Clockwork and Cryptography: Angelmaker Code Hints, Part 5

Welcome back, Detachment 2702. How goes the codebreaking? Hopefully you've made some progress. Have you checked the classifieds yet? *wink wink*

Hint 0/1
Hint 2
Hint 3
Hint 4

So when I was at this point in the code, I was able to read ciphertext where I knew the plaintext equivalent - namely, the hint pages that Knopf put out, like this one:

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If I were a gung-ho codebreaker, and I decided I didn't want any 3rd-party hints (i.e., those from this blog), and that I just wanted to use what Knopf provided (good for you!), I think that the most valuable ones to look at are probably the one above and the "Soot and sorrow, I know it" one. Just sayin'.

As I think I mentioned before, this image was pretty key in my realization that 1) the text in the hint pages was reflected in the disks and 2) the disks were not 1:1 with either letters or words.  In five of the first six images, the code reiterates some of the text on the page. I'm not saying which ones, but if you haven't figured that bit out yet...happy birthday. Free hint. Since I last posted, Knopf put up an extra three hint pages (here), and they're perhaps slightly trickier. Although come to think of it, when I first tackled the hint pages, I spent some time considering that the code disks could spell out (MAJOR HINT) the speaker of the quote, and not the quote itself. 


Look at me, rambling on, and that's not even what I brought you all here to say. Like I mentioned above, if you sort of half-understand how the disks break up the plaintext, you can read things like the hint pages, but not anything useful - like the text on the dust jacket. This hint might help:

What's up with the gap?

Straight up: the "gap" in the outer ring (where it exists) represents the beginning of a word. Where there's no gap, that means that the disk continues the word started by the prior disk. 

 Just like this bit of linguistic and etymological sleight of hand, yuo cna rdae tihs qtieu esaiyl, as lngo as teh itniail ltetsre aer in teh prorep pcael. Knowing where that first letter goes will go a long way towards clarifying the plaintext. 


That said, there don't seem to be totally explicit rules as to how the plaintext is broken up across the disks. Based on Hint 1, I initially thought it was purely syllabic, but based on something apocalyptic (*wink wink nudge nudge*), I think it may be just a matter of convenience. Certainly, you can find disks that hold more or less than one syllable by the official definition.

Hope that helps you...and please do drop me a note! If you've cracked the thing wide open, I'd love to hear about it, and if you're hopelessly stuck, leave a comment and I'll see what I can do to help. Has anyone made it all the way down the rabbit hole yet? If so, I don't believe I caught your name...?  ;)

Happy codebreaking!

That's all I've got for now...if you need more help, feel free to leave a comment, and I'll see what I can do.

Clockwork and Cryptography: Angelmaker Code Hints, Part 4

Welcome back! Before you read this hint, make sure you take a look at the preceding ones:

Hint 0/1
Hint 2
Hint 3

We've gotten to the point where the things I point out as hints may be old news to you. On the other hand, who knows? It's time to consider one of three (possibly four) features of this code that I'm going to call "non-core" - i.e., they modify the code's basic functionality to improve its comprehensiveness. I'm sure that the basic codebreaking literature addresses this (and maybe has a different term for it), but for my purposes, I'm going to define "comprehensive" as "the ability of a code to represent all elements of the plaintext as ciphertext." This code is about 98% comprehensive. For comparison, a non-comprehensive code might represent the plaintext

ATTACK AT DAWN, SIGNED PATTON

like this:

TTCK T DWN SGND PTTN

which is 1) not a very good code, and 2) unable to represent words such as "a" or "I". It's not as comprehensive as a Caesar cipher (95-100% comprehensiveness, depending on the plaintext) because there are letters in the original message - the vowels and the punctuation - which simply can't be written in the code.  (For interested parties: you could figure out the comprehensiveness of this code by adding up all the letter frequencies of A, E, I, O, and U and subtracting from 100.)

Assuming that you've figured out the basics of how the Angelmaker code works, I'm going to estimate its comprehensiveness at around 85%, depending on what you've realized about certain other features. You could definitely read the message(s) if you couldn't figure this bit out, but there would be some ambiguity. If you add in the feature I'm pointing out here, you'd be at around 88% - maybe as much as 90 or 91, although I haven't done the research. So: what's the deal with this?

Well?

In Hint 1, I think I pooh-poohed the idea of comparing the relative frequencies of each disk (and rightly so, as you'll probably have realized by now). Now I'm going to tell you to bring that strategy back. Where does that extra line appear? How often? Does it ever appear in the inner ring? How many sections (out of the total 12 outer + 6 inner  = 18) does it bisect? I'd also suggest that you just browse around here for a bit. Just sayin'. 

And there you go! That's three hints in one, for those keeping score at home. Oh...I only put in two? I'm so terribly sorry, I must be mistaken. Bwahahahaha. 

Have fun!

(Or for extra help, read the next hint here.)

Clockwork and Cryptography: Angelmaker Code Hints, Part 3

My dear fellow cryptographer,

May I congratulate you on your perseverance? You've been plugging away at this code for quite some time now, it appears. Well, perhaps you haven't - perhaps you've just googled "Angelmaker code hints," blew right past my admonitions to not read the hints, and started reading hints 0, 1, and 2 straight away - but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. 

Some suspicions about the nature of this code should be forming in your mind, and you may even be starting to test out a few theories. This is a good thing, and all the more reason that you should IGNORE THIS HINT AND SOLVE IT YOURSELF. You'll be so proud of yourself! This is a code that was meant to be broken, and it was meant to be broken by the likes of YOU. Go solve it, you young Champollion, you, and let me know when you're done. 

Still here? All right, then. I did imply that you were dedicated. Here's the third hint:

You're looking at a monoalphabetic cipher with a twist.

In a monoalphabetic cipher, one ciphertext symbol stands for one plaintext symbol. The very first code you ever broke was probably a monoalphabetic cipher, and most likely a Caesar cipher at that (you know, where you shift the alphabet however many letters to the right, so that A is encoded as E, B as F, C as G, and so forth). This is obviously not a Caesar cipher (there's no alphabet to shift), but the ciphertext symbols have a one-to-one mapping with the plain text. Now, that's a gigantic hint if you haven't made a particular realization yet, so I won't elaborate any more. (If you have made that realization...er, sorry. Getcha next time.) Go look at the picture I posted in Hint 1, then come back and read this hint again. Hopefully, you'll have one of those lovely "aha" moments that make codebreaking so satisfying. 

Oh, what's the twist? Not telling (yet). Sorry.

Happy codebreaking!

(If you need more help, here's Hint 4.)

Clockwork and Cryptography: Angelmaker Code Hints, Part 2

So here's the situation: you've read Nick Harkaway's Angelmaker, found out there's a code (!) on the American dust jacket, you've tried to solve it, and you're stuck. Presumably you've also read hints 0 and 1 here, and didn't make a whole lot of progress. In that case, you're in the right spot. Ready for hint number two? Here it is (want to have one more go on your own? Go ahead, I'll wait. If not, highlight to read):

Trust in Knopf.

 As part of the marketing campaign for the book, Knopf released a couple of images meant to help you along. I suppose if you already knew about those, this isn't a very good hint, so here's more: initially, I found this one to be especially helpful.  Later on, this one was very useful, particularly in conjunction with the image of the back of the dust jacket that I posted in part 1. 


You might also want to watch that little video clip of Harkaway talking about writing, as it does have a tiny clue in it, but if you've made it this far, it won't tell you much you don't know.

Happy codebreaking!

If you're still stuck, here's the next hint.