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[sherbet]

elo all,

right then, ive only had this card since sat, and as im anal and dont like looking fer help til part of my brain falls out, ive only got on ere today. turns out ive got to about the same stage as most others (assigning values to the hebrew, then using an xy grid to get pairs of letters, thinking its prob a 2, maybe 4 square cipher...)ive also had loooooads of bizarre and new fangled ideas about the now infamous he symbol, amongst others. i emailed pc on sun, asking them to confirm the symbol is correct, but have heard nowt. the thing is ive been spending loads of time looking into that word, and if its wrong, well thats time a wasted. also since ive seen vons clue today, ive been obsessing about the 2nd word in the text. i wonder if that really is intentional, or if thats an error...anyway, fer a while i really thought i had the first 2 words, but thats all gone to s**t now. i think we need to try and figure out the keywords,yes i did go to the uni of the bleedin obvious...ive tried variations of famous ciphers, but to no avail.also tried kabalah words with the same value as the he word, and tried a truly complex idea involving counting the english letters, and putting em back into hebrew, but it would take too long to explain, and lifes too short!

anyway, nice to see some of you from the hell that was diff lethal!

[primalfear]

hi i am around the stage too i have sent some emails off to some people and about the text and i am waiting on some response i have had this card since november ish and it is driving me mad.... cnat wait till we have cracked it.

[primalfear]

ok i have been looking at all the posts and i dont think anyone has metioned this so let me just say it..

the card being twice is hard i was thinking that when you look at the card in the light you seen the hidden text then if you look there is a line going through the page almost spiltting the cards in two can anyone else seen this and maybe this is what von is on about being twice as hard

sorry if it dont make sense but let me know what you think

[Ramazel]

Hi all,

I've finally managed to make a digraph table that is compatible with XY=600. It wasn't that hard after all. But don't hold your breath, I'm still getting gibberish...

Anyway, here are the details:
After reading the posts, it seemed that everybody had been starting at AA=1 (or AA=0. I'll go on assuming 1 since that's what worked in the end, substract 1 from all numbers if you prefer 0) and numbering from there up to 676. That was the obvious solution because it's the way you see it on the tabula recta. However it doesn't fit with the clue because you get XY=623. And if you substract 23 from all numbers to force the issue, the digraphs between AA and AV become invalid.

But there was always the possibility that one dimension was inverted ie starting at Z rather than A. So I made the tables for AZ=1, ZA=1 and ZZ=1.

ZA=1 gives XY=77
ZZ=1 gives XY=54
AZ=1 gives XY=600. Bingo!

The resulting message is:
HANMASLH
KWSBOGMW
EHHERABCHD
FNUN TA
IN AV
? RC
LA SH

Not exactly clear, but I'm sure nobody's surprised. Depending on how you interpret the first word of the 6th line you would get:
AVAQAT for 5-10-7
AVAJ for 5-17
TD for 517
AE for 22
(you get 22 by adding all numbers together, it's a valid way to code the number in Hebrew, just highly unusual. 15 and 16 are usually shown as 9+6 and 9+7 as otherwise they would spell a name of god)

And in case anybody's wondering, I worked from this set of numbers:
208-352-8-305
264-493-384-316
123-204-468-50-205
143-533 520
221 5
5/10/7 466
312 487

To finish off, a few speculations:
About the weird line spacing commented on earlier in the thread, I took my ruler out and actually measured them. In millimeters and measuring from top to bottom along the left side of the writing, I get:
10-11-9-13-9-15-10
which, accounting for the effects of perpective makes me think we have two types of spacing, one wide, one narrow, disposed like that:
wide-wide-narrow-wide-narrow-wide-narrow.
It made me think of Morse code but unfortunately I didn't get any sense from it either reading top to bottom or bottom to top. It just makes gibberish again.
If it is a code (I was hoping it was the key to whichever encryption was used), it could also be 3323232 as narrow spaces are about 2/3 of the wide ones' width (or 2323233 if reading the other way).
Or it could be binary. Assuming the first spacing is 1, reading top to bottom you get 1101010 which is 106. Bottom to top, you get 1010100 which is 84. What you do with it is anyone's guess.
Also we have 7 spaces, same as the number of lines of text. Maybe the space under each line of text codes for some way of decrypting it? Seems a bit far-fetched and doesn't remind me of any historical cipher, but who knows?
Sorry if I've been boring you silly with this. I'm not sure if it's leading anywhere but it hasn't been explored so far, so I thought I'd give it a go.

Another wild speculation concerns the spaces (horizontal this time) between the characters on the last 4 lines. I'm sure it's relevant somehow. For a good while, I thought they meant 0 as there is no 0 in the alephbet. Now that I've got a promising table that starts at 1 rather than 0, I'm not so sure, but I thought I'd share it anyway. After all I've seen a number of encryption methods that use A=0, it's easier for calculations.

