitution cipher. They've had so much time to work on it.

Yeah, this. I get the feeling that this is all just a massive trolling attempt, though of course we may never know

GambleVII

126 Posts

March 30 2011 04:07 GMT

#103

Wouldnt he have to be able to write this all down, so the code is something he had in his brain.
Or there would be traces of how to write using his code at his house.

He either wrote the code from memory (wouldnt that be hard as hell) or somewhere there is evidence of how to write the code somewhere.

aztrorisk

United States896 Posts

March 30 2011 04:10 GMT

#104

Wouldn't it be cool if somebody in TL solved it and TL gets some publicity

Caller

Poland8075 Posts

March 30 2011 04:14 GMT

#105

i think an interesting point to start is that there is no z in any of these notes. None whatsoever. If this was a straight-up substitution then we should be seeing a letter that isn't z missing. But instead z, one of the least common letters, is missing. Instead, there are numbers.

Secondly is the use of parantheses in weird places. This is a person who has been writing encrypted notes to himself for 40 years. He would need to be able to read these notes very quickly if he in fact did intend to read them. The fact that every set of parantheses is closed says something.

You should also note that he uses periods, but no commas, parantheses, but no brackets or ampersands or exclamation points and question marks: also no colons. So why would he use plus signs and dashes?

Another thing to look at is his overuse of the letter e. I think the letter e is supposed to signify a space/stop to the line, rather than have any intrinsic meaning in itself.

~just some thoughts

lovenugget

1 Post

March 30 2011 05:06 GMT

#106

i felt like contributing...

P1

(MNDMUNEA8SE-N-STAUNARE) ((ACSM)))
TFRNENI1NSENPBSERCBBNSENPRSE1NC
PRSENMQSEBPREHLDWLDNCBE (TFXLFTCXLNCBE)
AL-PRPPITXLYPPIYNCBEMGKSEINCDRCBRNSEPRSE
WLDRCBRNSEN706NENTXSE-C8SLE-CLTRSEWLDNCBE
ALWLDNCBETSMELISERLSEVRGLSNEASNWLDNCBE
(NOPFSENLSRENCBE) NTEGDDMNSENCURERCBRNE
(TENETFRNENCBRTSENCBE1NG)
(FLRSEPQSEONDE71NCBE)
(CDNSEPQS6ONSDE74NCBE)
(PQTSGPQSEONREDE75NCBE)
(TFNQCMSPSOLEMRDELUSETOTEWLDNINLDNCBE)
(194WLD'SNCBE) (TRFXL)

NOTES

ALPNTEGLSE-SE ERTE
VLSEM7SE-CTSE-WSG-FRTSE
PNRTRSEONPRSEWLDNCBE
NWLDXCRCMSPNEWLDSTSMEXL
DULMT6T6TUNSENCBEXC

(MUNSA1STENMUNARSE)
KLSE-LKSTE-TRSE-TRSE-MKSEN-MRSE
(SAE6NSESENMRSE)
NMNLCBRNSEPTE2PTEWSREBRNRE
8SGLECLGSEJUNUTXEDKQSEPSESHLE
651MTCSEHTLSENCUTCTRSNMRE
99.84.32UNEPLSEUCBSEAOLTSENSKSENB'SE
DNMSENRSE1NRNTRLERCBRNSENTSRCRONG
LSPNSENGSPSEMKSERBSENCBGAUXLR
HMCRENMRENCBE 1/2MUNDDLSE
D-W-M-4MPL XDRLX

this person really doesn't like their 'n''s it seems. terrible handwriting.
i found it hard to distinguish between L's and C's in the letters. i find lines 9 10 and 11 to be the most interesting.

Issor

United States870 Posts

March 30 2011 05:10 GMT

#107

So, I'm not sure if this has been mentioned here, but here's a reddit thread with some possible insight:

http://www.reddit.com/r/crypto/comments/ge3sq/fbi_wants_public_help_solving_encrypted_notes/c1mxjn5

Of note: INC seems to indicate paragraph breaks. Similarly, NCBE seems to indicate linebreaks. I think you can probably safely consider these to not be part of the code.

I would not be surprised to find out that individual lines are encrypted differently, or that page 1 contains and encrypted key for solving page 2 (or parts of it, and vice versa).

Regardless, this is very interesting for those of us with even a passing interest in cryptography. Hope to see this develop.

BisuDagger

Bisutopia19229 Posts

March 30 2011 05:20 GMT

#108

first 3 lines of the 2nd note:
Planet Legs see ret
elvs mets sect sew frets
purse ret drones weld NBC

Meaning:
I see elven legs from a planet. In the met(or mid) sections there are sew(or sewn) frets and a purse with drones weld( or wielding) NBC (the TV station).
note: he says ret twice from what I decipher, so he also thinks he's a ret paladin.

Grobyc

Canada18410 Posts

March 30 2011 05:44 GMT

#109

Ehh I took cryptography when I was in school, but I don't remember a lot of it and I'd probably be too lazy to try it to be honest haha. I don't think it's undoable if it hasn't been discovered by now. Look at Kryptos for example.

B.I.G.

