Cold case newspaper ad solved after eight years
Eight years ago, I first reported on a scrambled newspaper ad from the 19th century. Blog reader Jarl Van Eycke has now solved this cold case.
Eight years ago, I blogged about a scrambled newspaper ad that appeared in the Evening Standard on July 14, 1902.
Quelle/Source: Evening Standard, Schmeh
The Cold Case
Here is a transcription:
ISTW ugfu wata fnsb tirq aqdf euom usar aipt eedq qmtn
yqyu xstu rruy oias daxo fixx znqd vthm edry zrtr oida
cnde yrno iawm eonu pvet iueo rdhm zpns trmr cnxd cmdk
dxor atec rhds qiua foui trol zure dxma qusq viww yxue
wwdf nedh xdhm kyxx vmxc znqf ndyz fzif unom rqou
utro idau xdrm wedk vdsv usoq vmut snid yptr rknu nsmr
ncns snia nueo ikwm neyv trwt fidu pdxx pvqh dnom yfue
mmhm sasg movm svxu iewm cuck vmrg dahd nlda paqq
viwp nevu ywmr dbuy rodr dqba riwv znhd nudy svns
mxmw rear wqua uwye zeud exiv dekd sqid yeto nzup
ynrm ensi anmt rasn iptr rapz iaad encn nemm qyeg idka
neas zmoi qpaq rmmn senc mnad ryxn rpmd hgsu hmgg
encn ntoo surr ptqx nued oqya pngy remw rugo ywur gyqu
wzdn oyeu nusd sorq vmrc sdvn moqu vdon.
With almost 600 letters, this cryptogram offers comparatively much analysis material. My readers found out some interesting things eight years ago, especially Norbert Biermann and Thomas Ernst. Unfortunately, they still could not solve the puzzle.
Four weeks ago I blogged again about this cryptological cold case. And this time, blog reader Jarl Van Eycke found the solution. More on that in a moment.
I came across this ad (and many others) via the book “The Agony Column Codes & Ciphers” by Tony Gaffney (aka Jean Palmer).
Quelle/Source: Gaffney
Over 1,000 coded newspaper advertisements from Victorian England are listed in this work. Many of them Tony, a true master of codebreaking, has deciphered himself. Still, more than enough cryptograms remain waiting to be solved. Among the unsolved ads was originally the one we’re talking about today. Tony Gaffney himself pointed out this cryptogram to me at the time.
The solution
Already eight years ago Thomas Ernst suspected that the author of the ad used two different alphabets (i.e. substitution tables).
Quelle/Source: Ernst
Blog reader Jarl Van Eycke, known among other things as one of the three decipherers of the second Zodiac message, continued to work with this hypothesis and succeeded. On May 6, he published the solution as a comment to my 2014 article. Armin Krauß, David Oranchak, Max Bärtl and Narga helped to correct the numerous errors in the plain text.
Quelle/Source: Van Eycke
As Jarl found out, the groups of four are alternately encoded with two different tables.
Quelle/Source: Evening Standard, Schmeh
If (for example with CrypTool 2) the frequencies of the red marked and the unmarked letter groups are examined separately, the following results are obtained.
Quelle/Source: Schmeh
Both frequency distributions suggest letter substitution (MASC). This results in the following table for the part marked in red:
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ TZPOMKGVILQXERDCBNWAYHSJUF
The unmarked part is encoded as follows:
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ UPVONBGHYLWXFEDZMSRQACKJIT
Here is the plain text Jarl received after several corrections:
I WAS AGHAST AT HER PAIN BUT OH MY DEAREST I CANNOT BEAR IT I ALWAYS SAID IT WOULD KILL ME TO HAVE NO SIGN AND YOU PROMISED IT SEND EACH MAY AND NOVEMBER AN ENVELOPE OF OLD STAMPS FOR BIRTHDAY AND XMAS NO LETTER THIS SILENT TOKEN OF LOVE WILL HELP ME THROUGH MY HARDEST DAY AND YOU ALONE KNOW HOW HARD THEY ARE YOU CAN SWEAR WE NEVER WRITE AND IF SEEN I CAN SAY YOU COLLECT FOR ME I HAVE EVER URGED HER CLAIMS EVEN WHEN YOU FORGOT BUT THIS CAN CAUSE NO PAIN DO NOT PUNISH ME FOR YOUR CARELESSNESS BY TAKING MY ONLY COMFORT YOU MADE ME BURN EVERY TREASURE I CAN SUBMIT TO NEVER MEETING I OFTEN URGED IT BUT NEVER EVER TO SILENCE OF GRAVE ILL NEVER ADDRESS (CABLEANOD) BUT BEGIN MESSAGE USING IT AS (G) ORDINARY WORDS THEN PROCEED BY CODE
Like most encoded newspaper advertisements of the time, this one was used for communication between lovers.
Many thanks and congratulations to Jarl Van Eycke for another great decipherment! Thanks also to all others who contributed to the solution.
If you want to add a comment, you need to add it to the German version here.
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Further reading: Another crypto mystery solved: Tony Gaffney has broken Ernest Rinzi’s encryption code
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