The Beale Cipher
One of my (many) interests has always been word games such as anagrams and cryptography, but I've never been what you'd call a cypherpunk. I mean, I've done my share of simple code breaking, anagram solving, and base conversion for ARGs, but I typically do so with help of automated tools to take some of the tedium out of it. And what I haven't used automated tools on has always been pretty simple stuff. That is, until now. I picked up a copy of The Code Book
(affiliate link) by Simon Singh while at a local bookstore the other day. In the second chapter or so, the author introduces unfamiliar readers (such as myself) to the Beale ciphers, a set of three ciphertexts allegedly mapping out the location of a treasure containing gold, silver, and jewels worth millions of dollars. The ciphers were published in 1885 in a pamphlet called "The Beale Papers" and included a solution to the second cipher based on the Declaration of Independence. The first and third remain unsolved. I figure this might provide a nice diversion for my spare time (what little I have) so I may eventually set up a separate page for it, as I recently did for another interest of mine, the Tandy CoCo.
(affiliate link) by Simon Singh while at a local bookstore the other day. In the second chapter or so, the author introduces unfamiliar readers (such as myself) to the Beale ciphers, a set of three ciphertexts allegedly mapping out the location of a treasure containing gold, silver, and jewels worth millions of dollars. The ciphers were published in 1885 in a pamphlet called "The Beale Papers" and included a solution to the second cipher based on the Declaration of Independence. The first and third remain unsolved. I figure this might provide a nice diversion for my spare time (what little I have) so I may eventually set up a separate page for it, as I recently did for another interest of mine, the Tandy CoCo.
