WoR Chapter 84 code

[Fabrial]

Satsuoni, I'll put a link to the first page of this thread, do you think you could update your first post with all the clues from page 2 of the discussion so anyone coming here from Reddit has all the facts?

 

EDIT: /r/crypto is the wrong place for it so I've put it here:

http://www.reddit.com/r/codes/comments/1zpgme/help_with_code_from_brandon_sandersons_newest/

 

If the first post gets updated with everything we think we know I'll remove the epigraphs from the Reddit post to make it clearer. Have I left anything out that would be useful for them to know? I've asked for clues rather than a solution, they might be able to tell us what kind of clue to look for in the book.

Edited March 6, 2014 by Fabrial

[Satsuoni]

Not from the phone, but in a few hours.

[Pattern]

@ Emmi:

 
 

Nice summary. It contains lot of stuff, that occured during substituting numbers to letters - especially the "101112". But, with letters I didn't come along.

I am quite sure, that repetitions of number series are not random. At least the longer ones. They could represent words, without forming them via letters.

 

Palindromes is a new idea - i think nobody in this thread has had it before. It's worth looking into!

 

What about Palindromes representing glyphs? Glyphs are symmetrical, I think and we have some glyphs written/drawn in the book.

 

The third appearance of 101112 is overlapping with the first 1112341.

Edited March 6, 2014 by Pattern

[Harakeke]

What about Palindromes representing glyphs? Glyphs are symmetrical, I think and we have some glyphs written/drawn in the book.

 

Not enough to build a key off of, I think. All we really have are Kaladin's tatoos, some noble house glyph pairs, and to a limited extent the essence/surge glyphs.

 

For the same reasons that Navani's notebook uses English words written with Alethi letters, I think the code is ultimately based in English as well.

[Voidus]

That 101112 is interesting, 10,11 and 12 so it could be sequential letters, 6-digits long and 6 digits before it's first appearance, 12 digits after the last, 24 digits between the second to last and last appearance

[Pattern]

Not enough to build a key off of, I think. All we really have are Kaladin's tatoos, some noble house glyph pairs, and to a limited extent the essence/surge glyphs.

 

For the same reasons that Navani's notebook uses English words written with Alethi letters, I think the code is ultimately based in English as well.

 

Right, I'm getting inconsistent. Arguments against Alethi letters apply of course also to glyphs.

[Fabrial]

AhbuttheywereleftbehindItisobviousfromthenatureofthebondButwherewherewhereSetoffObviousRealizationlikeapricity

TheyarewiththeShinWemustfindoneCanwemaketouseaTruthlessCanwecraftaweapon

-          From the Diagram, Floorboard 17: paragraph 2, every second letter starting with the first

 

TherehastobeananswerWhatistheanswerStopTheParshendiOneofthemYestheyarethemissingpiecePushfortheAlethi

todestroythemoutrightbeforethisoneobtainstheirpowerItwillformabridge

-          From the Diagram, Floorboard 17: Paragraph 2, every second letter starting with the second

 

These lines would have been mingled in the Diagram like

AThhbeurtethhaesytwoebreealneafnts....looks very gibberish, but isn't.

 

Perhaps this has to be applied to decoded

11182510111271249151210101114102151171121011121713

44831110715142541434109161491493412122541010125

1271015191011123412551152512157551112341011129151

21061534

 

I'm still super suspicious of this. Why aren't they the same length? It MUST tell us something about the way the characters are arranged from number format. It does tell us that they're not all pairs like we've assumed in places. ie you can't just break the decimal numbers up into pairs then use them as letters.

Edited March 6, 2014 by Fabrial

[Harakeke]

Right, I'm getting inconsistent. Arguments against Alethi letters apply of course also to glyphs.

 

And to Frostish.   Though if somebody wants to give that a try, by all means...

 

 

I'm still super suspicious of this. Why aren't they the same length? It MUST tell us something about the way the characters are arranged from number format. It does tell us that they're not all pairs like we've assumed in places. ie you can't just break the decimal numbers up into pairs then use them as letters.

 

Yeah, that's a great point. I hate to say it, but now I'm wondering how the lengths would work out if you were to write those passages out in Alethi...  Or maybe there were dummy characters that were left out of the decrypted text.

 

 

We should probably also keep in mind (per Peter's post) that whatever the cipher algorithm is, it's something that can be applied to other languages as well without being a huge headache.

Edited March 6, 2014 by harakeke

[Pattern]

While the forum was down I had some time to read. In Taravangians interlude it gets clear that the diagram consists of sketches, strings of numbers and many lines written in Taravangian's invented script. The key to this script was carved into the bedside table by Taravangian himself, so that the diagram could be deciphered.  Notations in the books then are in Alethi woman-script.