3251 Posts

March 30 2011 10:41 GMT

#110

this sounds like a job for.....

C.S.I LIQUID

roborama

1 Post

March 31 2011 00:54 GMT

#111

I don't know if this helps but here is info about the "victim" (Ricky) from 1999 StL today archives

- high school drop out
- on disability welfare
- fathered "at least" four children (guess he wasn't THAT disabled...)
- served 11 months for rape (statutory)
- had heart/lung ailments
- last seen alive at a hospital when he went in for medicine about 4 days before his body was found

So, I can't help conclude that this has to be a "simple" code...or this guy was some sort of savant masquerading as a bum (but one that was effective with the ladies).

Could he be mentioning his rape victim over and over again and hence the repetitive text?

Somehow I bet these are simple song lyrics that he just sribbled which have nothing to do with anything...

Trezeguet

United States2656 Posts

March 31 2011 01:07 GMT

#112

These are the lyrics to Smells like teen spirit, or at least what he understood of them.

Vain

Netherlands1115 Posts

March 31 2011 01:20 GMT

#113

On March 30 2011 12:25 dacthehork wrote:
Guys

Breaking it down from his handwriting is pointless

He uses different variations of writing a letter significantly, for instance E vs a more rounded backwards 3. He also does the same with very many letters.

So make sure when transcibing it to give each variation of writing style on each letter a unique symbol

I also noticed that the E seems written in 2 way's. It would be very odd for a person to write the same letter different so what seems an e could actually be another letter.

Why didnt he just like to write clean instead of encrypting stuff

Too_MuchZerg

Finland2818 Posts

March 31 2011 01:23 GMT

#114

The thing with these cyphers makes it harder is: language it uses. I could easily make extremely hard code that nobody english speaking could break. I guess its based on english language after all. What if this guy taught spanish secretly to himself (changes from little boy code to older mans code, so you cant compare different codes).

If I would make code I would make it like this:

1. Use language that is not mainstream
2. Make it backwards
3. Add random words and other language words to mix it up
4. Make fake code
5. Use fake code to hide real code information (so that fake code information could be real)
6. Use same code every paper/code you write (indicating it could be cypher key when its not)
7. And so on...

No way nobody could cypher that unless I reveal it.

BlackyChan

United States27 Posts

March 31 2011 01:35 GMT

#115

Heh.

Just so happens I live 10-15 minutes from where his dead body was found. Don't remember ever hearing about this though.

EDIT*

Link to stltoday article mentioned above:

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/metro/article_ad567e00-5b13-11e0-8ed4-00127992bc8b.html

Traveler

United States451 Posts

March 31 2011 01:38 GMT

#116

On March 31 2011 10:23 Too_MuchZerg wrote:
The thing with these cyphers makes it harder is: language it uses. I could easily make extremely hard code that nobody english speaking could break. I guess its based on english language after all. What if this guy taught spanish secretly to himself (changes from little boy code to older mans code, so you cant compare different codes).

If I would make code I would make it like this:

1. Use language that is not mainstream
2. Make it backwards
3. Add random words and other language words to mix it up
4. Make fake code
5. Use fake code to hide real code information (so that fake code information could be real)
6. Use same code every paper/code you write (indicating it could be cypher key when its not)
7. And so on...

No way nobody could cypher that unless I reveal it.

Or you could use a computer program to generate a lot of 1 time pads, and then encrypt everything that way. Only way the code can be broken is by someone in possession of a copy of the pad used to encrypt whatever note it was...

The problem with this note is that it really can be a lot of things. My top guess is some kind of transposition cipher.

Zidane

United States1685 Posts

March 31 2011 01:44 GMT

#117

Reddit is beating us?!

Bill Murray

United States9292 Posts

March 31 2011 01:52 GMT

#118

Letter frequencies are great and all, but this is definitely not a simple substitution cypher. Plus, Ricky, and what he wrote about, might not directly be using E eleven point whatever percent of the time.

+ Show Spoiler +

Apparently, he liked E way more than that!

Xtal

Haiti385 Posts

March 31 2011 02:03 GMT

#119

On March 31 2011 10:07 Trezeguet wrote:
These are the lyrics to Smells like teen spirit, or at least what he understood of them.

i lol'd

edit: we need that 170 IQ kid on this

Jum

United States3 Posts

March 31 2011 02:15 GMT

#120

On March 31 2011 10:35 BlackyChan wrote:
Heh.

Just so happens I live 10-15 minutes from where his dead body was found. Don't remember ever hearing about this though.

EDIT*

Link to stltoday article mentioned above:

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/metro/article_ad567e00-5b13-11e0-8ed4-00127992bc8b.html

This sounds strange. The article says that Ricky McCormick had health problems and that the police do not know how he died. No stab wounds or signs of a struggle?

A man wanders out into a field and just dies with codes in his pocket? That he wrote?

As far as the code goes: I am glad there are so many people interested in this. I thought I was the only one. I noticed the E is often paired with only a certain set of letters.

I can only guess each line is actually a word. When the lines indent, I think that is the end of a sentence? Anybody think this could be something?

Also, look it up on Wikipedia, the pictures of the codes are much clearer when you zoom in.