2/27/13 Top Menu image...

[brianman]

@efusco - Yup. Some of the letters/characters don't exist for all versions of braille I looked up. No matter which way I flip or rotate it, some of them don't line up.

I presumed this is another one of those "we intentionally screwed up some characters to see if you could see through the noise for the message". Kind of like the "we did decryption instead of encryption" case a bit back. I got bored with it so figured I'd wait til the next one.

 

[PureAmps]

I presumed this is another one of those "we intentionally screwed up some characters to see if you could see through the noise for the message". Kind of like the "we did decryption instead of encryption" case a bit back. I got bored with it so figured I'd wait til the next one.

Yep, I already hit my per-clue time quota on this one as well. I think we are on the right track, but there are either misspelled words or other tricks that defeat any simple analysis. We already jumped the shark, but now I think "clue fatigue" has officially set in....

 

[DrComputer]

The Teslive user posted something in the Tesla Norway Event thread in Norwegian and changed her picture to Felicity Huffman with some strange mountains behind her. This seems to give us a clue that it might be some sort of Huffman code and maybe written in Norwegian? I looked for pictures of Norway mountains and they look closer to the ones in the picture. Just my guess.

 

[Beavis]

I believe the mountain in the background is the Matterhorn.

 

[Johan]

OK. I'm back from a great holiday in Dubai (Man did I see a lot of cool cars there, though none electric all V10's and 12's, Lambos, Ferraris etc. etc).

So catching up on this thread. I agree it's Huffman coding (Teslive's pic being Felicity Huffman for a while is quite obvious, right?). Also the 00's being space I'm all with, and going forth with rlpm's decode I would also agree that the "w" is very likely a period. Now, for the remaining letters/symbols I'm thinking that the "above 26-ones" (decoded as numbers) could be capital letters. It could also be that some letters are coded by more than one binary number??? Just to make things trickier? Working on some substitution I've come up with some possible bits-and-pieces, but nothing worth posting just yet... Also I think the 3rd word from the end is a number, I'm guessing something like "he needs xxx pieces/parts more"

 

[keys]

Okay, I tried something. Based on the histogram of letters in combination with the letter frequency of the English language I made a likelihood scan of the word 'the'. I took quite a large margin but ended up with two possibilities. Maybe someone else can do a similar scan?

I assumed that there may not be a space character the following table:

[FONT=courier new]   t     h    e
  00  1100   00 
 100  0111  100
1100  0110 1100
0111 11111 0111
0110 11101
     11011
     11010
[/FONT]

A little sweeping later i found:

--- FOUND ONE ---
     1     3     4


         186        2763


--- FOUND ONE ---
     1     5     1


         339        1566


--- FOUND ONE ---
     1     5     3


        1422


--- FOUND ONE ---
     1     7     4


        2640


--- FOUND ONE ---
     2     1     1


  Columns 1 through 3


         295         434         769


  Columns 4 through 6


        1325        1413        1584


  Columns 7 through 9


        1937        2077        2178


  Columns 10 through 11


        2414        2591


--- FOUND ONE ---
     2     1     2


   595


--- FOUND ONE ---
     2     1     3


   985


--- FOUND ONE ---
     2     2     1


  Columns 1 through 3


         472         723         837


  Columns 4 through 6


        1033        1256        1865


  Columns 7 through 9


        2065        2541        2678


--- FOUND ONE ---
     2     2     2


         604        1441


--- FOUND ONE ---
     2     3     1


         118        1828        2196


--- FOUND ONE ---
     2     5     3


        1661


--- FOUND ONE ---
     3     1     1


         989        1499


--- FOUND ONE ---
     3     3     1


        1472


--- FOUND ONE ---
     3     3     2


        1431


--- FOUND ONE ---
     3     5     3


        1373


--- FOUND ONE ---
     5     2     2


        2766


--- FOUND ONE ---
     5     3     2


         108        1023


--- FOUND ONE ---
     5     7     1


        1311        2383

And assuming the word 'the' is quite common, there are two possibilities:

t = 100
h = 1100 or 0111
e = 00

Maybe it helps?

