The following cryptogram appeared in a Sunday newspaper:
© King Features Syndicate Inc.
This is a simple substitution cryptogram: each letter stands uniquely for another letter in the English alphabet. Edgar Allen Poe, in his short story The Gold Bug, provides a good description of how one goes about solving such a substitution cryptogram (see below).
The applet given below provides tools and hints to decipher such letter-by-letter encipherments. To operate this applet, first copy the code text show above into the upper text field of the applet. You can probably select, copy and paste it into this text field. If you have to type it in, double check all the letters for accuracy. Next, drag the blue tile for the letter N to the S space beneath it. The N tile turns pink when it drops into the S slot, and all of the letters S in the code text are deciphered to Ns in plain text in the lower of the two text fields in the applet below. Using the approach outlined by Poe, proceed to solve the cryptogram. Note that the gray histograms above the letters in the decode slots give the frequency of use of that letter in the code text. Also given in decreasing order are typical letter use frequencies in the English language. Note the discrepancy with frequency order cited by Poe.
The answer for the newspaper cryptogram is available here. Other cryptograms are available via the choice menu at the bottom of the applet. Sunday newspapers also run cryptograms. Note that the shorter the cryptogram, the more difficult it is to solve.
"Well; you have heard, of course, the many stories
current --the thousand vague rumors afloat about money buried,
somewhere on the Atlantic coast, by Kidd and his associates. These
rumors must have had some foundation in fact. And that the rumors
have existed so long and so continuously could have resulted, it
appeared to me, only from the circumstance of the buried treasure
still remaining entombed. Had Kidd concealed his plunder for a time,
and afterwards reclaimed it, the rumors would scarcely have reached
us in their present unvarying form. You will observe that the stories
told are all about money-seekers, not about money-finders. Had the
pirate recovered his money, there the affair would have dropped. It
seemed to me that some accident --say the loss of a memorandum
indicating its locality --had deprived him of the means of recovering
it, and that this accident had become known to is followers, who
otherwise might never have heard that treasure had been concealed at
all, and who, busying themselves in vain, because unguided attempts,
to regain it, had given first birth, and then universal currency, to
the reports which are now so common. Have you ever heard of any
important treasure being unearthed along the coast?"
"Never."
"But that Kidd's accumulations were immense, is well
known. I took it for granted, therefore, that the earth still held
them; and you will scarcely be surprised when I tell you that I felt
a hope, nearly amounting to certainty, that the parchment so
strangely found, involved a lost record of the place of deposit."
"But how did you proceed?"
"I held the vellum again to the fire, after increasing
the heat; but nothing appeared. I now thought it possible that the
coating of dirt might have something to do with the failure; so I
carefully rinsed the parchment by pouring warm water over it, and,
having done this, I placed it in a tin pan, with the skull downwards,
and put the pan upon a furnace of lighted charcoal. In a few minutes,
the pan having become thoroughly heated, I removed the slip, and, to
my inexpressible joy, found it spotted, in several places, with what
appeared to be figures arranged in lines. Again I placed it in the
pan, and suffered it to remain another minute. On taking it off, the
whole was just as you see it now."
Here Legrand, having re-heated the parchment, submitted
It my inspection. The following characters were rudely traced, in a
red tint, between the death's-head and the goat:
53++!305))6*;4826)4+.)4+);806*;48!8`60))85;]8*:+*8!83(88)5*!; 46(;88*96*?;8)*+(;485);5*!2:*+(;4956*2(5*-4)8`8*; 4069285);)6!8)4++;1(+9;48081;8:8+1;48!85;4)485!528806*81(+9;48;(88;4(+?34;48)4+;161;:188;+?;
"But," said I, returning him the slip, "I am as much in the dark as ever. Were all the jewels of Golconda awaiting me on my solution of this enigma, I am quite sure that I should be unable to earn them."
"And yet," said Legrand, "the solution is by no means
so difficult as you might be led to imagine from the first hasty
inspection of the characters. These characters, as any one might
readily guess, form a cipher --that is to say, they convey a meaning;
but then, from what is known of Kidd, I could not suppose him capable
of constructing any of the more abstruse cryptographs. I made up my
mind, at once, that this was of a simple species --such, however, as
would appear, to the crude intellect of the sailor, absolutely
insoluble without the key."
"And you really solved it?"
"Readily; I have solved others of an abstruseness ten
thousand times greater. Circumstances, and a certain bias of mind,
have led me to take interest in such riddles, and it may well be
doubted whether human ingenuity can construct an enigma of the kind
which human ingenuity may not, by proper application, resolve. In
fact, having once established connected and legible characters, I
scarcely gave a thought to the mere difficulty of developing their
import.
