Fermilab Calls For Code Crackers

atrocious cowpat passes along a call for help from symmetry magazine, the joint publication of Fermilab and SLAC, noting: "Could be just plain gibberish, it could be something like those wonderfully weird letters to the Mount Wilson observatory, or it could be a message from aliens who just happened to have gotten their hands (tentacles/exoskeleton) on a fax machine." "A little over a year ago, the Fermilab Office of Public Affairs received a curious letter in code (4.4-MB image here). It has been sitting in our files all that time and we haven't had much of a chance to look into breaking the code, nor are we particularly expert at this!"

Comments

Re:Well, obvious stuff:

[morgan_greywolf]

Mirror here. I think Google's servers can probably handle the traffic. ;)

Re:It says "Welcome to the Slashdot effect."

[Anonymous Coward]

Try this link:

http://filebin.ca/skpzc/fnalcodeletter.jpg

Mirrored Copy

[LaptopZZ]

I mirrored it on my server as well as made a scaled down version which is just as readable as the original (unless you're making a poster).

http://www.pixabug.com/aliens/fnalcodeletter.jpg

http://www.pixabug.com/aliens/fnalcodeletter_sanesize.jpg

Happy Cracking

Coral cache

[irae]

Here's coral cache version, works for me fine. Link provided by slashdotter, firefox plugin.

Re:I'm not positive about my translation

[fishbowl]

>But why do they call it Ovaltine?

Because it is made from eggs.

Digitized

[panthro]

323233331112132
33323132212331
2111331132312233
333212123213113
311333313331111
211333323232211
232313331121231
33231312

f0be58f2fd63
6c79d2e493e6

S f c

111212112121212121121212121112121121
1121121121211121211211121211211121111
1111212121121121211121212121112111211
2111212112112111211121112111211121112
111211211121112121121112122211121211
1212112111211121112112111212121112111
211211211121121112112111212112111212
112121211

Re:Digitized

[el_gato_borracho]

I independently transcribed the same as you, so I confirm the same digits. Also, assuming the first blob is ternary (I=0, II=1, III=2), the second is hex, and the last is binary, I get the following numbers in decimal:
ternary = 720113244210716512990341782103795379056660114385796527
hexadecimal = 74506518313470710988407084006
binary = 4785997412726154595979555835418260996622867313584208882680343839351760783444564
Of course, this assumes also that these are supposed to be read left-to-right, top-to-bottom, and that the most significant digits come first. Can anyone else confirm these values?

Re:I'm not positive about my translation

[Anonymous Coward]

All ovals are ellipses... Incorrect. All ellipses are ovals, but not the other way around (sic).

So a round is an oval but an oval is not a round.

Re:Well, obvious stuff:

[Bob9113]

Two quick observations:

The frequency of 3's in the first stanza is disproportionately high.

The pattern '1,1,1,2,1' appears several times in the third stanza.

Re:The raw numbers

[Goaway]

No, Slashdot is just broken. It doesn't get you exactly that. There's no "curren" or "quot" in it.

Re:Google recruiting?

[snaFu07]

Picture here: http://images.fastcompany.com/blog/121503billboard.jpg

Real problem solvers comment here

[Jhan]

(trying to move the interesting stuff to the top) The top and bottom part of the code code the same data. The little indentation at the beginning of the line is important and means that the previous line continues. The indentation in the bottom bottom part is of, perhaps because of writing conditions. The top part consists of five trinary numbers of lengths 29, 46, 14, 14, 8 digits. The bottom part consists of five binary numbers of lengths 75, 110, 37, 36, 8 digits. My best transcription, probably with errors:

char trinary[8][40]={
"323233331112132", // 15
"33323132212331", // 14 29
"2111331132312233", // 16
"333212123213113", // 15
"311333313331111", // 15 46
"211333323232211", // 14 14
"232313331121231", // 14 14
"33231312"}; // 8 8
char binary[8][40]={
"111010110101010101101010101110101101", // 36
"1101101101011101011011101011011101111", // 37 75
"1111010101101101011101010101110111011", // 37
"0111010110110111011101110111011101110", // 37
"111011011101110101101110100011101011", // 36 110
// Should have been more clearly to the left?
"1010110111011101110110111010101110111", // 37 37
// Should have been two steps to the left?
"011011011101101110110111010110111010", // 36
"110101011"};

Re:Real problem solvers comment here

[lemnar]

The string of 3 symbols between the second and third parts may be simply SFC => Shoemaker, F. C. => Shoemaker, Frank C. (F. C. Shoemaker via)

Re:FRANK SHOEMAKER WOULD CALL THIS NOISE

[Anonymous Coward]

It's true:
remove the linebreaks from the first block, interpret # of lines as trinary digits 0,1,2 (|->0, ||->1, |||->2) and you get

212 122 220 001 021
222 120 211 012 201
000 220 021 201 122
222 101 012 102 002
200 222 202 220 002
002 222 121 211 022
120 222 001 012 022
120 201

Converting to alphabet by 000->a, 001->b, ... , 221->z, 222->' ', we get:

xrybh pwftayhtr kflcs uycc qwip bfipt

Write a script to check possible letter substituions against a dictionary, and you find that the substitution cipher
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
nl  o ki wu   strdec hfa

converts this to "frank shoemaker would call this noise"; maybe a coincidence, but looking likely.

Re:Solved!

[fbjon]

Mod parent up as interesting solution. Relevant thread here.

Re:FRANK SHOEMAKER WOULD CALL THIS NOISE

[Starlet Monroe]

Final cipher I had was:

abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
mnlp o k wuy xstrdec hfab

in case anyone wants to repeat the steps like I did.