[Aaron]

Is that supposed to be a code, 1alchemist, or are you a spammer?

[Aaron]

No worries, I just thought it was an unusually long string, and perceived it as gibberish since it wasn't prefaced by an intro and it was your first post. Thanks for proving me wrong. And welcome to the forums by the way, I hope you're having fun.

[tonybaloney]

1alchemist - I may be paranoid but if the 'particular participant' is me you'll need to give me a very good reason why I should spend time on your cipher - a Mr Mohan Srivastava sent me a cipher once that I spent a week on without success only to be told it was gibberish -a test to see if I could make something out of nothing. Who are you and what is your purpose?

[tonybaloney]

1alchemist - ........ and there are those who can & those who can't .....

& I'm sick of Professors professing to know this & that....

[tonybaloney]

Apophis - excellent, but what was the effin question? - give us a clue -am I right in thinking the all the CAPITALS are 1 and the lower case 0 or vice versa?

[tonybaloney]

There’s a mystery here – (in the Re: new code section) replies No. 80 to 84 make no sense now because 1alchemist & Apophis have deleted 4 messages.
The first deleted message (posted by 1alchemist) was:-

SGkgZnJpZW5kcy4gVGhlIGJhbmFyeSBjb2RlIHdhcyBjdXRlIGJ1dCBzaW1wbGlzdGljLiBJJ2xsIHBlcmlvZGljYWxseSBsZWF2ZSBtZXNzYWdlcyBwcm9ncmVzc2l2ZWx5IG1vcmUgY29tcGxpY2F0ZWQgdGhhbiB0aGUgcHJlY2lvdXMgb25lLiBJJ20gY3VyaW91cyB0byBzZWUgd2hvIGhlcmUgY2FuIGdpdmUgbWUgYSBydW4gZm9yIG15IG1vbmV5LiBZb3UgY2FuIGZpbmQgdGhlIHRvb2xzIHRvIGRlY29kZSBtb3N0IG9mIHRoZXNlIGNpZmVycyBvbiB0aGUgbmV0IGFscmVhZHkuIEdvb2QgbHVjay4xYWxjaGVtaXN0

This was before reply No. 80 by Aaron
1alchemist then posted a reply saying it was a simple cipher intended for a particular participant (I don’t remember his exact words)
Aaron replied with message N0.81

Not having been able to solve it yet I went fishing with my message N0.82 (know the composer –know the type of cipher!!)
1alchemist took the bait and posted the following message

Dear Friend,... LOL, I appreciate your sense of humor. My message was intended for a specific person or group( with whom I am not personally familiar). The folks I'm looking for will have little problem with this cipher and recognize it immediately. It is not my intent to waste anyones time with gibberish. My message requests a specific response . As for your message from aka"Mahon Srivastava"- there is a Professor by that name @ the ISI ( Indian Statistical Institute) in the Stat-Math unit. his email is smohan@isical.ac.in; however, my guess would be that some clown used his name and was just messing around with your paranioa... although if the good professor was infact sending a cipher it would most likely appear to be gibberish to most, for you see he is a certified genius in mathemtics and even the great "engima" machine would probably not crack it. Maybe this code will set you at ease :
01010100 01101000 01100101 01110010 01100101 00100000 01100001 01110010 01100101 00100000 00110001 00110000 00100000 01101011 01101001 01101110 01100100 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000 01110000 01100101 01101111 01110000 01101100 01100101 00100000 01101001 01101110 00100000 01110100 01101000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01110111 01101111 01110010 01101100 01100100 00111010 00100000 01010100 01101000 01101111 01110011 01100101 00100000 01110111 01101000 01101111 00100000 01100111 01100101 01110100 00100000 01000010 01101001 01101110 01100001 01110010 01111001 00100000 01100001 01101110 01100100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01101111 01110011 01100101 00100000 01110111 01101000 01101111 00100000 01100100 01101111 01101110 00100111 01110100 00101110

I managed to solve this one (convert these binary numbers to decimal & its just a simple substitution – its got a few errors in it though) – and replied with post No.83

Apophis then posted the following –
Hello 1alchemist,... The answer to your question is: MjE1MCBmdCBwZXIgc2VjIHdpdGggYSA2IGluY2ggZHJvcCBhdCAxMjAwIHlk

I went fishing again with my post No.84

Now we are back up to date – why did they delete these posts? - very mysterious

I’m very worried that Apophis (ancient spirit of evil & destruction) has teamed up with 1alchemist whose email address terminates @ucia.gov (CIA??) – perhaps we needn’t worry about  the threat posed by global warming now.

Anyway being more familiar with a slide rule than binary it may take a little longer before I can save the planet. 
Someone please tell me why the binary numbers in 1alchemist 2nd cipher have a zero before them which does not appear when using a web decimal/binary converter.

[Aaron]

What makes it stranger is that 1alchemist had a completely different email when he first signed up...

