So far only partially solved: The Ghostemane cryptogram
Two years ago, Cipherbrain reader Christof Rieber partially deciphered a cryptogram of US musician Ghostemane. According to the manager, however, the main part of the puzzle is still unsolved.
Three years ago, I blogged about a cryptographic challenge by US musician Ghostemane.
Quelle/Source: The Come Up Show
This cryptogram was published as part of an article in the rock and heavy metal magazine “Revolver” (February/March 2019). Tim Smith, Ghostemane’s manager, gave me permission to publish this challenge on my blog at that time. Here it is again:
Quelle/Source: Ghostemane
As you can see, we are dealing with an alphabet that contains considerably more than 26 letters. One letter per column is marked with a red dot.
The solution
Just three days after my article appeared, Cipherbrain reader Christof Rieber presented a solution.
Quelle/Source: Christof Rieber
As Christof found out, the following message can be found in the Ghostemane cryptogram:
FRAME DECODE AT GMAIL DOT COM
The decryption method works as follows:
- In each column, the position of the symbol marked in red is determined (there is exactly one such symbol per column).
- The position of this symbol corresponds to a letter of the alphabet (1=A, 2=B, 3=C, etc.).
- The plain text is read from left to right.
For example, the sixth symbol in the first column is marked in red, which means that the first letter is an F. The 18th letter in the second column is also marked, which corresponds to an R.
In this form of encryption, only a few of the symbols have any meaning at all. Moreover, the meaning depends only on the position and not on the symbol itself. Some readers therefore suspected that Christof’s decryption is only part of the solution.
The plaintext is an e-mail address: framedecode@gmail.com. Christof Rieber sent an email there and received a confirmation that he had found the correct solution. Cipherbrain reader Shaqmeister also found the solution, wrote an email and received a confirmation.
The tweet
Craig Bauer thankfully pointed out to me that the Ghostemane manager in question, Tim Smith, recently posted the following tweet:
Quelle/Source: Twitter
This tweet confirms what some had already suspected: In addition to the encrypted email address, this cryptogram contains another message (or even several). Apparently, no one has found it yet.
What is behind it? It could be that Ghostemane used a homophonic cipher. Or it could be a monoalphabetic substitution (MASC), where not only the 26 uppercase letters, but also lowercase letters, numbers and punctuation marks get their own symbol. In the latter case, however, I would expect more letter duplications.
It is also unclear whether you have to read from left to right or from top to bottom. Perhaps it also goes backwards or in alternating directions. In any case, a transcription would be helpful.
Can any reader say more about this puzzle?
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Further reading: Yet another Zodiac copycat message: The Albany Letter
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