--edit--
added code:

% try to find the string 'the'str = '101111001 100 00 01011100 100 101111000 1011111 111111 11110 00 1011111 11010 0111 00 101001 11011 01011111 0110 0110 100 0110 00 010001 111001 101000 00 10110 01001 00 111000 100 01001 00 0110 0111 10110 0111 00 111000 100 01001 00 111111 11010 1100 00 01001 111000 111001 10111101 0111 100 00 100 1100 00 101001 11011 101110 111111 0110 00 11101 00 111111 010110 100 11011 10101 010000 00 11111001 11101 111111 111111 00 1100 10110 100 1100 00 1111101 11101 11011 10101 100 0111 00 11010 010110 00 10101 100 01010 00 111000 100 01001 00 010110 11101 11011 00 11110 100 1100 10101 100 00 11110 100 1100 100 0111 100 010000 00 01011110 11010 1100 11110 111111 111000 100 00 1100 111001 101000 0111 00 10101 101110 00 11110 100 0111 00 1011111 010110 11101 11011 111111 100 1100 00 010110 100 0111 11110 111000 10110 1100 00 10101 100 00 100 0111 00 111111 11010 1100 00 10101 101110 00 101001 10110 0111 100 11110 11011 111001 101000 00 1100 10110 100 00 1111101 100 10101 0111 100 00 100 1100 1100 00 1100 111001 10111101 0110 0110 100 0111 00 101001 10110 0111 00 111001 101000 00 1011111 111000 100 11011 010001 100 00 01010 100 01001 00 1011111 100 0111 010000 00 11111001 111001 10111101 0111 00 111000 100 01001 00 101001 10110 0111 11011 11010 0110 100 0111 00 111000 100 01001 00 01010 111001 101000 00 0110 11010 00 100 1100 00 1111101 100 11110 11011 101110 0110 1100 11101 1100 01001 00 10110 01010 00 100 1100 00 11101 1100 0110 100 0111 100 11110 11110 11010 1100 0110 00 101001 101110 1100 1100 00 111000 100 01001 00 01001 111000 10110 0111 10101 100 00 11101 00 10101 100 1100 00 01010 100 111111 11010 1100 11101 11110 111111 100 00 11110 0110 100 11101 1100 11110 010001 0111 101110 0110 010000 00 11111001 10110 0111 00 0110 11101 10101 11011 11101 01001 00 111001 101000 00 11110 100 00 10110 01010 00 10101 100 0110 00 111111 10110 01010 01010 100 0111 00 0110 11101 11011 00 111001 101000 00 1111101 11011 11101 00 100 1100 00 1100 01011111 0110 0110 11101 01001 00 10110 010001 010001 10101 11010 01001 100 11011 11110 100 00 100 11011 11011 100 0111 00 100 1100 00 0110 10110 0110 11010 11011 00 101001 11101 11010 11110 111111 10110 1111100011 00 01010 100 1100 00 10101 100 0110 00 010110 11101 11011 00 010110 111001 1111100010 0111 100 00 01010 10110 0111 11110 10110 01010 0110 00 101110 11010 1100 11110 100 0110 0110 010000 00 111110000 11101 11011 00 0110 11010 00 0110 101110 0111 100 1100 00 0110 11101 11011 00 10101 11101 1100 00 1111101 100 11110 0110 100 101001 11010 0111 11110 00 01010 100 11110 0110 100 0111 00 01011110 11011 11101 1100 11010 01010 100 1100 00 01010 100 1100 11110 00 10101 101110 00 11010 0111 1111101 100 11101 10101 100 0111 00 010001 111001 101000 00 10101 11101 1100 00 010111011 01011100 010111010 00 0110 0111 100 101001 11010 11110 100 00 010001 11011 11010 1100 010000';
 
% s1 = possible t (format ' #')
% s2 = possible h (format ' #')
% s3 = possible e (format ' # ')
 
s1 = {' 00',
      ' 100',
      ' 1100',
      ' 0111',
      ' 0110'};
s2 = {' 1100',
      ' 0111',
      ' 0110',
      ' 11111',
      ' 11101',
      ' 11011',
      ' 11010'};
s3 = {' 00 ',
      ' 100 ',
      ' 1100 ',
      ' 0111 '};
 
l1 = length(s1);
l2 = length(s2);
l3 = length(s3);
 
for i = 1 : length(s1)
    for j = 1 : length(s2)
        for k = 1 : length(s3)
            pattern = strcat(s1{i},s2{j},s3{k});
            q = strfind(str, pattern);
            
            if ~isempty(q)
                disp('--- FOUND ONE ---');
                disp([i, j, k]);
                disp(q);
            end
        end
    end
end

 

[TEG]

Huffman Encoding Algorithm

Huffman coding - Rosetta Code

Tools/HuffmanEncoder

Interactive Dynamic Huffman Coding

 

[Beavis]

Not to throw a monkey wrench in the analysis, but the Swiss mountains in the profile picture background lead me to think that the translation is into German rather than English. German is the native tongue in that area of Switzerland, isn't it?

 

[TEG]

So far, all of the clue messages have been in English...

 

[rlpm]

Not to throw a monkey wrench in the analysis, but the Swiss mountains in the profile picture background lead me to think that the translation is into German rather than English. German is the native tongue in that area of Switzerland, isn't it?

Since the Matterhorn straddles the border between Italy & Switzerland, it could be German, French, or Italian.
Perhaps TESLIVE's comment in the Norwegian thread was meant to point us toward Norwegian instead?
Now we just need people that are good at cryptoquips and speak these languages.