As for the second cipher, all characters are stored in computers as 8 bits. The range that covers a-z just happens to have 011 on the left hand side. Other characters (such as punctuation) may begin with 001.
http://www.evilgenius.net/asciibin.html

[tonybaloney]

The plot thickens - thanks for clearing that up - you may find it amusing that I didn't know about storing as 8 bits and ASCII? characters represented by numbers - I solved it by allocating A to his first group of 8 B to the second etc. which gave me a string of letters (familiar territory) which I could solve as a simple substitution - only then did I convert his binary into decimal and saw they ranged from 32 to 121 (I realise now the web converter I used was dropping all the 0's at the begining) and those starting with 00 confused matters considerably until I wrote out the decimal numbers 1 to 121 & coverted the other way to find his sequence - 97 (1100001)  for A to 122 (1111010) for Z -
What I don't understand now is that ASCII A is
decimal 65 or binary 1000001 or 8 bit 01000001
whereas 1alchemist's A was
decimal 97 or binary 1100001 or 8 bit 01100001

now i'm totally confused again - a hex on 1alchemist and I'll take another nybble at his cipher later

[Aaron]

There are different binary ranges for a-z and A-Z, and 1alchemist chose to use proper capitalization and punctuation.

[tonybaloney]

Thanks once again -

Ps. I’ve got an appointment with a shrink tomorrow at 1 o’clock – never been to one before – my doctor says I may have a form of Aspergers – I’m nearly 60 and no one ever told me before ....... tears flooding down my face......
I’m cracking up


Should have put this in the Agony Column section......

[Aaron]

Tony, I wouldn't worry too much about it as Asperger's is the high-functioning form of autism. I have reason to believe that I have it to a certain degree, as I'm very mechanical when I formulate my speech and I often feel like I'm on the outside looking in. Plus I have OCD and other mental quirks. The only real effect that it has on me is that I am much less likely to get out and be social, and my brain has a ridiculously overpowered imagination. I wish you luck with your shrink appointment, and remember that there's much worse things to have.

[tonybaloney]

Sorry for that momentary outburst - back on top - Herbert Lom (alias Dr. Corder) here I come ....

[tonybaloney]

Aaron/anyone – any joy with 1alchemist cipher and Apophos’s answer? – looking at them I think they are just too long – what kind of answer would be that long – so thinking his system is using about 4,5 or 6 letters to convey just one letter, it struck me that it might be like an LED display sign – writing the ASCII binary numbers vertically under each letter produces something similar – unfortunately it doesn’t seem to produce anything readable – I may be on the wrong track completely, so I’ve added it to my unsolved pile – the mystery remains – (to me at least).

[Aaron]

I think you have to convert everything to binary and then break it up differently when converting it back to ASCII (ie, add zeros to the left side or something).

[ACE Tech]

Aaron/anyone – any joy with 1alchemist cipher and Apophos’s answer? – looking at them I think they are just too long – what kind of answer would be that long – so thinking his system is using about 4,5 or 6 letters to convey just one letter, it struck me that it might be like an LED display sign – writing the ASCII binary numbers vertically under each letter produces something similar – unfortunately it doesn’t seem to produce anything readable – I may be on the wrong track completely, so I’ve added it to my unsolved pile – the mystery remains – (to me at least).

To rule out how many bits per character, you would first have to count the total number of bits.  If that count wasn't a multiple 5, 6, 7, 8, etc., you could rule them out as uniform packet(?) sizes.

[tonybaloney]

Point appreciated - but if I came across what looked like a periodic cipher thats characters summed to a prime number - I wouldn't rule it out as periodic - I'd look for the error he'd made

[tonybaloney]

This weeks code -
 
DRAKE                                                     VENICE July 16th 1796

D. Sir,
          I have just forwarded to 231. a letter of the utmost importance from Col. Graham to Sr. J. Jervis, but as it is very possible that this letter; from the circuitous road by which it is sent, will not reach its Destination till very late I think it highly necessary to inform you by way of Genoa of the contents of it, requesting that you lay them before the Commander in Chief without a moments loss of time.
          Col. Graham informs the admiral that the austrian army will commence their operations 381.93.85 and it is by the express desire of Marshall Wurmser the austrian Commander in Chief, that the Colonel most earnestly requests the admiral to 192.163.189.244.19. all possible 276.192.32.75.252.314.192.381.301.89.80. (124.93.244.195.175.120.15.362.262.) for the purpose of 262.32.247.140.381.177.124.284.249.351.15.148.252.163.189.246.151.138.75.83.119.250.140.192.368.260.185.32. - as the 44. 368.124.275.75.119.192.15.262.83.75.351. By 80.339.
246. The Colonel further states that the whole 35.368.124.292.346. depends on this single point & that nothing can be done without it.
          I am sure my D. Sir that the very great importance of this business will be so obvious to you that it is needless for me to add anything to what the Colonel has said on the subject.
          M. Brame will forward this to you with all possible dispatch by any King’s Ship which may be at Genoa or by some extraordinary conveyance if no ship should be in the harbour when this reaches him. I most earnestly entreat you that you may not lose a moments time in laying this Business before the admiral. I shall only add, for your’s & the admiral’s Information that I have no doubt of my being enabled in a short time to transport you some very pleasing Intelligence from hence.

adieu my D. Sir, Believe me ever sincerely yours

Commodore Nelson                                             Frances Drake

[ACE Tech]

I'm guessing those aren't IP-addresses...

[tonybaloney]

 11694756599 - thanks very much (mystery man with no name) - I take that to be the odds against my Dorabella solution being incorrect?

[ACE Tech]

11694756599 - thanks very much (mystery man with no name) - I take that to be the odds against my Dorabella solution being incorrect?

Actually, it's my handle when encoded in my middle school cipher in its simplest form.  My real name is 126251358431, but you can call me 6410608*...  

*A slightly more intense coding of the latter would be OATDW.

Cipher background info at http://www.aerobushentertainment.com/crypto/index.php?topic=63.0