FBI Wants You To Solve Encrypted Notes From Murder

coondoggie writes "The FBI is seeking the public's help in breaking the encrypted code found in two notes discovered on the body of a murdered man in 1999. The FBI says that officers in St. Louis, Missouri discovered the body of 41-year-old Ricky McCormick on June 30, 1999 in a field and the clues regarding the homicide were two encrypted notes found in the victim's pants pockets."

Comments

I've cracked it!

[elrous0]

The first note just looks a list of IP addresses associated with Twitter accounts communicating with a "Julian_Assange" and the second note appears to be in Arabic (which I can't read).

I don't understand what either of those have to do with a 1999 murder in Missouri though.

Re:I've cracked it!

[thomasdz]

No, no, no! It appears to be a conspiracy between Slashdot users ganjadude (952775) and elrous0 (869638) to deflect suspicion.

Re:I've cracked it!

[elrous0]

In all seriousness, though, it would help to have these additional details:

McCormick was a high school dropout, but he was able to read and write and was said to be “street smart.” According to members of his family, McCormick had used such encrypted notes since he was a boy, but apparently no one in his family knows how to decipher the codes, and it’s unknown whether anyone besides McCormick could translate his secret language. Investigators believe the notes in McCormick’s pockets were written up to three days before his death.

Over the years, a number of CRRU’s examiners—who are experts at breaking codes—have puzzled over the McCormick notes and applied a variety of analytical techniques to tease out an answer. “Standard routes of cryptanalysis seem to have hit brick walls,” Olson noted. Our cryptanalysts have several plausible theories about the notes, but so far, there has been no solution.

To move the case forward, examiners need another sample of McCormick’s coded system—or a similar one—that might offer context to the mystery notes or allow valuable comparisons to be made. Or, short of new evidence, Olson said, “Maybe someone with a fresh set of eyes might come up with a brilliant new idea.”

I think the code was probably meant for his eyes only, which means he probably constructed it using abbreviations and codewords that only he himself would understand. Without knowing those, well...good luck.

Re:I've cracked it!

[SomePgmr]

Some of it looks like windows license keys. I guess between the two, we've solved it. Ballmer, in a field with the candlestick.

Re:I've cracked it!

[wreakyhavoc]

It's a one time pad. The pad, in this case, seems to have resided in the head of the writer. If statistical methods of attack have failed, there is little hope of solving the code.

One wonders what information would need saving in such a complex manner. It seems like the memory needed to remember the decoding scheme would be equivalent to the memory needed to remember the information in the first place. Perhaps the notes were intended for someone else, with a key to be provided at another time or location.

If http://xkcd.com/538/ I guess it didn't work.

Re:I've cracked it!

[cforciea]

Given that there are repeated segments of symbols, it is almost definitively not a one time pad.

Re:I've cracked it!

[dcigary]

Since he has been using the encryption since he was a boy, I'm thinking it's not a very complicated scheme. I'm betting it had something to do with the area he grew up in - for instance knowing what streets intersect with each other, and coming up with a cipher from that.

If this is the case, you can throw statistical analysis and standard cryptanalysis out the window, as it won't make sense in this context.

The only way they're going to get this solved is to get into his mind. Go back to where it all started. Look around. Talk to his friends about any "sayings" or "pledges" he might have used with them (think secret phrase to enter a fort). Someone somewhere has the answer.

(waves to nice FBI agents who I know are reading all these responses.... :) )

Re:I've cracked it!

[LWATCDR]

Your probably correct but just a note to myself. If I ever kill someone I need to leave a message that is nothing but the output of a random number generator. That will keep them busy for decades :)

Re:I've cracked it!

[xSauronx]

if it was a windows license key, wouldnt the cipher be cracked already? ;)

Re:I've cracked it!

[Ecuador]

According to members of his family, McCormick had used such encrypted notes since he was a boy

So, wouldn't they have more samples of the encryption to help with the decryption effort? If they have samples from when he was a boy, they might even be an earlier & easier code that evolved to the one in question...

Re:I've cracked it!

[DriedClexler]

If http://xkcd.com/538/ [xkcd.com] I guess it didn't work.

Aha! That's it! The FBI did it, and they accidentally killed him trying to get the key during a rubber-hose (metal wrench?) attack!

Re:I've cracked it!

[psergiu]

Unfortunatelly it's something darker. I don't dare to put the message here in plain text for all search engines to find so here's a ROT13 version of the decoded message:

Jr'er ab fgenatref gb ybir
Lbh xabj gur ehyrf naq fb qb V
N shyy pbzzvgzrag'f jung V'z guvaxvat bs
Lbh jbhyqa'g trg guvf sebz nal bgure thl
V whfg jnaan gryy lbh ubj V'z srryvat
Tbggn znxr lbh haqrefgnaq

Arire tbaan tvir lbh hc
Arire tbaan yrg lbh qbja
Arire tbaan eha nebhaq naq qrfreg lbh
Arire tbaan znxr lbh pel
Arire tbaan fnl tbbqolr
Arire tbaan gryy n yvr naq uheg lbh

Re:I've cracked it!

