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Post by zaphod73491 on Feb 17, 2019 15:31:59 GMT -5
That would perhaps be a good question for Jenny: is the Vigenere keyphrase derived from one of the solutions to one of her other 20-odd puzzles in the book (per McB's example)? I've tried them all and I'm pretty sure the answer is no unless it's the solution to the tree puzzle which I haven't solved.
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Post by harrytruman on Feb 17, 2019 16:42:59 GMT -5
Zaphod, my guess is still what you and fennster wrote above: it's some phrase (not "obscure" but also not "obvious") located in the third section of the book. I'm re-reading that section, slowly, as I have time, looking for any indications of what it might be.
Apparently knowing the number of letters would help narrow it down, but I don't know if that means we're looking for something on the shorter side or the longer.
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Post by brydena on Feb 17, 2019 18:08:12 GMT -5
That’s the trouble with the option to blog about this stuff. I know you guys have already tried using the solutions in the Vigenere so therefore I refuse to. But just so you know I have already done many of the quotes near the back of the book. If I get a stream of letters that look promising, which there haven’t been, I plug in 41, 10, 73, etc to see if it starts to spell out a word. Usually I get something like “thrp” or “hn...” and then I stop.
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mcb
Junior Member
Posts: 68
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Post by mcb on Feb 17, 2019 18:34:56 GMT -5
That’s the trouble with the option to blog about this stuff. I know you guys have already tried using the solutions in the Vigenere so therefore I refuse to. But just so you know I have already done many of the quotes near the back of the book. If I get a stream of letters that look promising, which there haven’t been, I plug in 41, 10, 73, etc to see if it starts to spell out a word. Usually I get something like “thrp” or “hn...” and then I stop. I also use this method when the result is mostly used English letters, with no result ... yet.
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Post by fennster on Feb 17, 2019 18:48:40 GMT -5
One thing I have noticed is that most of the phrases I try end up with lots of q's, x's and z's. That gives us two possible conclusions. One is that this phrase just happens to have a lot of those letters with final Forrest Coded Words phrase like "quickly buzzing boxes". The second possibility that I'd like to hear from zap or mcb is does having a key phrase with a lot of x's, z's, and q's make it less likely that the output of the Vigenere cipher will not have those letters?
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mcb
Junior Member
Posts: 68
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Post by mcb on Feb 17, 2019 19:23:52 GMT -5
One thing I have noticed is that most of the phrases I try end up with lots of q's, x's and z's. That gives us two possible conclusions. One is that this phrase just happens to have a lot of those letters with final Forrest Coded Words phrase like "quickly buzzing boxes". The second possibility that I'd like to hear from zap or mcb is does having a key phrase with a lot of x's, z's, and q's make it less likely that the output of the Vigenere cipher will not have those letters? I consider the incidence of each letter in the result. If there are many "k - j - x - q - z", or few "e - t - a - o - i - n", I consider the result to be invalid. Normal English letters. 12.70% E 09.06% T 08.17% A 07.51% O 06.97% I 06.75% N 06.33% S 06.09% H 05.99% R 04.25% D 04.03% L 02.78% C 02.76% U 02.41% M 02.36% W 02.23% F 02.02% G 01.97% Y 01.93% P 01.49% B 00.98% V 00.77% K 00.15% J 00.15% X 00.10% Q 00.07% Z
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Post by fennster on Feb 17, 2019 23:27:12 GMT -5
Wondering if the closeness of "Get your quest on with WM" and "QUESTiONs WITH Forrest Fenn" has any significance.
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Post by ironwill on Feb 18, 2019 10:09:59 GMT -5
Wondering if the closeness of "Get your quest on with WM" and "QUESTiONs WITH Forrest Fenn" has any significance. Im gonna jump back in the book today and see if anything jumps back out at me lol
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Post by redraven on Feb 18, 2019 23:27:43 GMT -5
I was wondering if anyone has confirmed the solve for the magic square? Could be why our Vignere Cipher results aren't making sense when arranged back into the code for the FF message.
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Post by zaphod73491 on Feb 19, 2019 1:50:38 GMT -5
Redraven: yes, Jenny has confirmed we have the correct letter sequence.
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Post by redraven on Feb 19, 2019 6:23:46 GMT -5
Redraven: yes, Jenny has confirmed we have the correct letter sequence. Really? Darn it. I must have missed something. I have the sequence of the letters too. But it seems like the Magic Square has quite a few variables that gives the same equation as 34. It isn't a constant.
16 2 3 13
5 11 10 8 9 7 6 12 4 14 15 1
then
8 11 14 1 13 2 7 12 3 16 9 6 10 5 4 15
then there's
1 15 14 4
10 11 8 5 7 6 9 12 16 2 3 13
I am still stuck on which Magic Square is the accurate sequence trial and error part. So many variables, especially the only way to check is getting accurate key phrase to check if all the letters once are correct by punching in several possible key phrases and then referring back to the very last numeric sequence of the coded message.
The possibilities right now seem infinite. I envy the person who has honed in on cracking the coded message. I know ciphers and decoding takes a long time. And that's part of the thrill of the challenge of cracking for the pros. But for a newbie dipping into the cryptography pool....whew...this is a lot. Is it end of March yet?
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Post by zaphod73491 on Feb 19, 2019 13:19:36 GMT -5
Hi RedRaven: on the magic square, for a 4x4 of the numbers 1-16, there are many solutions. But only one spells out THRILL OF THE CHASE. Alternatively, knowing that the scrambled phrase in the magic square is THRILL OF THE CHASE, there are 48 ways of spelling out that phrase (due to the duplicate letters) but only one that yields a magic square. But even with that, there are two ways of interpreting that completed magic square as far as ordering the 16 puzzle pieces. Exact same problem with the interpretation of the final 80 numbers.
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Post by redraven on Feb 20, 2019 2:48:26 GMT -5
Hi RedRaven: on the magic square, for a 4x4 of the numbers 1-16, there are many solutions. But only one spells out THRILL OF THE CHASE. Alternatively, knowing that the scrambled phrase in the magic square is THRILL OF THE CHASE, there are 48 ways of spelling out that phrase (due to the duplicate letters) but only one that yields a magic square. But even with that, there are two ways of interpreting that completed magic square as far as ordering the 16 puzzle pieces. Exact same problem with the interpretation of the final 80 numbers. Touché! Thank you. I got lost in all of it.
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Post by zaphod73491 on Feb 21, 2019 1:52:17 GMT -5
How do I message Jenny to find out if my solution is correct so far? I heard she will verify correct steps taken... No need to contact Jenny -- just look up above in this thread (you will have to go back quite a few pages because it was quite a while ago). The correct letter sequence is there -- starts with SVRWY ULOKK OZMIE...
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Post by harrytruman on Feb 26, 2019 11:51:31 GMT -5
I think finding "typos" will put us on the right track. I also caught "father" instead of "farther" on p. 109, and I'm pretty sure there are more prior to Part 3, I just didn't keep track. (I'm still re-reading Part 3.)
I'm not sure I agree that the "typos" on p. 116 and p. 117 should be taken in isolation, though.
I also suspect that some of these (maybe those before Part 3) are tied to the "forgotten word."
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