200-year-old ciphers may reveal the location of treasure buried in Virginia

The perpetrator would expect buyers of the pamphlet to try reproduce the decoding of the second ciphertext, so presumably there were versions of the declaration that correctly formed the key.

For the edits (compared to original declaration) see also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beale_ciphers#Deciphered_messa...

I would like to see a python (or other) script with the most important observations reproduced (such as the alphabet like sequence)

  ihaiedeposotedinthecopnttolBedoortaboupfourmilesfrombulordsinanepcaiationoriaultsipfestbelowthesurlacsofthhgtoundthsfotlowingarticissbeaongingjoiotlttothepartfeswhoslnamfsategiietinnumberthr ffhttewith

I have deposited in the county of Bedoort (Bedford?) about for miles from bulords in an epcaiation or vault/fault six feet below the surface of the ground.

Supposedly epcaiation is excavation, that one I didn't get. Some of the latter parts I also have trouble reading without guessing a lot. Like 'joiotltto' and 'thrffhtte'.

1) while it can be explained if the author was intelligent enough to understand letter frequency cryptanalysis, but how widespread would that idea have been in his day and age?

2) even though the symbol frequencies match up, the text seems gibberish, which for now I can only explain as follows:

The author of the pamphlet somehow obtained the 3 original ciphertexts and sincerely believed in their authenticity. (even if his source may or may not have scammed him). He identified the DOI as the correct key for ciphertext 2 (this insight too may have come from the potential source). Trivially the same key is tried on ciphertext 1. The author notices the quasi alphabet and otherwise gibberish. Unable to solve the puzzle he notes that if he cuts up decipherable ciphertext 2 in say 7 letter chunks, they clearly form random parts of english phrases. Similarily he cuts up ciphertext 1 in say 7 letter chunks (but leaves the alphabet part intact), and publishes it, in the hope that someone will find a "weird convincing but failed decoding", such that he only has to restore the ordering of the letters (since he knows how he reordered the 7 letter chunks).

I.e. the pamphlet author might sincerely believe in the authenticity of the originnal ciphertext, but is trying to scam his audience into solving the puzzle for him!

```cpp #include <iostream> #include <string> #include <vector> #include <fstream>

using namespace std;

char quirkdecode(int i, vector<string> dict);

int main(int argc, char argv) {

  // Load the dictionary  
  vector<string> dict;


  ifstream dictstream("doi.txt");
  string str;
  while (dictstream >> str) 
    dict.push_back(str);

  int i, j=0;
  while (cin >> i) {
    j ++;

    cout << quirkdecode(i,dict);
    if (j%5 == 0) cout << " ";
    if (j%75 == 0) cout << endl;
    //*/
  }

  cout << endl;
  return 0;

char quirkdecode(int i, vector<string> dict){ int delta=0;

  if (i==155) return 'a';// Beale Paper DOI has extra 'a' in "institute a new government"
  if (i>155)  delta-=1;  // Compensate for missing 'a' in doi.txt

  if (i>=242) delta+=1;  // 241 decrypts correct 246 not so delta  +1 @ [241-245] 
  if (i>=480) delta+=10; // 466 decrypts correct 485 not so delta +10 @ [267-285] known misnumbering
  if (i>=510) delta-=1;  // TODO presicely ocate
  if (i>=621) delta+=1;  // 620 decrypts correct 643 is not so delta  +1 @ [621-643]
  if (i>=667) delta+=1;  // 666 decrypts correct 807 is not so delta  +1 @ [667-807] ? double check ??

  // Hardcoded Jokers: NOTE 811 and 1005 are also the highest used codes, so it DOES seem to be intended as real
  if (i==811) return 'y' ;  // fundamentallY
  if (i==1005) return 'x' ; // seXes

  i+=delta;
  if (i<dict.size())
      return dict.at(i-1)[0];
  else
      return '!';

which gives:

``` ihave depos itedi nthec ounty ofBed forda boutf ourmi lesfr ombuf ordsi nanex cavat ionor vault sixfe etbel owthe surfa ceoft hegro undth efoll owing artic lesbe longi ngjoi ntlyt othep artie swhos ename sareg iveni nnumb erthr eeher ewith thefi rstde posit consi stcdo ftenh undre dandf ourte enpou ndsof golda ndthi rtyei ghthu ndred andtw elvep ounds ofsil verde posit ednov eight eenni netee nthes econd Wasma dedec eight eentw entyo neand consi stedo fnine teenh undre dands evenp ounds ofgol dandt welve hundr edand eight yeigh tofsi lvera lsoje welso btain edins tloui sinex chang etosa vetra nspor tatio nandv alued atthi rteen rhous anddo llars theab oveis secur elypa ckedi niron potsw ithir oncov ersth evaul tisro ughly lined withs tonea ndthe vesse lsres tonso lidst onean darec overe dwith other spape rnumb erone descr ibest hcexa ctloc ality ofthe varlt sotha tnodi fficu ltywi llbeh adinf indin git ```

The reason one time pads are not used in general is that you need a “perfect” rng, and you have to be able to get the random values to the recipient. Those old “person traveling with brief case of secrets” trope was a real thing. Key distribution is the problem solved by public key cryptography. But you can’t use one time pads with public key crypto, because the weakness is then breaking public keys (which is probably possible).

Stream ciphers loosely acted like a one time pad in that you generate a “random” stream and xor with the message. But it doesn’t reach the actual requirement of security for a one time pad because the key is the RNG seed, which means you can brute force the seed key space and only the correct key will produce a completely sensible decrypted output.

A true one time pad means that a brute force search of the key space for a message of length N will find every valid message of length N.

Eg an 11 letter message would produce (among others) “hello world” and “hello earth” as well as “die planet!”.