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Cryptic Code Stumps Experts
moonboy writes "From the CBSNews.com article: 'The experts who cracked Nazi Germany's secret codes are tackling a 10-letter enigma that has stumped fine minds for more than 250 years - D.O.U.O.S.V.A.V.V.M. Former code-breakers from Britain's World War II intelligence center at Bletchley Park set out this week to decipher a cryptic inscription on an 18th-century monument at an English country estate. Legend says it reveals the location of the Holy Grail. Some believe it is a private message to a deceased beloved. No one knows for sure."
Maybe it just means nothing?
-If God wanted people to be better than me, he would have made them that way.
it's only 10 letters long. So really you could just list all valid 10 letter english phrases then see which follow the rules for an Enigma machine.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
Holy Grail? Puh-lease.
It's probably just what it said in the article: a dedication. I find it hard to believe that they'll find the Holy Grail from a 10 letter code.
I'm amazing. You aren't. SUCK IT
Seriously, how much information can be in 10 letters? not to mention this is only 250 years old and the grail went missing over 1000 years ago... sounds like they got punk'd
drunk chemists
http://efil.blogspot.com/
The best possible answer, barring actually finding the holy grail, is quoted in the article.
"Lord Lichfield's grandmother believed it stood for the opening letters of a line of verse: "Out of your own sweet vale Alicia vanish vanity 'twixt deity and man." based on a poem by Anna Seward.
How would it be possible to come up with a better explanation? This woman was of the family and is in the best possition to know. Think about it: what type of answer could satisfy such a short "code" better?
Its like reading Nostradamus: you will find patterns if you look hard enough.
The entropy of the English language is 1.5 bits per character (as an example; other languages have other entropy characteristics). When performing cryptanalysis on ciphertext derived from English plaintext, the cryptographer can determine whether or not he has achieved successful decryption by calculating this entropy on the result. The accuracy of the entropy derivation depends largely on the quantity of the data used to calculate the entropy.
It appears that the message D.O.U.O.S.V.A.V.V.M. does not carry near enough information to derive any meaningful statistical information of the sort. This means pretty much that any potential decryption is as good as any other. In the worst case scenario, this message is the result of a one-time pad, in which case it is completely futile to attempt to decrypt it; even if P is proven to be equal to NP, one-time pads still maintain their security, since all possible decryptions are equally probable. Perhaps some information get be gleaned from the context of the message (the fact that it is either Latin or Greek and based on some historical happening).
In any case, I get the feeling that this particular puzzle is going to be eternally unsolved. There will be plenty of equally feasible decipherments based on defendable premises, but we will never know for sure.
An unjust law is no law at all. - St. Augustine
The problem with such a small amount of "code" to go on, it is possible that many people will find different ways to explain it. For example the explanation in the article that it is an acronym for the words in a line of a poem. Another person may decide that it is a reference to Greek literature. However it is very possible that many little coincidences can be found to match and fit with the code, so we will probably never know the TRUE intention of the message.
Latin had no letter "U"; the letter "V" was used to render both U and V, and even post-Roman inscriptions tend to follow this practice when quoting Latin. Greek has its own alphabet, so a Latin alphabet acronym for a Greek phrase doesn't make much sense.
Also, the article translates "Et in Arcadia Ego" as "And I was in Arcadia, too." This is incorrect. There is no verb in that phrase: it reads "And in Arcadia I". That's one reason why this painting is seen to be so enigmatic. This could be the first part of a sentence, though the pronoun "ego" would be superfluous in a complete sentence since the verb conjugation would identify the sentence as first-person singular. Or, it could mean "And in Arcadia, I" (i.e. the last part of a sentence such as "In Rome, there is Caesar, and in Arcadia, [there is] I.") Or the "I" could be a Roman numeral one. Any way you look at it, the article's translation is off.
I am Sartre of the Borg. Existence is futile.
You irritate cops just because you can, and then you wonder why you get a ticket for going 47 in a 45, right?
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
At least, it doesn't anymore in my opinion.
Let's look at this logically. Jesus and his disciples where basically living in poverty, relying on the kindness of others for food and shelter. It's likely that the Grail Jesus drank from didn't even belong to them. It's also likely that it was a simple wooden cup.
Now let's also look at what happened shortly after the Last Supper. Jesus was crucified and all of the disciples either fled, where captured or in one case, committed suicide.
At the time, they didn't know what the significance of the Last Supper was (they found out 3 days later of course). Do you honestly think in all the confusion that occured on the first Easter they took the time to save a cup?
The grail was either lost, or simply rotted long ago.
Im more than certain that this is a publicity stunt. A very good one apparently that it should appear on CBS. "As it happens!" I was at Shugborough Hall on this very same day. I was doing a bit-part in a documentary called "All The Queens Cooks". There were a number of people milling around doing press-shoots etc. But to me it seemed like a stunt, to get people to visit the Hall, I think it also some sort of anniversary of the Enigma or Alan Turing round about now too.
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They had got the Enigma all layed out on display on a table with red velvet, (ie for show). In reality if the real purpose of this excersize was to crack those codes dont you think they would have used a laptop with an enigma simulator/code cracking program? So while they may be attempting to crack that code I think there were also some alterior motives on their mind, like getting a bit of publicity for the tourist trade!
nick
Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp