h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

When Surrey resident David Martin had some work done on his chimney, he found the remains of a dead pigeon, as you do. Strapped to its foot was a small red canister, containing a piece of paper written in code.

It looks likely it's a message from the army's WW2 Pigeon Service which never reached its destination. Possibly it was on its way to the code breaking centre at Bletchley Park, but it could have been going anywhere, really.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20456782

But here's the thing - The UK's top code breakers of today cannot decipher it, even with all the resources at their disposal. They have computers infinitely more powerful than Turing's Enigma-cracker, but the solution eludes them.

If they can guess what part of the message might be, then this could help them decode the secret key. They asked the public for suggestions, and the most helpful one so far has been that it starts with "Dear Santa"

Any ideas?

What an enigma!

There were many codes used during the War that were unbreakable. They relied on the sender and the receiver having the same code book. Without the code book, the code is unbreakable - no computer, no matter how powerful, could ever crack it.

So it's not really a surprise that the code can't be broken.

Assuming one-time code pads were standard issue for spies, there may be records somewhere on how the codes were generated and the pads distributed.

Not to mention "codes" that were obscure languages, like the Navajo Windtalkers.

Send three and fourpence, we're going to a dance.

"Can't get away to marry you today..."

()

Amazing. What a shame that Leo Marks has passed on. He might have been able to help.

Yep. As Gnomon said, if it's a one-time pad cipher, as it likely is, it is uncrackable. The cipher is made randomly. The only way to crack this is if the cipher was not truly random or if it was used more than once. Many one-time codes are created using shuffled cards. That method is quite random. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLIvwtIuC3Y

There is numbers at the end that coincidently or otherwise match the number of characters, The characters could be words but what the hell do I know. You need some words to give a clue. Just a bunch of letters really.

It looks suspiciously like a set of software licence keys to me.

Software licence keys......I foresee a solution involving a time machine, a guy with a computer, and a plot to overthrow Hitler using MMOs......

[Amy P]

Actually Icy, it does look exactly like that - I've just compared it to several; including my Windows licence number.

So what does your windows licence actually decode to...

" I hear by sell my soul irrevocably to William Gates"

Heaven forbid! However, one of my best friends - a computer programmer for his sins, now works exclusively for Micro***t -

I just read somewhere out of the corner of my eye that they've already given up trying to solve it. That seems pretty quick.

Surely you can solve codes like those newspaper puzzles where you are given one letter and from that you can eventually figure out the rest. "E", "A" and "T" are pretty common letters, as any Scrabble player knows. With lots of time and patience, can't you figure out any code in the end? Or am I a bit too blue-eyed about this.

Well, those newspaper puzzles have an advantage - they're arranged by the regular length of the letters.

These are rearranged in blocks of five. Now, what's it about? Are there extra letters in?

Does the message say, 'When the swallows come back to Capistrano, they buy vanilla ice'? Does 'Capistrano' stand for 'the cliffs of Dover', does 'buy' stand for 'drop bombs', 'vanilla ice' for 'X tonnes', and 'swallows' for 'Heinkels'?