"In the present case --indeed in all cases of secret
writing --the first question regards the language of the cipher; for
the principles of solution, so far, especially, as the more simple
ciphers are concerned, depend on, and are varied by, the genius of
the particular idiom. In general, there is no alternative but
experiment (directed by probabilities) of every tongue known to him
who attempts the solution, until the true one be attained. But, with
the cipher now before us, all difficulty is removed by the signature.
The pun on the word 'Kidd' is appreciable in no other language than
the English. But for this consideration I should have begun my
attempts with the Spanish and French, as the tongues in which a
secret of this kind would most naturally have been written by a
pirate of the Spanish main. As it was, I assumed the cryptograph to
be English.
"You observe there are no divisions between the words.
Had there been divisions, the task would have been comparatively
easy. In such case I should have commenced with a collation and
analysis of the shorter words, and, had a word of a single letter
occurred, as is most likely, (a or I, for example,) I should have
considered the solution as assured. But, there being no division, my
first step was to ascertain the predominant letters, as well as the
least frequent. Counting all, I constructed a table, thus:
Of the character 8 there are 33.
; " 26.
4 " 19.
+ ) " 16.
* " 13.
5 " 12.
6 " 11.
! 1 " 8.
0 " 6.
9 2 " 5.
: 3 " 4.
? " 3.
` " 2.
- . " 1.
"Now, in English, the letter which most frequently occurs is e. Afterwards, the succession runs thus: a o i d h n r s t u y c f g l m w b k p q x z. E however predominates so remarkably that an individual sentence of any length is rarely seen, in which it is not the prevailing character.
"Here, then, we have, in the very beginning, the groundwork for something more than a mere guess. The general use which may be made of the table is obvious --but, in this particular cipher, we shall only very partially require its aid. As our predominant character is 8, we will commence by assuming it as the e of the natural alphabet. To verify the supposition, let us observe if the 8 be seen often in couples --for e is doubled with great frequency in English --in such words, for example, as 'meet,' 'fleet,' 'speed, 'seen,' 'been,' 'agree,'. In the present instance we see it doubled less than five times, although the cryptograph is brief.
"Let us assume 8, then, as e. Now, of all words in
the language, 'the' is the most usual; let us see, therefore, whether
they are not repetitions of any three characters in the same order of
collocation, the last of them being 8. If we discover repetitions of
such letters, so arranged, they will most probably represent the word
'the.' On inspection, we find no less than seven such arrangements,
the characters being ;48. We may, therefore, assume that the
semicolon represents t, that 4 represents h, and that 8 represents e
--the last being now well confirmed. Thus a great step has been
taken.
"But, having established a single word, we are enabled
to establish a vastly important point; that is to say, several
commencements and terminations of other words. Let us refer, for
example, to the last instance but one, in which the combination ;48
occurs --not far from the end of the cipher. We know that the
semicolon immediately ensuing is the commencement of a word, and, of
the six characters succeeding this 'the,' we are cognizant of no less
than five. Let us set these characters down, thus, by the letters we
know them to represent, leaving a space for the unknown--
t eeth.
"Here we are enabled, at once, to discard the 'th,' as forming no portion of the word commencing with the first t; since, by experiment of the entire alphabet for a letter adapted to the vacancy we perceive that no word can be formed of which this th can be a part. We are thus narrowed into
t ee,
and, going through the alphabet, if necessary, as before, we arrive at the word 'tree,' as the sole possible reading. We thus gain another letter, r, represented by (, with the words 'the tree' in juxtaposition.
"Looking beyond these words, for a short distance, we again see the combination ;48, and employ it by way of termination to what immediately precedes. We have thus this arrangement:
the tree ;4(+?34 the,
or substituting the natural letters, where known, it reads thus:
the tree thr+?3h the.
"Now, if, in place of the unknown characters, we leave blank spaces, or substitute dots, we read thus:
the tree thr...h the,
when the word 'through' makes itself evident at once. But this discovery gives us three new letters, o, u and g, represented by + ? and 3.
"Looking now, narrowly, through the cipher for combinations of known characters, we find, not very far from the beginning, this arrangement,
83(88, or egree,
which, plainly, is the conclusion of the word 'degree,' and gives us another letter, d, represented by !.
"Four letters beyond the word 'degree,' we perceive the combination
;46(;88*.
"Translating the known characters, and representing the unknown by dots, as before, we read thus:
th.rtee.
an arrangement immediately suggestive of the word 'thirteen,' and again furnishing us with two new characters, i and n, represented by 6 and *.
"Referring, now, to the beginning of the cryptograph, we find the combination,
53++!.
"Translating, as before, we obtain
.good,
which assures us that the first letter is A, and that the first two words are 'A good.'