Or maybe that comment was just to applaud the get together related to Tesla, which could be what TESLIVE is about?

So far, all of the clue messages have been in English...

Good point.

 

[Beavis]

So far, all of the clue messages have been in English...

Could be, but then what is the significance of the Alps in the background? Makes me want to say, "hmmmmm."

 

[NigelM]

Ok, maybe I can add something useful at last:

The big resort town serving the Matterhorn ski resort is Zermatt. It's German speaking but I think I saw that there some single letter words in the code? (I'm on my phone and can't see it very well). German does not have any single letter words as there is no single letter indefinite article in the language. But here's the interesting bit...Zermatt is a combustion free town; they haven't allowed ICE cars for years because the pollution spoils the view of the Matterhorn. All vehicles are electric!

 

[rlpm]

Interesting find about Zermatt!

If we take "00" in the Huffman code to be space and the cryptoquip symbol w to be period, there is one space-delimited cryptoquip word, gcebdbffice, consisting of seven of the top eight most-occurring symbols: b through g and i. So I tried matching that symbol-word to all the 11-letter words in the enable1.txt file used by many word games (it's the basis of the dictionary used in Words With Friends). But my bash script was taking for.ev.er. And enable1.txt is English only.

So instead, I found an online cryptogram solver that's orders of magnitude faster than my piddly script. And it supports multiple languages. Nice.

When I throw gcebdbffice at it for Italian, it returns proibissero, which translates to forbid. French results in nothing, but both German and Norwegian result in interessant, which translates (from either language) to interesting. Interesting indeed!

When I successively add a few of the surrounding cryptoquip words, I end up with ta en beslutning om en interessant funn jeg gjorde i den, which Google translates to make a decision about an interesting discovery I did in the. This seems promising!

Here's the rest, with _ standing in for any & all symbols that have not yet been replaced. This being a Huffman code, these unreplaced symbols likely don't correspond to any of the (lower case) letters used below. And some of them could be numbers.

_e _e___s _ar fl_ttet ___ og jeg tror jeg _an gj__re en flu_t i __eld. _i__ noen bilder a_ dem 
jeg _il sende senere. _ans_je n__r du ser __il_en _ersjon de er _an du foresl__ noe bedre enn n__tter 
for __ _jel_e meg _er. ___r jeg forlater jeg m__ ta en beslutning om en interessant funn jeg 
gjorde i den me_anis_e steins_rut. _or tidlig __ se om det _ommer til __ bli en n_ttig o__dagelse 
eller en total fias_o_ men det _il ___re morsomt uansett. _il ta turen til din bestefars mester _linamen 
mens du arbeider ___ din ___ trefase _lan.

Does this make any sense to any of you Norwegian speakers? Care to fill in the blanks & translate for us?

And I'm sure all you Europeans will be happy that trefase translates to three phase.

 

[Beavis]

Nicely done.

 

[TEG]

Does this make any sense to any of you Norwegian speakers?

Jumbled tidbits thanks to Google translate:

"...and I think... some pictures of them... I'll send later... You see... they are ... make a decision about an interesting discovery... a total fiasco but it'l be fun anyway... I'll head to your grandfather's masterpiece... while working on your three phase ... "

(Yes, translated from Norwegian...)

 

[PureAmps]

Does this make any sense to any of you Norwegian speakers? Care to fill in the blanks & translate for us?

I don't speak Norwegian, but I can use google translate. I found a few more letters for you (with some help from gregincal's hint). Using your original cryptoquip puzzle:

x -> h
u -> p
n -> k
6 -> D
2 -> M
7 -> c
0 -> y
t -> v

Working on others....

It seems that the letter sequence "os" represents the Norwegian letter "å". There are other characters combined with "o" that may represent other diacritic marks.

Updated translation with the above substitutions:

De Mechks har flyttet på og jeg tror jeg kan gj__re en flukt i kveld. _ikk noen bilder av dem
jeg vil sende senere. _anskje når du ser hvilken versjon de er kan du foreslå noe bedre enn n__tter    
for å hjelpe meg her. ___r jeg forlater jeg må ta en beslutning om en interessant funn jeg         
gjorde i den mekaniske steinsprut. _or tidlig å se om det kommer til å bli en nyttig oppdagelse
eller en total fiasko_ men det vil v__re morsomt uansett. _il ta turen til din bestefars mester _linamen 
mens du arbeider på din _M_ trefase plan.

 

[gregincal]

TESLIVE just posted in the norwegian thread:

De Mechks har flyttet på

Which just happens to fit the beginning.

 

[Beavis]

The Mechks have moved on.

 

[TEG]

"The Mechks have moved on and I think..."

 

[Beavis]

"The Mechks have moved on and I think..."

...and I think I can ____ one