Clue

[mcb]

Apr 6, 2019 12:34:48 GMT -5 foolsgold said:

Apr 6, 2019 12:13:48 GMT -5 mcb said:

This is how this clue works:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAt2_9Z5h3U

Brilliant, McB! I get it now:
"and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we began" - 52 letters

See the first and fifth word hidden and it's:
"the end of our exploring will be to arrive where we began" 

Are we there yet?

I tried this but it did not work.

[foolsgold]

Apr 6, 2019 13:14:35 GMT -5 mcb said:

Sorry, McB. It was sarcasm. Of course it didn't work.

Your video had the dog chasing its tail. Beginning and end.

[mcb]

Apr 6, 2019 13:19:20 GMT -5 foolsgold said:

Apr 6, 2019 13:14:35 GMT -5 mcb said:

Sorry, McB. It was sarcasm. Of course it didn't work.

Your video had the dog chasing its tail. Beginning and end.

To tell you the truth, my list of phrases has already surpassed many tens.

Deleting, changing, adding, reversing, swapping ...

That already made me tired. That's why I said we're like a dog running after its tail. In the present circumstances, and with the information we have, we will not get anywhere.

[foolsgold]

Since logic, clues and luck failed to produce the vigenere key for us, we are now at a point of pure brute forcing it.

I'd like to suggest a new approach to the problem for those of us who are skilled at scripting or coding.



Assumptions:

Key phrase is 52 characters long

Phrase contains 25+ letter sequences that are in the book

First and fifth words of the phrase are omitted

The rest of the phrase is as it appears in the book



With the assumptions above we should be able to use the part of a quote/phrase that is unchaged and verbatim in the book. All we have to do is pad it from the begining of the sting to form a 52-letter key.



For example:

"We must not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we began"



Let's take "...to arrive where we began", pad it to 52: "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAtoarrivewherewebegan"



Decrypt, transpose and try to find bits of legible text in the Coded Words.



Algorithm:

Take a phrase you want to test (or any set of sequential of words amounting to roughly 25 letters)

Put them in the end of the 52-character key (align right)

Pad the key phrase to 52 with filler (A, X, Z etc)

Decrypt the following with the Vigenere key from #3: SVRWYULOKKOZMIEAYULFUTIITYWBLBHKAVCAZUAUMWXCLLQFRMJMYPJLSVLCUSOKLLICSXBXACUHRBVG

Rearrange result in accordance with the final numerical sequence (two possible ways: 41 10 73 22 80 ... OR 13 22 26 35 38)

Look for words, patterns, sequences



Good Luck

[justsomerando]

There's already a small number of us doing that. The odds of brute forcing the key are very minute, the number of possible keys to try is 3.7 x 10^73. I'm getting interesting results but nothing any where near a positive solution.

The odds are literally better to try and figure the puzzle out as it is intended...

[cw]

New update:

I amended the code to my macro so that it tried keyword lengths 1 through 80. Since the macro shifts through the third section of the book one letter at a time, that means that I have a results sheet with approx 13,344,160 entries. It took a full 24 hours to run, so it is not something I can replicate in a short amount of time.

Here's what I know:

• I may still have some typos in the input text. I think the chances of a typo occuring in the spot where the keyphrase is located is slim, but possible.
  
• I ran the macro assuming the Vigenere needed to be done first, then the string re-arranged by the code on the last page ( e.g. 41, 10,73,22....) to reveal the decoded words. (This is an assumption on my part, if anyone knows better please let me know.)
  
• There still exists the likelihood that the phrase (which we know is not "word for word") could be a different length if "the first word is seen hidden and so is the fifth" means anything other than an anagram.
  
• The word "location" does not appear in any of the results. However the word "locate" appears three times.

I am not ready to share the macro file with the public as of yet, but if anyone has suggestions for words that may be in the decoded words from Fenn, I will be glad to plug them in and see what pops up. On a side note, I have found that English words with five letters or less are fairly common in the results, which is not unexpected from a statistical viewpoint. The other option is I can make a copy of the results and share that with you. Just shoot me a PM asking for it. While I think Jenny did a great job here, I am only interested in the TTOTC hunt, so how I get the words makes no difference to me.

 

[cw]

To further clarify my third bullet point....