 

So, obviously we cannot assume that every epigraph has been coded the same way as our Code.

The questions that arise are: Why did T. write something in plaintext (in his invented script, for more precise language) and other stuff coded as a number. What did he want to hide, why did he want to hide it, whom did he want to hide it from?

 

Answers to these questions - or probable guesses - could help with decoding.

Edited March 6, 2014 by Pattern

[Satsuoni]

The simplest, yet not really helpful guess would be that he was so far in the zone that he slipped into code automatically now and then . I know that to be a problem from the time I still understood higher math. The only way that could help is to rule out transposition as somewhat less probable - unless he wrote in a spiral or something.

[Pattern]

Additionally, the translations from Taravangians language to Alethi to English could result in the different lenghts of the messages from 

Floorboard 17, Paragraph 2.

 

The possibility to encode the translated text in every other language hints to a letter to number substitution and not something like a word to number or syllable to number encryption. Although that would be possible, it would be quite complicated to perform.

Also a mapping to text positions would make a hard time for translators.

Grammar of languages could also be a problem, so that word mappings would yield grammatical nonesense.

 

I think there is a mapping (plaintext string) -->(ciphertext string of digits) without the neccessity to work on the whole translated book.

Edited March 6, 2014 by Pattern

[Fabrial]

Letter pairs 'ch' or 'sh' or 'th'? Some kind of phonetic spelling of words shortening certain parts?

 

What was that mention of his funny spellling of 'Parshendi' that one of the characters mentioned? Was it Shallan? There were three different words that made no sense together but when combined they reasoned he meant Parshendi. Is that a clue? I don't have my book with me to look it up.

 

The length of those three words when uncombined might be much greater than when concatenated to Parshendi. This could make up our difference in lengths from the floorboard 17 texts.

 

Edit: Oooo! The second one has the word Parshendi in it and it's the shorter of the two floorboard 17 quotes. If we substitute parshendi for that three word concatenation, do the lengths of the two segments match up!?! If so, that would tell us that the cipertext for all letters is the same length.

 

 

TherehastobeananswerWhatistheanswerStopTheParshendiOneofthemYestheyarethemissingpiecePushfortheAlethi

todestroythemoutrightbeforethisoneobtainstheirpowerItwillformabridge

 

Also, can we assume that the ciphertext for a capital is different to a lower case since they're showing up? Or do we try to find a frequently occuring piece of ciphertext which when prefixing another letter makes it into a capital? Since there's no punctuation they're essential to sentence structure and we know they're there.

 

EDIT2:

I think there is a mapping (plaintext string) -->(ciphertext string of digits) without the neccessity to work on the whole translated book.

 

That makes sense. I agree. I think the translation for non-English books is a big clue.

Edited March 6, 2014 by Fabrial

[Pattern]

AhbuttheywereleftbehindItisobviousfromthenatureofthebondButwherewherewhereSetoffObviousRealizationlikeapricity

TheyarewiththeShinWemustfindoneCanwemaketouseaTruthlessCanwecraftaweapon

-          From the Diagram, Floorboard 17: paragraph 2, every second letter starting with the first

 

TherehastobeananswerWhatistheanswerStopTheParshendiOneofthemYestheyarethemissingpiecePushfortheAlethi

todestroythemoutrightbeforethisoneobtainstheirpowerItwillformabridge

-          From the Diagram, Floorboard 17: Paragraph 2, every second letter starting with the second

 

 

AhabersiewurdenzurückgelassenDurchdiebeschaffenheitderverbindungistesoffensichtilichAberwowowoBetonungOffensichtlich

ErkenntniswiediewärmederwintersonneSiesindbeidenShinWirmüsseneinsfindenSchaffenwireseinenUnwahrenzubenutzen

Könnenwireinewaffeschmieden

 

EsmusseineantwortgebenWasistdieantwort?HalteDieParshendiaufEinervonihnenJasiesinddasfehlendegliedDrängedieAlethisie

sofortzuzerstörenbevordiesereineihremachterlangt.Siewirdeinebrückebilden.

 

There's a rather sloppy translation to German. As you see, the lenght of the messages differs even more. Had I used synonyms, again different lenghts would have resulted...

Edited March 6, 2014 by Pattern

[marianmi]

Is anyone considering using the caps letters in the plaintext somehow?

[Fabrial]

Is anyone considering using the caps letters in the plaintext somehow?

 

I had considered that if we actually have two interleaved codes here then the first two letters would be capitals since all of the other decoded passages start with capitals. I didn't get any further than that.

