[Snail]

Aldo? Why?

[JGZinv]

Darn it.... it's mashed up morse code and scrabble then.

Which as much as I've already posted, you other guys should be able to
crack another chunk off knowing that it's not in order.
There may also be a "B" in there somewhere, but that's older material.

Sandwich wasn't on the list for a reason, the rest of the names were compiled
by going through the admin and mod lists, and pulling those with the same
date and time location as Mister Doe here. But like I said, it could have been planted
information.

Doe -

I don't believe I said my letters were in the right spot now did I?
Nor did I say that was the way to decipher it, you assumed that.
Email formatting (how I'm keeping my notes) and board formatting is different too.
I also see you didn't take my advice to heart either... 

I'll go play with it more later, I've got things that need doing today.

[JohnDoe]

Dear HLP Members:

Here is a hint, courtesy of Mr. Fragrag's earlier work (I've modified it somewhat):

P.S.:  SOS  I am  S-.  -Z.  .Q-  G-.  .B-  -.O
   ABC DEF GHI JKL MNO PQR STU VWX YZ

Sincerely,
JohnDoe

P.S.:  SOS I am S-.  -Z.  .Q-  G-.  .B-  -.O 

[Ulala]

So do we get free money or something for figuring this out? Meh.. *starts working on it*

[Dysko]

Aldo? Why?

I don't know... just my impression...

[redsniper]

Actually, it's me.

[Tyrian]

Maybe we should be comparing the "I am" part with what it was in code.  Maybe we could spot a pattern then...

P.S.:  SOS  -H.  .-C  .N-  S-.  -Z.  .Q-  G-.  .B-  -.O

...and...

P.S.:  SOS I am S-.  -Z.  .Q-  G-.  .B-  -.O

So...

I = -H.
A = .-C
M = .N-

Just food for though maybe...

[Dysko]

Ok, that's enough letter to form Goober...

[Fineus]

Shame that's not the answer...

[Polpolion]

What if this doesn't have anything to do with morse code? Maybe it's its own code?

Maybe we should be comparing the "I am" part with what it was in code.  Maybe we could spot a pattern then...

Dear HLP Members:

Here is a hint, courtesy of Mr. Fragrag's earlier work (I've modified it somewhat):

P.S.:  SOS  I am  S-.  -Z.  .Q-  G-.  .B-  -.O
   ABC DEF GHI JKL MNO PQR STU VWX YZ

Sincerely,
JohnDoe

P.S.:  SOS I am S-.  -Z.  .Q-  G-.  .B-  -.O 

OKAY:

can we agree that " <- or .> letter <- or . >" = a different letter?

Note that when the letters change, they all stay withing the same group of three.


EDIT: what? tyrian? 

[JGZinv]

(to Tyrian) Tried that earlier... 

You know, it doesn't "have" to be a name... it could just as easily say

I AM PURPLE

I AM RLYFAT

or anything else... doesn't "have" to be one letter per symbol either.
The example show so far is that one letter has equaled a symbol yes...
but it also is equal to the message converted completely in morse.
However in that case, you have to account for the M being out of place,
therefore it looks after you get it converted from full morse into various
set of letters - then it's a substitution and placement issue. So you might say it's a 2 part
cipher...

An example might be... *thinks* (actually never mind, this isn't right in retrospect)

1.First you take a message...
"Hello all out there"

2.Then you create a substitution for the letters.

H = A, e = B , l = C, o = D, a = E, u = F, t = G, h = H, r = I (yeah real simple)

3.Then you have this -
ABCCD ECC DFG GHBIB

4.Then take it and mix up the letters -

ACDCCEGCCBBIHGFBC

5.Then you make it into morse -
.- -.-. -.. -.-. -.-. . --. -.-. -.-. -... -... .. .... --. ..-. -... -.-.

You could then more or less substitute the individual letter for the sections of morse.

**
But in this case it looks more along the lines of taking the message, mixing up the original letters
then making into morse with the letters standing in for some of the morse parts.
**
So.. 1. "I am JGZINV"

2. N GI VIJ

3. -.   --. ..   ...- .. .---

4. -.   G ..   ...- .. J

5. I can't exactly explain it, I know "what" was done, but for some reason I can't explain it.
I frankly have a headache right now, it being related to this or not could be debatable. But the gist of
the idea is that he knew to begin with how he wanted the code to look, therefore made it during step
2 or 3 where the extra morse symbols on either side of the letters would combine with the letter
itself to create a different meaning once transposed back into full morse. This can be thought of as another security level for the entire cipher. Thus that's partially why the morse can be used to make various letters if it's squished together, you don't have a separation point.

However, I think we were give those points using the spaces for each letter in the text.
It may well be a mix of my first example that I said didn't apply and this one above,
all I can suggest is to look it over, mentally digest it, then try to apply it.

I don't think it's a pre made code like something already out there used
in WWII or something recent...  appears to be home brewed. It's a fairly good cipher.
Probably would be much harder without the original I AM being dropped into the
right place for us.

Since he wasn't clear as to if the substitution of 8, YT, and F...  I'm re-looking over what I did before anyway.
But like before, I need to get stuff done - I'm only writing this as I wait on a download.