If the phrase in the book is "the red fox jumps over the log" and using an anagram is the right type of modification, the phrase could be "eht red fox jumps vreo the log" and we could still find a mostly positive match.

If "the red fox jumps over the log" needs to be modified to "thee red fox jumps the log", it would throw off the position of all of the correctly-positioned letters in the keyphrase and the results list would show no positive matches. 

This is how I understand it anyway.

[foolsgold]

Apr 6, 2019 23:49:30 GMT -5 cw said:

To further clarify my third bullet point....

If "the red fox jumps over the log" needs to be modified to "thee red fox jumps the log", it would throw off the position of all of the correctly-positioned letters in the keyphrase and the results list would show no positive matches.

That is exactly why I suggested a different method a few posts above. It should even be easier as we're only concerned about sequences of whole consecutive words as opposed to letters.

IMO align-right approach and only using a part of the quote (it's ending) has a higher chance of putting correct characters in right positions.

Its flaws are: 1) assumption of 52 character phrase; 2) the last 24 characters of the key do not get reused in vigenere; 3) descrambled numerical sequence result won't have complete words, as partial key will result in only some of the scattered letters appearing in correct positions.

The last flaw will require a human eye to find a possible word in an alphabet soup (e.g. xRdpSwtE - treasure).

Perhaps, you or someone else could further improve this idea.


PS The final numerical sequence can be decoded in two ways direct and reverse.

One way, you put the first character of the decoded vigenere sequence into position dictated by the first number. (First decoded letter X is the 40th in the final phrase)

Alternatively, the numerical sequence dictates which Nth letter of decoded vigenere sequence to put in its places of N.
(40th decoded letter goes into the 1st position).

[brydena]

Not to get everyone more perplexed but I figure I would at least mention a thought I had. After reading Jenny's clue, I thought, "What if 52 isn't the number of letters", even though she said she would reveal the letter count and "what if it's a page number?" So I opened to page 52 and saw this
as part of the Maranatha Et in Arcadia Ego puzzle clue

March 31st
"As twice it is shown hidden to prove the worth of this book" ... which reminds me of there being possibly 2 things "seen hidden"
then, if you skip March AND April (month of the fools) you would get
May 31st
"Take the tree to the heavens to find the code of its secret message"
And of course it boggles my mind that NOBODY has revealed the answer to the tree code on 16.....Click click BANG! (HOFB)

[zaphod73491]

None of the approaches mentioned will bear fruit. Your only workable filter: 25 consecutive letters from Jenny's book (in a Fenn-relevant section) decrypting to English-like letters. It is utterly hopeless to attempt matching the Vigenere-decrypted letters of those 25 consecutive letters with English because they will be scattered all over the 80-letter message with few adjacent letters.

[foolsgold]

Apr 7, 2019 1:14:22 GMT -5 zaphod73491 said:

It is utterly hopeless to attempt matching the Vigenere-decrypted letters of those 25 consecutive letters with English because they will be scattered all over the 80-letter message with few adjacent letters.

I agree with your statement and did mention it as a flaw. If you approach if from frequency analysis standpoint, there's nothing you can do.

However, look at Jenny's last 25 numbers:  9 33 72 55 37 15 58 75 66 43 74 68 59 16 46 34 18 77 63 44 64 78 38 47 48


Some neighboring numbers, especially the 40s and 60s, once turned into letters, might let a human figure out a possible word from the partial.

33 34 38
43 44 46 47 48
55 58 59
63 64 66 68

EDIT: I was wrong trying to look at the last 25 numbers of the 80. I should be looking for neighbors in the 27-52 range.

[zaphod73491]

Apr 7, 2019 1:38:11 GMT -5 foolsgold said:

Apr 7, 2019 1:14:22 GMT -5 zaphod73491 said:

It is utterly hopeless to attempt matching the Vigenere-decrypted letters of those 25 consecutive letters with English because they will be scattered all over the 80-letter message with few adjacent letters.

I agree with your statement and did mention it as a flaw. If you approach if from frequency analysis standpoint, there's nothing you can do.

However, look at Jenny's last 25 numbers:  9 33 72 55 37 15 58 75 66 43 74 68 59 16 46 34 18 77 63 44 64 78 38 47 48


Some neighboring numbers, especially the 40s and 60s, once turned into letters, might let a human figure out a possible word from the partial.

