🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Oct22.131358.4801@ccd.harris.com> Walt Marchand 
writes:

>This weekend I was introduced to the Beale Ciphers. 
>I qualify as clueless in this field. However, 
>_buried_treasure_ is such an interesting concept.
>
>I have some (all?) of the historical papers up to 
>1962, and reference to a 1971 ACM journal article.
>This has got to be an FAQ for this group; can some 
>kind soul either point me to the FAQ or enlighten
>me as to the current state of the art? 

I sat through a presentation at an American Cryptogram Association
convention by Dr. Carl Hamner (Hammer?  Sorry Dr Carl if I got it 
wrong).  Dr. Carl held a responsible position in research at
Sperry, if memory serves.

This was in 1976 or so.  He spent a great deal of time and effort
on it and was convinced it was _not_ a hoax.  For one thing, he showed
that the numbers in the unsolved Beale ciphers were not simply random,
but reasonably consistent with someone using a "book cipher", which
he presumes the other Beale ciphers to be (just as the "broken" one
is).

Moreover, he was not willing to use "force fit" solutions on grounds
that one could coax nearly _any_ text out of it if one did (sensible).
But, he had no solution and if he ever did, I'd have surely heard.  He
had tried just about all of Jefferson's public writings and other 
famous texts besides to no avail.

However, most other members present who had also studied the matter
were convinced the thing was a hoax.  If one ignores the cryptograms,
it is difficult not to agree.  The whole setup is sort of like
"Hey, cut out my survivors and go get my boodle for yourself."  People
can be pretty dumb, but this seems especially clumsy and unlikely.

The key to a "book cipher" would have been the most trivial thing
to have passed on along with the original text.  If it is real,
my guess is that the relatives dug it up a long time ago.  My
advise is to waste no time on it.

-- 
   Larry W. Loen        |  My Opinions are decidedly my own, so please
                        |  do not attribute them to my employer