And a question: Has anybody got any idea what the little rectangular thing on the right of the maths sheet is? It's hardly visible but it's definitely there and it could be a clue. It seems to have lighter little rectangles on it. It could be a calculator, but then the keys are a bit long. A tabula recta? It would have little squares, not rectangles. A Sandorf cipher key, as discussed previously? Once again, we'd have squares...

End of my (rather long) first post. Let me know what you think.

Oh, and primalfear, I don't think the line is relevant as I haven't got it on my card. People keep mentioning this, card after card, but it's always a printing problem.

[ALISDAIRPARK]

There's some really good work in there Ramazel, could you post the digraph table as I can't get it to work. I can only get it to work starting with BW=1?

For the numbers I've been working my way through the main possibilities, and I'll be able to post all the variations soon. It's not got me anywhere yet though. All I've been able to work out is based on using the correct letter forms for the text, the Atbashed text and the Albamed text, the Gematria produces primes greater than 26, therefore the xy=600 isn't x*y=600 if we are to use Gematria.

Incidentally for variations someone mentioned Atlam as a possible cipher, but I can't find any info on it, can anyone post a link?

EDIT: For what it's worth I reckon the last step is going to be Caesar cipher

[primalfear]

ok thanks for that else i would have been on a bit a goose chase if not already this is one on the hardest cards so fae arghhh

ok i have been surfing through google and i found this its is worth checking out it goes on about the ciphr key to unlocking hebrew text i just scrolling through it now let us know what you make of it



http://72.14.207.104/search?q=cache:fiTUN0rC080J:www.geocities.com/Area51/Stargate/7770/eq.html+cypher+cipher++hebrew+text&hl=en&gl=uk&ct=clnk&cd=7

[primalfear]

All of the techniques of the Hebrew Qaballa can be used with the cipher
of Al. Essentially
they can be broken down into specific groups.

Gematria.

This is a method of comparing the total sum of words of a specific
value and comparing the relationships between them. For example the
Gematria of Love = 44 (2+7+10+25) = "Aum Ha", the last two words of
Liberal. The value of 44 is also "Solar Hawk" and "Hawk + Lord." It is
also equal to EQ the system that both reveals and conceals these
relationships.

Notariqon.

This is another common technique deriving acronyms from phrases. The
Classic example in Liberal is that of ISIS =56 this is demonstrated in
LiberAl v1 22. " Since I am Infinite Space and Infinite Stars thereof"

This method can be extended by examining the first letters of a phrase
and verse and
comparing them with the last letters of the phrase to discover its form
of manifestation.
For example: -

"Love is the law, love under will".

LITLLUW = 73 = Power, from where ? ESEWERL = Warrior Lord

on looking at Ramazel workings
The resulting message is:
HANMASLH
KWSBOGMW
EHHERABCHD
FNUN TA
IN AV
? RC
LA SH
what if it a anagram of some sort fo example Hours is an anagram of Horus = 45. Arms is an anagram of Mars =
39 etc

this all of which is taken from the website that i metioned

[Ramazel]

OK, there's my table. It was made with Excel X for Mac, I think it's Windows compatible but I haven't tried before. If you can't open it, I'll post the table in comma-delimited format.

[ALISDAIRPARK]

the table works fime for Windows, and it's the cleanest I've seen for a fit, the other options are using the normal a-z grid, but starting with ax=1 (my previous post was wrong), or it's x*y=600, in which case we have the problem with primes.

[GinGenie]

ALISDAIRPARK - No link for Atlam I'm afraid (at least from me) I found it in David Kahns Codebreakers book! But I agree that caesar cipher could be in this somehow.

Also, given that the shadow numbers are rotated 90 degrees, perhaps the whole text should be read this way. This alters the sequence, so instead of 208 - 352 - 8 etc, we would get variations of 305 - 316 - 205 etc, or 205 - 305 - 316.

[Ramazel]

GinGenie, it's an interesting thought, I've been looking at something similar, i.e. read the text in columns rather than rows, but there's one problem with this: the text isn't presented in columns except maybe for the 3 or 4 last lines. Apart from the first column (if reading from left to right), how do you know in which column words/digraphs belong? I suppose we could try all variations... So far I've assumed there would be too many of them but maybe it just looks that way?

I've done a Google search on 'atlam cipher', I do get some links (in Japan) where Atlam is the name of a researcher who has done some work on block cipher and stream cipher. The links are just lists of published articles though and they date from 2003, a bit recent for a cipher of history. In any case, is there a chance that David Kahn was refering to a cipher invented by this guy? I haven't got the book so I can't check.