"To avoid confusion, it is now time that we arrange our key, as far as discovered, in a tabular form. It will stand thus:
5 represents a
! " d
8 " e
3 " g
4 " h
6 " i
* " n
+ " o
( " r
; " t
"We have, therefore, no less than ten of the most important letters represented, and it will be unnecessary to proceed with the details of the solution. I have said enough to convince you that ciphers of this nature are readily soluble, and to give you some insight into the rationale of their development. But be assured that the specimen before us appertains to the very simplest species of cryptograph. It now only remains to give you the full translation of the characters upon the parchment, as unriddled. Here it is:
'A good glass in the bishop's hostel in the devil's seat twenty-one degrees and thirteen minutes northeast and by north main branch seventh limb east side shoot from the left eye of the death's-head a bee line from the tree through the shot fifty feet out.'"
"But," said I, "the enigma seems still in as bad a
condition as ever. How is it possible to extort a meaning from all
this jargon about 'devil's seats,' 'death's-heads,' and 'bishop's
hostel'?"
"I confess," replied Legrand, "that the matter still
wears a serious aspect, when regarded with a casual glance. My first
endeavor was to divide the sentence into the natural division
intended by the cryptographist."
"You mean, to punctuate it?"
"Something of that kind."
"But how was it possible to effect this?"
"I reflected that it had been a point with the writer to
run his words together without division, so as to increase the
difficulty of solution. Now, a not overacute man, in pursuing such an
object, would be nearly certain to overdo the matter. When, in the
course of his composition, he arrived at a break in his subject which
would naturally require a pause, or a point, he would be exceedingly
apt to run his characters, at this place, more than usually close
together. If you will observe the MS., in the present instance, you
will easily detect five such cases of unusual crowding. Acting on
this hint, I made the division thus:
'A good glass in the bishop's hostel in the devil's --twenty-one degrees and thirteen minutes --northeast and by north --main branch seventh limb east side --shoot from the left eye of the death's-head --a bee-line from the tree through the shot fifty feet out.'"
"Even this division," said I, "leaves me still in the
dark."
"It left me also in the dark," replied Legrand, "for a
few days; during which I made diligent inquiry, in the neighborhood
of Sullivan's Island, for any building which went by the name of the
'Bishop's Hotel'; for, of course, I dropped the obsolete word
'hostel.' Gaining no information on the subject, I was on the point
of extending my sphere of search, and proceeding in a more systematic
manner, when, one morning, it entered into my head, quite suddenly,
that this 'Bishop's Hostel' might have some reference to an old
family, of the name of Bessop, which, time out of mind, had held
possession of an ancient manor-house, about four miles to the
northward of the Island. I accordingly went over to the plantation,
and reinstituted my inquiries among the older negroes of the place.
At length one of the most aged of the women said that she had heard
of such a place as Bessop's Castle, and thought that she could guide
me to it, but that it was not a castle, nor a tavern, but a high
rock.
WHEN A DUFFER SCREAMS "FORE!" ON THE COURSE,
MIGHT IT BE CONSIDERED A GOLF BAWL?
How to decipher it
Here is the code text:
CIYS E RMQQYV NDVYEFN "QKVY!" KS LIY DKMVNY,
FOZIL OL JY DKSNORYVYR E ZKUQ JECU?
Y is probably the letter E. The standalone letter E must either be I or A, with its position favoring A. Now the deciphered text is:
**EN A ****E* ***EA** "***E!" *N **E *****E,
***** ** *E **N***E*E* A **** *A**?
The underlined letters are a good place to attack. K must be either O or I. In either case, LIY is probably THE. Assuming LIY decrypts to THE, the deciphered text is now:
*HEN A ****E* ***EA** "***E!" *N THE *****E,
***HT *T *E **N***E*E* A **** *A**?
The two underlined characters must be I and O and the only reasonable choice is that K is O and O is I. This gives:
*HEN A ****E* ***EA** "*O*E!" ON THE *O***E,
*I*HT IT *E *ON*I*E*E* A *O** *A**?
Since T is already used, C must decrypt to W. For the letter J, the possibilities are B, M and W, with B making the most grammatical sense. This now gives:
WHEN A ****E* ***EA** "*O*E!" ON THE *O***E,
*I*HT IT BE *ON*I*E*E* A *O** BAW*?
Since this is a question, *I*HT is probably MIGHT, yielding
WHEN A ****E* ***EAM* "*O*E!" ON THE *O***E,
MIGHT IT BE *ON*I*E*E* A GO** BAW*?
The last important letters to place are U, S, R and D. U is probably the second letter in the third word, and S is reasonable as the last letter of the fourth word. From here, things fall out straightforwardly.