[Al Al Cool J]

So chances are we'll never be able understand it. Shaka, when the walls fell.

Re:I've cracked it!

[wooferhound]

The larger versions of the encrypted notes are here . . .
http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2011/march/cryptanalysis_032911/image/gallery
It appears that each word ends with an E with some kind of prefix, almost all words end with SE but also common are NE and BE, and sometimes TE and LE
Could be some kind of variation of Pig Latin ?

Re:I've cracked it!

[fishbowl]

It could just be a private writing system for a personal language for a semi-literate, demented, dyslexic street person who is engaged in some kind of activity that has increased his normally very high level of paranoia. I suspect there is a reason we aren't being told much personal info about the victim.

Re:I've cracked it!

[Whatsisname]

The unabomber did that sort of stuff. He left tons of false clues in the packages he sent, and it caused the FBI to undergo the most expensive manhunt in its history. Only they didn't even catch him, his writing was recognized by his brother.

Link to the notes:

[Moderator]

Here is a link to the notes:

http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2011/march/cryptanalysis_032911/image/gallery

Of course, what I got out of it was:

"You are a stupid square idiot bald git aren't you? eh? I'm pointing at you, I'm pointing at you, but I'm not actually addressing you, I'm addressing the one prat in the country who has bothered to get a hold of this recording, turn it round and actually work out the rubbish that I'm saying. What a poor sad life he's got! Frankly your acts crap, anyway anybody could've done it, I hate the lot of you, bollocks to you!"

Re:Link to the notes:

[mastershake82]

Well... since nobody has any clue as to how it is encrypted... perhaps there is something specific as to how it was written regarding how to decrypt. They don't know that there is, and they don't know that there isn't, so they've effectively provided you everything they have to work with. It's up to you if you think it should be worked in a different format.

Re:Link to the notes:

[Motard]

Indeed. Look at the 'E's. Some are traditional squared off E's and some are like a C with a horizontal line. It could mean something, or nothing.

Re:Link to the notes:

[cforciea]

The other responses have made some points about possible additional information embedded in the spacing of the message, etc, but that seems a lot less important than the fact that some portions of the code are unclear and open to interpretation as to which letter is being represented. Is the second to last character on the first page an 'L', 'C', or '('? Can you say definitively enough for the FBI to rule out other options?

Re:Link to the notes:

[maxwell demon]

I didn't know that 20, 21 and 35 are prime numbers ...
However, the three indented parentheses in the 5th-last to 3rd-last line have 19, 20 and 21 characters, in that order.

Indeed, the last lines (those where everything is in parentheses) have the following numbers of characters in their parentheses:
23
19
20
21
35
11,5

Also, the three indented parentheses look very similar; only a few characters are different between them.
And of course, "NCBE" occurs almost everywhere at or near the end. And "TFRNE" seems also quite frequent. Also PRSE.
Somehow I get the impression that "E" tends to be an end of a word (or code unit, or ...). The second note confirms this, because the dashes come almost always after an "E".
"WLD" seems also a frequent combination.

And the coded message is...

[wcrowe]

DRINKYOUROVALTINE

Hmm...

[tool462]

There are a lot of nested parens in those notes. It's clearly Lisp code. They should bring Alan Turing in for questioning.

Re:Hmm...

[One Louder]

"The more than 30 lines of coded material use a maddening variety of letters, numbers, dashes, and parentheses"

It's obviously a port of sendmail written in Perl.

we are volunteers

[alphatel]

If the Fed really wants help they should consider providing:

• Images at sizes greater than 100kb and 600x600 pixels.
• Scans with resolutions higher than 96 dpi.
• Tear up my dossier (I know I must be on it because I'm an American).

Re:we are volunteers

[MoonBuggy]

It's a chance to publicly prove that you're smarter than the FBI's crypto team - what more motivation could you want?

if you know how to read these

[bugs2squash]

you must be a suspect

I'd like to, but...

[Steauengeglase]

I can't violate the DMCA. Sorry.

Re:I'd like to, but...

[Stray7Xi]

I can't violate the DMCA. Sorry.

Seriously, the guy's been dead for 11 years...

So only 59 more years to go on his copyright. I'll consider downloading it then, until then I'm supporting the artist.

Re:I'd like to, but...

[tepples]

So only 59 more years to go on his copyright.

You mean 59 + 20 + 20 + 20 + ...

Lots of patterns

[davidbrit2]

Weird. There are enough patterns and repetitions to make it look like it's just something simple, like a substitution cipher or similar. The sequence 'NCBE' appears enough times to be statistically meaningful, I'd wager.

Re:Lots of patterns

[fishbowl]

What languages did the victim speak, natively? What did he read?

Re:Lots of patterns

[democrates]

This is something originally developed by a boy so most likely it evolved over the years to include multiple methods. It may use shorthand/abbreviations, bad grammer, mis-spelling, and slang. A single cipher method is highly unlikely.

