
The Beale ciphers - SuperChihuahua
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beale_ciphers
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arh68
Had to double take at reading _Robert Morriss_ (surely no relation..surely)

> _Beale entrusted a box containing the encrypted messages to a local
> innkeeper named Robert Morriss_

If it's just an unknown one time pad we're looking for, this is pretty
damning:

> _If the Declaration of Independence is used as a key for the first cipher,
> it yields alphabetical sequences such as abfdefghiijklmmnohpp and others_

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mdda
OTOH, there's nothing to stop a separate cipher key for the first text, and
the author making sure that the key words chosen (there's always a choice,
since only the first letters are used) map (roughly) to an interesting
sequence in the Declaration of Independence - as a gotcha.

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tobinfricke
Here's a blog entry describing some small investigations into the Beale
ciphers, which revealed a few surprises (for me at least): [http://nibot-
lab.livejournal.com/72614.html](http://nibot-lab.livejournal.com/72614.html)

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ralphc
I grew up in Roanoke county, neighboring Bedford. We had books that mentioned
this treasure, and I've always harbored a dream of deciphering the text then
casually buying the property where the treasure is. If it's not a hoax maybe I
can spin up some AWS instances and get cracking :)

~~~
LyndsySimon
The treasure is supposed to be buried in iron pots. A 2-box metal detector
should be able to find those to a depth of several feet.

I happen to have several maps of that area from the 1820s through the 1920s.

If you ever get serious about it, give me a call :)

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tobinfricke
Also:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ciphertexts](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ciphertexts)

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rootbear
I learned about the Beale ciphers in the 80s and wrote a simple program to try
deciphering ciphers one and three using a given key text. I think it's
probably a hoax, but the codes are fun to play around with.

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cbd1984
Skeptoid has an interesting article which lays out a convincing case that
they're fakes:

[http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4301](http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4301)

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exabrial
I remember reading about these in a book when I was a kid... _Alvin's Secret
Code_ was the book I think? Always fascinated me!