Back to work... *goes to find some Tylenol*

[Polpolion]

SO, I was just randomly plugging letters in, and the only name I can get to work is tyrian (assuming that the letters have to stay within their little sections of three).


EDIT: hey wait.. If the first two words are I AM, and Nuclear1 got those from "SO" in the "SOS", then why is the "SO" still in the code?

[JGZinv]

Because you didn't look at what he removed and substitued.

The I AM didn't come from there... the concept was right... the execution wasn't

You have to go play around with the full line of the morse code.
Take the letters and convert them into the Morse... then replace the letter, not the symbols
around it, with the equivalent Morse.

Then look at it, the H C N equaled the I A M... except the only place the M could
have come from in the line of full Morse was the far right side. I and A are right next
to each other as he said, H and C I believe.

[Polpolion]

Poop. I thought I had something. I hate coincides  .

[JohnDoe]

Dear HLP Members:

I am Tyrian. 

Sincerely,
JohnDoe

P.S.:  Here's how the code works, it's in two parts:

The first part is the pattern:  SOS = . . . - - - . . .

The second part is the code:  -H.  .-C  .N-  S-.  -Z.  .Q-  G-.  .B-  -.O

This is a pattern based substitution cypher.

SOS has no meaning in the code.  Morse code is based on patterns of dots and dashes.  So is this.  The SOS sets the pattern of dots and dashes to decode the message.

What I did is this:

Here is the alphabet broken down into groups of three letters (The exception is the last group):

ABC DEF GHI JKL MNO PQR STU VWX YZ

Now for decoding:

Code:  -H.  .-C  .N-  S-.  -Z.  .Q-  G-.  .B-  -.O

Match each mark in SOS with its group (The matching mark follows the portion of code, so -H. goes with dot, etc.):

Code:  -H.(dot)  .-C(dot)  .N-(dot)  S-.(dash)  -Z.(dash)  .Q-(dash)  G-.(dot)  .B-(dot)  -.O(dot)

The regular letter acts as an identifying marker for the respective group in the alphabet.  So, -H. goes with the GHI group.  Since -H. is also associated with dot, the correct letter to insert is "I."  While G was replaced by dash, it isn't correct because it doesn't match the pattern of . . . - - - . . .  laid out by the SOS marker.

You then repeat the process for the remaining letters.

@thesizzler:  You're right about the deciphering.  You broke the code.  Congratulations!

@JGZinv:  You might have a career in codebreaking.

@All:  You all did really good.  Codebreaking is always done in teams.  You get the most diverse ideas that way!  You all did good work!

Oh yes, I almost forgot:  April Fools!

[Fineus]

Where's my "thankyou" for not busting you and revealing you as soon as the IP check came back?

[Snail]

Damn, it wasn't Aldo.

[Goober5000]

$20 on Goob.

I'll take that $20, thanks.

[Tyrian]

Check your PM's.

And thank you again!

[JGZinv]

Darn... 

Ah well.

To explain what I was doing, over the last three days I was keeping
all my notes in e-mails (AOL is useless for note keeping) and yesterday
I figured that I was done with it/I'd posted everything worth keeping.
So I deleted my notes.

That, was a mistake. 

But I knew it was Morse right off from the - . 's the SOS seemed
to be the primer (sp?). You had me guessing if the PS was part of the code or
not... but the fact you put the proper punctuation : in front of it didn't fit.

I didn't bother going into simple substitution because I thought that was only
going to be useful after converting from the long Morse version. Plus everyone else
was trying it, so I left that to them while focusing on the oddball path. Most of the
Morse didn't fit, that M is what had me stumped pretty much... I knew where it was from
due to messing around with the long Morse. The 3 pattern bugged me too, as that's a
usual sign of order or structure that is one of the early steps in WW cipher cracking.
Some of the stuff I had in my original posts, I edited out, wanting to see what "Doe"
was going to post back or if that would produce some ideas in others... so they were meant
to be nothing more than tossing an idea on the floor of discussion.
Really if you hadn't been talkative and we were doing this without further info,
it certainly would have been harder.

With the comments all being aimed at the mods and admin, that's why
I went off on a tangent and compared all the personal profile data.
I even went as far as visiting a number of your guy's personal sites
to see if you'd dabbled in code making or had boasted about it
on another forum. The only link I could establish was Sandwich was a prior
Yahoo GeoCities user. Which matches with the Yahoo address.

I was absolutely sure it was someone who'd posted in the thread and was
actively watching it. Reason being that 1. you'd have to know when a reply was there.
2. anyone doing this will want to watch the others trying. The only time I really suspected
you though, was that "Just a thought" comment. It was out of character, didn't fit "you"
it fit Doe then. Mainly my guess was Kalfireth, if I was sticking with a admin/mod though. ^_^

If nothing else, I considered writing back a code to you after this.
During some of my searching out on the net, I came across some different code
sites and styles. But on the other hand, I don't want anyone trying to
crack em for a week on end. 

I didn't participate in the I love bees thing as a cracker, I just liked watching the results.
My only real experience goes as far as watching programs, net info, and crosswords.
I tend to crack the "pick a code consoles" or cheat code things in games fairly easily though.

But yeah, good job all.