 

If you want to delve deeper, use this:

http://regexr.com?38ent

 

You can paste in your sentence and it will delete everything except the capitals.

 

Are we sure we've got all the clues? Is there any place where a character reads out part of the diagram?

Edited March 6, 2014 by Fabrial

[Rust and Ruin]

I apparently had nothing to say that hadn't already been said.

Edited March 6, 2014 by Rust and Ruin

[Krenn]

maybe if we used the even/odd stream of text as a one-time pad somehow, adding it's values to the numerical values in the code.... ???

this puzzle is driving me crazy.

[Fabrial]

I re-interleaved the two floorboard 17 texts to see if it helped or provided a hidden message. Nope :*(

 

TAhhebruethtahsetyowbeeraenlaenfstwbeerhWihnadtIitsitshoebavnisowuesrfSrtoomptTh
heenPaatrusrheeonfdtihOenbeoonfdtBhuetmwYheesrtehwehyearreewthheermeiSsestionfgf
pOibevcieoPuussRhefaolritzhaetAiloentlhiikteoadpersitcriotyytThheemyoaurterwiigt
hhttbheefSohrientWheimsuosntefoibntdaoinnesCtahnewiermpaokweetroIutsweialTlrfuot
rhmlaebsrsiCdagnew

 

The remainder from the long one was:

ecraftaweapon

 

I'm grasping at straws now I think.

Edited March 6, 2014 by Fabrial

[Satsuoni]

I've added some discussion points into OP, but can't think clearly anymore...

[Krenn]

maybe if we used the even/odd stream of text as a one-time pad somehow, adding it's values to the numerical values in the code.... ???

this puzzle is driving me crazy.

ok, took the first 10 number pairs from the code. then i took the first ten letters of the even text message, the odd text message, and the interleaved text message, and converted them into their ASCII decimal number.

 

taking the first 10 number pairs, and adding or subtracting them from the ASCII version of the even/odd/interleaved text messages, then converting from numeric to ASCII....

and i get nothing intelligible.

I tried taking the last six digits of the code numbers, converting to binary, then breaking up the binary into ASCII bytes, and reading it that way... again, nothing intelligible. 

i didn't bother repeating that process for the ENTIRE message, checking the first or last words seemed enough for a preliminary check.  I've got nothing.

maybe it's a book code, and we're supposed to use the numbers to look up certain letters (X) spaces from the beginning?

[Krenn]

maybe it's a book code, and we're supposed to use the numbers to look up certain letters (X) spaces from the beginning?

 

tried sorting the code into paired numbers, then counting that many characters forward in the odd/even/interleaved text.... nothing intelligible. this is driving me crazy.

[Kurkistan]

And to Frostish.   Though if somebody wants to give that a try, by all means...

 

Well that's cool. Mind posting a thread for that so you can get the people's attention with more of your absurd abilities to decipher things? (though, to be fair, that one was likely easier because you could probably assume Alethkar and the city/place names)

[Lomeon]

Patterns.

 

That 101112 is interesting, 10,11 and 12 so it could be sequential letters, 6-digits long and 6 digits before it's first appearance, 12 digits after the last, 24 digits between the second to last and last appearance

 

 

Using this, I found a massive (length 13) palindrome towards the end:

 

111825-101112-7124915121010111410215117112-101112-17134483111071514254143410916149149341212254101012512710

-151-9-101112-34-12-5511-52512157-5511-12-34-101112-9-151-

21061534

 

Am heading full speed towards a dead end, or is this significant?

 

*edit: 1-5-1=151

Edited March 6, 2014 by Lomeon

[Pattern]

Since I the thread becomes quite long, I collect the passages from the epigraphs which could be interesting.

I leave out the every 2nd-letter messages.

 

 

Obviously they are fools The Desolation needs no usher It can and

will sit where it wishes and the signs are obvious that the spren an-

ticipate it doing so soon. The Ancient of Stones must finally begin

to crack It is a wonder that upon his will rested the prosperity and

peace of a world for over four millennia

 

2nd Ceiling Rotation: pattern 1

 

 

11182510111271249151210101114102151171121011121713

44831110715142541434109161491493412122541010125

1271015191011123412551152512157551112341011129151

21061534

 

2nd Ceiling Rotation pattern 15

 

Assuming the Diagram is somewhat coherent, the content of the code should relate

to pattern 1. The problem here: patterns 2-14 are missing.

 

Considering capital letters: capitals in pattern 1 are used at the beginning of a sentence

an in names. So it's "The Desolation" and "The Ancient of Stones" (Talenel)

[Aminar]

That seems relevent... But I'm not sure what to do with it. Good catch...