It's probably simple in that it will have one step between plaintext and ciphertext, and words are not transposed. Also it looks like numerics are not encoded

Brackets or a line around a section could seperate trips, days, people he met, conversations on the phone, or anything, but we can probably safely assume they're in chronological order.

That 71,74,75 sequence could be revealing. Could they be house numbers, was he a train-spotter, is it a long term plan for his old age?

And could "NCBE" mean "No Change Behind Eddies" referring to a fruitless search for change dropped by drunks behind Eddies Bar or something?

What this job needs is detailed knowledge of his life; people, places, interests, habits etc. because without that background there's no way to determine what he's referring to. If all such data were dumped into a database to make a word index, that could help (maybe not so useful I just thought it up).

But FBI, if background info can't be released, at least make large size scans of those notes available in TIFF format (>12bit) so people have a chance to see what the letters are in the noisy parts.

citation needed

[MikeyO]

It's a one time pad. The pad, in this case, seems to have resided in the head of the writer

How do you know it is a one time pad?

It's not encrypted

[QX-Mat]

it's Welsh!

Text version of the code

[Anonymous Coward]

I've retyped the code of the first note (to as good an extent as I can given the 600x600 resolution). Here's the results, and don't shoot me if there's a mistake:

(mndmknearse-n-d-ta-knare)
qtfrnenptnsenpbsercbbnsenprseinc
prsenmrsedprehlduldncbe(tfxlftcxlnlbe)
al-prppitxlyppiyncbemekseincdrcbrnseprse
wldrcbrnsentsgnentxse-crsle-citrsewldncde
alwlpncbetsmelrserlsevrglsneasnwldncbe
(nopfsenlsrencbe)ntegddmnsencurercbrne
(tenetfrnencbrtsencbeinq)
(firsepqseonde71ncbe)
(cdnseprsednsde74ncbe)
(prtseprseonrede75ncbe)
(tfnqcmspsolemrdelusetotewldnwldncbe)
(194wld'sncbe)(trfxl)

Actually all uppercase, but the fitler wouldn't allow me.

Re:Text version of the code

[Hermanas]

Oops, wasn't logged in. Here's the second note.

alpnteglse-se erte
vlsemtse-ctse-wse-frtse
nwldxlrcmspnewldstsmexl
dvlmt6tunsencbexl

(munsarstenmunarse)
klse-lrste-trse-trse-mksen-mrse
(saegnsesenmbse)

nmnrcbrnsepte2ptewsrcbreee?? (unsure about this)
86mlse74sprkse29kenobole173rtrse
35gleclgsejunitxedkqsepseshle
651mtcsehtlsencntxtrsnmre
99.84.s2unep2sencrseaoktsensrsenbse
njreqnsepvtsewldncbe(jxqrl)
ntosenrsein2ntrlercnamsentsrcrene
lspnsengspesemkserbsencbeavxlr
hmcrenmbencbe 1/2munddlse
d-w-m-ymil

Re:FBI is grasping

[Anonymous Coward]

They could be shopping lists that the victim made in code for his own amusement

I was about to give you a smart response, but I just realized that I read the wrong article (I read the actual FBI posting, not the commentary on the posting). From the original posting, it seems like there's two reasons for the FBI wanting to crack the code: from a investigative standpoint, it might give some hint as to where the victim was before he was murdered, which might lead to other clues.

However, since the cryptanalyst quoted also said, "Even if we found out that he was writing a grocery list or a love letter, we would still want to see how the code is solved. This is a cipher system we know nothing about," I'd guess that a large part is just wanting to know the answer to a puzzle that they couldn't solve. If you don't understand this impulse, you're obviously not human, or have no interest in bettering yourself.

thats it?

[mugnyte]

McCormick had used such encrypted notes since he was a boy

and all we get are two examples? Lame.

    Why doesn't the FBI provide some of the research they've already done? Collaborate instead of simply asking someone to do your work! For example, higher quality scans, unique symbols, symbol frequency, symbol distance matrices, other known writings of the victim. Can we get some more environmental clues? victim's known proper nouns, background, travels, language(s) exposed to, favorite pop culture topics, etc. This all seems like a lot more detective work should be done. Solve the murder, not the puzzle.

And they use a snail mail address for contact? Is this article from the 1950's?

Magic Answer!

[uvsc_wolverine]

Just give it to Angela on "Bones." She'll just happen to have recently finished writing some program that will figure it out in under an hour based on a grainy picture of the note.

Re:remember how they caught the unabomber

[hedwards]

It's already known that the victim wrote the notes and devised the code, any possible information that isn't known would be contained in the text. I'm betting that it's never deciphered. Just because it's more likely that it's a key to something locked in the victims brain.

Re:maybe it's just gibberish

[C_L_Lk]

Has anyone considered that maybe these notes ARE the one time pad for decrypting another message that hasn't been discovered yet?

Larger versions of the notes

[bl968]

Here are the biggest versions of the notes. They are much easier to read.

http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2011/march/cryptanalysis_032911/image/gallery/encyphered-note/
http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2011/march/cryptanalysis_032911/image/gallery/help-us-solve-this-encyphered-note/