33 34 38


43 44 46 47 48


55 58 59


63 64 66 68

It doesn't seem like you have considered that there are two possibilities for the final descrambling method.

[foolsgold]

Just so we're clear the possible descrambling sequences are as follows, correct?

41 10 73 22 80 28 76 6 32 53 61 19 1 36 56 23 65 40 13 67 29 2 21 45 39 3 79 51 49 24 27 11 17 69 4 71 50 5 30 57 25 7 60 35 12 20 8 70 52 26 62 42 14 54 31 9 33 72 55 37 15 58 75 66
43 74 68 59 16 46 34 18 77 63 44 64 78 38 47 48


13 22 26 35 38 8 42 47 56 2 32 45 19 53 61 69 33 72 12 46 23 4 16 30 41 50 31 6 21 39 55 9 57 71 44 14 60 78 25 18 1 52 65 75 24 70 79 80 29 37 28 49 10 54 59 15 40 62 68 43 11 51 74 76 17 64 20 67 34 48 36 58 3 66 63 7 73 77 27 5

[foolsgold]

Well, I guess, my methodology, as flawed or amateur as it was, helped me decode the words.

Here I am sitting on my birthday at 5 o'clock in the morning, grinning, happy.


I am gratefull to Jenny for the given clue, even though I still don't fully understand it. ("...so is the fifth" part)

The length of the key (52) helped. My assumption/deduction that I made a few posts above, actually, helped.
I worked backwards from 52nd symbol using 25-letter partial phrases from the Quote that seemed special to me.
Decoded Vigenere produced OTOTTHOOVHUNBMRTPHPEBUEHY. When descrambled, I could see some potential words forming
among the numbers that were adjacent or close to each other. I made some conjectures and concluded that Vigenere
decoding had some potential to be correct. After that I tried to expand the partial key phrase I used by adding
more words from the quote to the left. I added a word and then tested the result again. To my surprise, gaps were
filling in and after a few trials and errors I have figured out the complete key phrase which was:

Hidden Somewhere In The Mountains North Of Santa Fe, New Mexico


Decrypted Vigenere is (Forrest being Forrest):

"If you are in the right spot something you probably havent thought about should be obvious to you"


Enjoy!


PS Using the spotlight I'd like to express my desire to copulate with those who broke the code months ago and kept it to themselves. Forrest's words of wisdom, essentially equating to "Wherever you go - there you are," were simply not worth the frustration and aggravation of all the people who spent hours trying to break the code.

PPS Jenny, if you find my post scriptum a bit harsh, feel free to edit it.

[heidini]

Apr 7, 2019 5:41:28 GMT -5 foolsgold said:

Well, I guess, my methodology, as flawed or amateur as it was, helped me decode the words.

Here I am sitting on my birthday at 5 o'clock in the morning, grinning, happy.


I am gratefull to Jenny for the given clue, even though I still don't fully understand it. ("...so is the fifth" part)

The length of the key (52) helped. My assumption/deduction that I made a few posts above, actually, helped.
I worked backwards from 52nd symbol using 25-letter partial phrases from the Quote that seemed special to me.
Decoded Vigenere produced OTOTTHOOVHUNBMRTPHPEBUEHY. When descrambled, I could see some potential words forming
among the numbers that were adjacent or close to each other. I made some conjectures and concluded that Vigenere
decoding had some potential to be correct. After that I tried to expand the partial key phrase I used by adding
more words from the quote to the left. I added a word and then tested the result again. To my surprise, gaps were
filling in and after a few trials and errors I have figured out the complete key phrase which was:

Hidden Somewhere In The Mountains North Of Santa Fe, New Mexico


Decrypted Vigenere is (Forrest being Forrest):

"If you are in the right spot something you probably havent thought about should be obvious to you"


Enjoy!


PS Using the spotlight I'd like to express my desire to copulate with those who broke the code months ago and kept it to themselves. Forrest's words of wisdom, essentially equating to "Wherever you go - there you are," were simply not worth the frustration and aggravation of all the people who spent hours trying to break the code.

PPS Jenny, if you find my post scriptum a bit harsh, feel free to edit it.

So first- happy birthday! And second- you already know. Change that sentiment! Remember this is like jenny’s living room. If you wouldn’t say it to her face, you shouldn’t say it here. I do appreciate your attempt though- made me smile with surprise.