K4 CT to PT lookup experiment
This is not a solution, but it was an interesting result.
To reproduce:
- Take K1-K3 PT, align it to be 31x25 writing column-wise
- Use Kryptos alphabet as the headers
- Look up each digraph in K4 ciphertext to find corresponding PT clusters
I attempted this first with the known plaintext BERLINCLOCK, and CT NYPVTTMZFPKWGD, which can be seen in this example.
Here's what I found at each:
# 20, 3 = BER
# 4, 24 (obo) = LI
# 19, 26 = NC
# 4, 12 (obo) = LOC
# 14, 11 = TED / WHO
# 1, 26 = HE / HAC
# 5, 25 = HOLE / HE / CAR / CITE / YEC
# 17, 10 = IN / NAI / RIE / URI / IED _ FY / FLE / FOUR
# 11, 16 = KO/KR / OF / DOOM / DO / OURS / FOUR
# 14, 1 = DIVUL / DE / DIA / SHI / SEL / SHA
# 22, 15 = TT / TTI / TTE / TRON / TH / THS
NY = RBE
PV = LI
TT =
MZ = NC
FP = LOC
KW =
GD = HO K
There are multiple issues with this procedure, which show up in most failed K4 attempts:
- Off-by-one issues
- No deterministic system, although the directions seem like they could have a pattern
- Most of the characters are very common in the plaintext (other than K, there are only 4), using a random string instead of K4, this may produce similar results. I haven't calculated the probability or tested this yet.
- Some look-ups required row/column others column/row, and some seemed like they were nulls or related to unrelated characters to the known plaintext. Also the first result requires permutation of RBE into BER
I tried expanding this beyond BERLINCLOCK to see possible plaintext with this method. There were a few solutions, but this gets into anagramming and without a clear idea of a system within a sea of Plaintext, there's a high chance of false positives.
Some examples of plaintext (but probably incorrect):
BERLIN CLOCK HOUR OF DETH ..
BERLIN CLOCK WHO HE CARRIED ..
BERLIN CLOCK THE HOLE IN OUR ..
"HOUR OF DETH" was interesting, because it could refer to Die Todesstunde (The Hour of Death) by Alfred Kubin, which is an eerie drawing of a clock. Alfred Kubin had multiple exhibitions in Berlin.
But again, this doesn't seem close enough, or it would require discovering the system in place, if any exists. If this is close to the correct path forward, it seems pretty wacky unless alignment is off or some missing information. For now, I'm filing this in the creative anagram folder.