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Top 10 Uncracked Codes
Until quite recent history, the writing of the Ancient Egyptians was a secret to man. Eventually, with the help of the Rosetta stone, Jean-François Champollion was able to solve the ancient mystery. Since that time, there have been many other attempts to decipher ancient languages, or to crack codes that have been made for fun or fortune. This is a list of the ten most famous ciphers and writing systems that are still unsolved.
10. D’agapeyeff Cipher
The D’Agapeyeff cipher is an unbroken code that first appeared in the first edition of Codes and Ciphers, an elementary book on cryptography written by the Russian-born English cartographer Alexander D’Agapeyeff in 1939. Offered as a “challenge cipher” at the end of the book, it was not included in other editions, and D’Agapeyeff is said to have admitted later to having forgotten how he had guessed the answer. It has been argued that the failure of all attempts at decryption is due to D’Agapeyeff incorrectly encrypting the actual text. However, it has been argued that the cipher may still be successfully attacked using computational methods like genetic algorithms.
9. Zodiac Killer
Zodiac was the name taken by a murderer who operated in the San Francisco area, including Napa, Solano, and Vallejo counties, in 1968 and 1969. Zodiac sent encrypted communication to area newspapers, taking credit for killings and warning of more to come, according to Robert Graysmith, who personally investigated the murders and wrote several books on the case. Police attributed seven murders and two attempted murders to Zodiac because of information he was able to provide that was unavailable to the public, though the number of unconfirmed victims may be much higher. The first coded communication was a three-part cipher sent in portions to the Vallejo Times-Herald, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the San Francisco Examiner on July 31, 1969, according to “Most Evil”, written by Steve Hodel. The complete cipher contained 408 characters and was published on August 2 and 3, 1969 in accordance to Zodiac’s demands. It took just a few days for the code to be deciphered.
8. Shugborough Hall Enscription
The Shepherd’s Monument at Shugborough Hall carries a relief (pictured above) that shows a woman watching three shepherds pointing to a tomb. On the tomb is depicted the Latin text “Et in arcadia ego” (“I am also in Arcadia” or “I am even in Arcadia”). The relief is based on a painting by the French artist Nicholas Poussin, known itself as Et in Arcadia ego, but the relief has a number of modifications — most noticeably that it is reversed horizontally. Another difference is a change in which letter of the tomb a shepherd is pointing at. In the painting the letter R in ARCADIA is being pointed to. The finger in the sculpture is broken, but was pointing to the N in IN. The sculpture also adds an extra sarcophagus to the scene, placed on top of the one with the Latin phrase. Below the image of the monument are the following letters:
For adherents of the modern Grail-conspiracy legend, the inscription is alleged to hold a clue to the location of the Holy Grail. Following the claims in the book The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail that Poussin was a member of the Priory of Sion and that the painting contains a message about the location of the grail, it has been speculated that the inscription may encode secrets related to the Priory.
7. Chinese Gold Bar Cipher
In 1933, General Wang of Shanghai, China received seven gold bars wherein the designs look like metal certificates which related to bank deposit at Bank in the United States. The gold bars supposedly have pictures, Chinese writing, some of which had a form of script writing as well as cryptogram in Latin letters and the difference was the mysterious pictures and writings that were found on the bars which were engraved on them. With a total of 1.8 kilograms, the Chinese writing is thought to portray a transaction of over $300,000,000 which is not yet solved till date.
6. Chaocipher
John F. Byrne invented Chaocipher in 1918 and tried unsuccessfully for almost 40 years to interest the U.S. government in his cipher system. He offered a reward to anyone who could break his cipher but the reward was never claimed. In 1989, John Byrne, son of John F. Byrne, demonstrated Chaocipher to two Cryptologia editors to determine if it had any commercial value. After making some improvements and providing additional information they jointly issue a new challenge to would-be solvers. In his autobiography, Silent Years, John F. Byrne, a lifelong friend of James Joyce, devoted the last chapter to Chaocipher which he had invented in 1918. Byrne described his attempts starting in 1920 to interest the State, War, and Navy Departments in his indecipherable cipher and his frustration with the disinterest shown by William F. Friedman and other cryptanalytic experts after he had demonstrated his machine.
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