In 1905 and 1906 a man named Harry sent a series of encrypted postcards to a friend named Charlie. Can a reader decipher these messages?
Tobias Schrödel is certainly known to most readers of this blog for his frequent appearances on Stern TV and as Germany’s only comedy hacker. Check here for a video of one of his performances.
On February 8, 2019, Tobias and I will give talks at the Kryptonight, an event organized by teacher Felix Brüstle at the Gymnasium Ottobrunn in Ottobrunn near Munich. Tobias and I hereby invite all readers of this blog who live in the Munich area to attend. The Kryptonight will start at 1900. Apart from the talks, there will be several showrooms. An agenda is available at the end of this article.
Nine encrypted postcards
Tobias is also a collector of encrypted postcards. He recently provided me a series of nine encrypted cards, which were sent by a certain Harry to a certain Charlie, both living in Nottingham, UK. Contrary to most other encrypted postcards, these ones were not sent by a young man to his (female) lover. It is, of course, possible (and very likely) that Harry and Charlie were young people. It is also possible that they were (homosexual) lovers. However, Charlie clearly was a man (though the name “Charlie” in general may also refer to a woman), as he is addressed as “Mr.” on the card. I guess that Harry was a man, too, though it is certainly an option that the name is a pseudonym or a short form of “Harriet”.
In the address section of the cards, Charlie is referred to as C. H. Thompson, living in 29 Broad Street in Nottingham. This place still exists and is only a ten-minutes walk away from the Cryptology Escape Room I visited in 2016.
1905-10-30
1905-11-02
1905-11-07
1905-11-11
1905-11-25
1905-12-12
1906-01-27
1906-02-07
1906-04-07
The encryption system Harry used is probably a simple letter substitution (MASC). As the spaces between the words are visible, it should be possible to solve these messages by word guessing. If you can break these cryptograms, please leave a comment.
Kryptonight in Ottobrunn
Here’s the agenda of the Kryptonight on 8 February 2019 in Ottobrunn near Munich (all talks are in German):
19:00 Uhr: Eröffnung und Grundlagenvortrag
19:30 Uhr: Erkundung der Räume
20:30 Uhr: Vortrag von Tobias Schrödel
21:30 Uhr: Pause
21:45 Uhr: Vortrag von Klaus Schmeh
22:45 Uhr: Weitere Erkundung der Räume
23:30 Uhr: Podcastaufnahme zu sicheren E-Mails
24:00 Uhr: Ende der Veranstaltung
Admission is free. If you plan to attend, please send me a mail for registration.
Follow @KlausSchmeh
Further reading: A postcard with a Sherlock Holmes type encryption
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