[ALISDAIRPARK]

Okies, pulling everything together:

Hebrew letters - could indicate Atbash, Albam, or other hebrew based cipher. Or it could give us numbers through Gematria, although this isn't a cipher. Or the numbers could just come from Aleph=1 etc. However the numbers are created they can then either be added, or multiplied. Or it could just be the straight letter equivalants.

xy=600 - could either be x=24 * y=25 = 600, or it could be a digraph grid. the digraph grids currently seem to have three options:
start numbering at ax=1, and wrap so that aw=676
flip the x axis so az=1, or start with aa=-23

Line spacings - there's not been many theories on how this could be relevant, my only suggestion is the combination of ciphers is different depending on line width, for example the narrow lines are Atbash and grid 1, and the wide lines are gematria and grid 2

shadow text - could indicate some sort of rotation

Prof Hale - could still be a valid clue. There's no such proffesor at the Academy, and there is the recent Sentinel headline Hale's Journey Ends..

Von's Clue - assuming it isn't just a typo, it indicates a letter misplaced in the code, this coule be the two final Kaf letters, but seems more likely to be the first Tzade on line 6. Although this still doesn't really read right as we would be left with Mem & Ayin, which equals 110 (using Gematria), and why not just use Qof & Yod?

[GinGenie]

Ramazel - Have checked, the cipher I was referring to is Atbah (not atlam though this might be yet another one), and like atbash and albam takes the name from the first four substituted letters. However, this cipher seems fairly obscure, is based on numbers rather than letters and has the same problem with 500 onwards.

The columns are definitely a problem if rotating the text, unless we put the letters either to the left or right along each line, which gives four alternate variations. Historically speaking, transposition ciphers are well documented. Its a thought.

[frantic]

I'm sure the last thing you want is yet more suggestions/random thoughts, but that's all I've got to give at the moment - sorry.

First, Alisdairpark you mentioned no real theories on the spacings, but as rows 1-3 look like complete lines, line 4 looks like it has a word missing - perhaps one of the six listed in lines 5,6 and 7? That would take the others out of the equation.

Secondly, as the xy=600 is written on the blackboard (presumably by prof) perhaps we need that to solve the equation (that I can't make head nor tail of) on the scrap of paper. Sadly I have no idea how to solve that equation, maths is not my strong point, but maybe that will give us a keyword??

[Ramazel]

On the Hale subject, people that have been suggested so far are:
- Nathan Hale, who was a spy in the Culper ring during the American Civil War. Though he used a code, not a cipher.
- Kenneth Hale, an MIT linguist, who died in 2001. His main interest was the universal laws of language and he was a defender of endangered languages. Not sure how this relates to the problem at hand. Sure we have Hebrew characters, but not Hebrew language (as far as we know) and this Hale would have had no problem translating anyway.
- a Hale character in 'Digital Fortress' by Dan Brown.
- The recent Sentinel headline suggests there is a Hale somewhere in PerplexCity but we can't access the article. We also know there is no Prof. Hale in the Academy.

Other suggestions I can come up with are:
- Alan Hale, who gave his name to comet Hale-Bopp. He's the director of the SouthWest Institute for Space Research (see http://www.swisr.org/ahbio.html) but he doesn't seem to teach, so probably not him.
- There is a Paiva Hale living in the Ascendancy Point, Floor 145. I found that info in the Wiki (http://wiki.incognitus.net/ppc/index.php/Special:Search?search=hale&go=Go) but there is no data on the person.

For what it's worth, I think it's a PerplexCity character rather than an Earth person (if not entirely made up for the purpose of the card).
I mean, if it was a real person, it would give them a nasty reputation, wouldn't it?

Frantic, I don't think we can solve the equation, we only see part of it on the card and half of what is displayed is too dark or fuzzy to read (I tried to copy it to make sense of it but only the middle is readable/guessable). We may still be expected to recognise it though, maybe it is a classical equation? In any case, I am wondering why the bits on the top right corner are written white on black instead of just fading in the darkness. This is very unusual for a piece of paper. Which makes me speculate about the nature of the card itself. It looks as if there are several layers superimposed on there, the top one with the equations and a number of others with 2 function graphs and 2 tables. I suspect this might be the famous key we read so much about. It looks much more like a computer screen than a sheet of paper. Maybe with a transparent setting that allows to display several pieces of data on the same screen?

For the spacing, it's an interesting thought, but I'm not comfortable about discarding some of the text, I'm sure it's all there for a reason. Maybe we can fit the whole lot in the hole somehow? Or maybe one fits and the rest is the cipher key? At this stage anything is possible. We do need a proper theory regarding the layout of the text, I'm sure it holds the key to the solution.