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Posted 8 Months ago
Linda2
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Posts: 61
graphgraph
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I recently borrowed a book entitled 'Fractions of Zero' - a thriller by Bill Murray, with the intention of working through the cryptograms for a bit of fun, checking the answers against the ones in the bok. However, I can't solve the Enigma stage - I can't manage to make an Enigma emulator produce the required plaintext from the ciphertext (All other ciphers in the book decrypt to a later solution - except for a Linear B which may decrypt but which I haven't tried). The problem seems to involve the machine's Stecker pairs - there aren't any given. Trying with no pairs and all remaining settings Ok didn't help. There are various different emulators on the Net, and a lot of them seem to see things differently to the others. Can anyone help? I will post the code later for those who haven't read the book.
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Posted 8 Months ago
Via Caltha
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Posts: 81
graphgraph
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your best chances for help are probably at sci.crypt
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Posted 7 Months, 4 Weeks ago
cosmicdave
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graphgraph
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I thought I'd posted the crypto yesterday, but it hasn't shown up so I must have made a mistake. To be honest I don't know how interesting the book is, only wanting a shot at the cryptoes I just bookmarked the appropriate pages.

Okay. As I said, all the other ciphers (I didn't bother with L decrypt into messages sent by this serial killer to detectives. When the reader decrypts her/himself, though, the messages have the occasional typo that wasn't in the 'official' decrypt made by a character. Plus a book cipher based on the King James Bible has multiple possibilities for several words, yet this isn't mentioned when the decrypt is revealed, the character not explaining how he chose between the possibilities. I think the author's understanding of ciphers is superficial, and the result of reading a popular science book. A description in the book of the things needed to break Enigma didn't include the Stecker pairs. I believe the author would have found and used an emulator with a default, possibly unalterable, Stecker setting and not realised it. The rest of the settings are on the top line of the cryptogram and are pretty self-explanatory when you find an emulator.

Here's the cryptogram, and the message a math-professor character claimed to decrypt it to:

III I V B 21 24 20 KAD KTQFV IDJWF SRAFM NUTWG QXRUW YQLKQ ZRFKB MLBSX DQGTE ZCGXL GGKWS YZPWV EFKES IIRQG XRMBW WLZRZ JKSMA XQVFO FSLQQ QDQKY VFOZF YDGXL UFANK RJCKT FYN

TAKE FORTY-SIX FROM ONE-NINE-NINE FROM THE GGGE FFFD TO FIND HIM CAST INTO THE UNDERWORLD FROM WHICH THE RIVER STYX FLOWS THROUGH THE BELLY OF THE WHALE
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