Daily press and Dakotaian. [volume] (Yankton, Dakota Territory [S.D.]) 1875-1880, 1878-10-23

A-.
ia eth ~. lie, us Look for guide
yord 49, Of the o,har columns. In
the Al we find "dispatch" az, aud
. most natdfar thing TO say about q dispatch
is that it has been ec,ivedp 1907. Il IL
very likely that the message begins with
the acknowledgment "dirpa,ch received"
This sequence ~, 30} gives us for the open
ing words Of the other kilograms, (lst) "Sup.
posed .you'; (2d) cam here; (3d) "Beat
l." and (5th) "My hope" The verb which
seems most appropriately to follow "Best r.
is "can" (28), aud the same order gives in
other columns my hope small" supposed
you telgraphed." and so on, beaides settling
number in the sequence just left incomplete.
In thei third column, We are irrepistibly
to try the arrangement %, 81, Is, "keep up
~appearances.' and a. that fits all the other
kilograms. We accept it "a correct.
Thus VIC have disposed of 10 ofour 80 words,
and the argument of the others is compare
lively easy, because, Of course, with the eli
mination OF successive gr. ups Of numbers
the possible pernutations Of the remainder
are very rapidly diminished. We need not
carry the explanation any further ut present.
Enough has been eaid to show that The for.
nation of the separate blocks of words is not
by mere random guessing, but in great part
by a strict application Of the rules ofg,am-
mar and attention to known facts that the
succession of words ia often not that which
may be, but that which must be; and tina,
whenever we resort to conjectnres we verify
it by repeated comparisons. Little by little
the fragments fall easily into their appro-
pirate places, and as they fit themselves to-
gsther the hidden meaning shines, forth,
not simply in one dispatch, but simultane-
ously in the whole group Of dispatches.
This then is the sequence which NC Oh.
tanned, after repeated experiment and
close study. for the set Of 80 word message.
given above: II, 30, %, l, IL, 20 Is, s, 10,
20 81, 10. 90 "a, 4, z, l3, Is, IL, %, q, Is,
8. 9, IA, 81 6, l6, %, S;-that ia to say, the
seventeenth word Of the cipher is the first
word Of the translated message, the thirtie,h
word OF the cipher is the second word Of
the message, and 80 on. But there wer.
many tests still TO be applied to the so ution.
We tried the key thus found on a great
many transposition-ciphers some belonging
to the Florlda correspondence, others to The
South Carolina coll, ction. others T. the
Louisiana bundle-oispatches written to
"nu .. Po'eon7' A"e!e "eie
some which it did no. fit, but it applied 40
and Ineligible tran la,ion without any
doubt remsined Of its strict accuracy. II
the sequence had solved only two or three
dispatches out Of q large number, its appli-
cation to those two or three might have
been called an accident but when. it was
found to suit two or three dozen written by
different persons at different dates, and sent
from different places to different persons.
there could be no sort of uue.tion that i,
was a fixed RUE. Furthermore, the sequence
keys were not discovered by one person
alone. Three Investigators. working at q
distance from each other, upon differen,
bundles of kilograms, and without inter
communication, reached independently the
conclusions. Several o. the keys was
found by all three simu' aneonsly. And it
ia worthy of remark that one Of these rams.
lators got at the result BY a very differen,
road from the others. He picked out Of a
great number Of kilograms, without regard
to their length, all the blocks Of words tina,
could be formed BY observing the nee. ssi
ties Of grammatical construction, or by con.
sidering other indications in the dispatch
itself, and it was not until he came to com'
pare and group them that he noticed how
The ella sitication depended upon the length
Of The message.
The system being establi, he'd, sequences
Of Is. 20 and Of 25 words were found by ths
same plan pursued in consti ucting the long
er one. ~.
REVERSIBLE KEYS.
In the course of THE work it began to ap'
roor that frH eo,noo ~ Tho rrorpo &c -, ., hor,
if not for all, there we're two keys, either
of which the correspondent could use a,
pleasure-the key being probably changed
every now and then for the purpose of bel,
ter concealment; and this explained the
exceptional ciphers whose obstinate resist.
ance to the first found keys had puzzled us.
Two sequences, both in fir. quent use, were
found tor the groups If Is numbers, Of 25
and of so. Arguing from analogy that III.
other keys must likewise be double, We
made a thorough examination, which resu {
ed, as We anticipated, in our finding a acc.
ond sequence Of 20 numbers, and finally d
second Of 10. An! this led to the interest.
ing and surprising discovery that each o.
these second or supplementary keys was in
a certain sense the complement to another
We can best explain this law by an exam.
pie. Here is a cipher dispatch of Is words
belonging to what we will call for con
venience the first group; and 10 make the
process clearer we will write and number il
vertically:
l want
2 Holcomb
3 me
1 you
5 or
& xonld