FBI wants public help solving encrypted notes from murder mystery | Hacker News Reader

FBI wants public help solving encrypted notes from murder mystery

networkworld.com

133 pointscoondoggie154 comments

I thought this could be a fun 'challenge'...

I'm inclined to believe that this is potentially ciphered in English, due to, what look to be stiking similarities between the alphabetic character frequencies of the notes:

http://d122.com/murdermystery/freq.png

and the frequencies of characters in English:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:English_letter_frequency_(...

If anyone else wants to have a play here is my (rough) transcripts and an ODS with some frequencies:

http://d122.com/murdermystery/1.txt

http://d122.com/murdermystery/2.txt

http://d122.com/murdermystery/freq.ods

I'll update here if I find anything interesting. Lots of patterns repeated in this text!

What was your methodology for getting freq.png?

It's just a frequency count of the letters in the transcriptions I did. Obviously my transcript may not be perfect, but I was pretty confident with most of the letters.

This was just my first observation and I thought it was interesting enough to post.

I guess, isn't it weird that nearly matches the graph for English? If each letter moved to the right 8 places closely matched the expected value of that letter that would suggest that that you would be on to something.

Doesn't this point to it might be a fraud as you wouldn't expect an encrypted message to contain the exact same distribution as expected unless they just switched letters of near the same frequency around?

That's a valid point. I appreciate that it may be nothing, but that won't discourage me from having a little play with it.

Here's a CSV containing the frequency of all words from 2 upto 10 letters http://d122.com/murdermystery/words.csv if anyone's interested.

"rcbrnse" five times?!

I don't want to discourage you, but I just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing something. I know there are a lot of people smarter than me, and I am no expert here so I thought you might know something I don't.

I wonder what his influences would have been around 1965...he would have been around 7. I also did catch that he is very detail oriented when it came to correcting his "mistakes".

Looking for a 7 letter word from this list: http://www.world-english.org/english500.htm

gives 27 hits. Could be a name as well though. I realize this might appear as unsophisticated brute force, I'm just thinking aloud really.

It could just mean that it's a transposition-only cipher.

Exactly. To clarify: a transposition cipher is one that just scrambles the letters in the plaintext according to some algorithm to get the ciphertext, which would cause you to get the same letter frequencies as the plaintext.

The problem is figuring out the rules of transposition so you can reverse them to decipher. There are tons of possibilities and you can't exactly plug a corpus this large into an anagram solver...

That said, the fact that there are also several repeated sections ("words") does make me wonder if it's a hoax, that's not something I'd expect to see with a transposition cipher, unless the transposition rules somehow preserved repetition in passages?

Anyway, food for thought.

I would guess that he is using "E" as a separator, since it seems to occur at almost all end-of-lines and before punctuation/numbers. And maybe the letter just before "E" has some significance, as there is only a small set of letters that appears there, with "SE" extremely frequent. It's possible that he is stripping out vowels as a kind of shorthand.

Indeed, if you examine the scanned notes, there are subtle gaps after most of the "E"s

I wonder if he might be using a gendered language. Which would explain a high level of xE or even yxE at the end of sentences.

think of it like this miles is mlse to him...he writes as tho he is exhaling at the end of each word. MKSE = makes

The most common letters in Hungarian are e and a

I was just about to type all of this out when common sense kicked in and I decided to look through the comments. Bless you for sharing!

Excellent. I personally love this sort of thing, though I'm rarely successful.

I was typing out the letters as I saw them, and I noticed that I interpreted many of your "S" as the number 5, but after looking at the way he wrote "S", it appears relatively consistent throughout the text.

So letter groupings became interesting: SE - 66 matches RSE - 18 matches

In the first document TFNRE appears twice.

Here's my interpretation from looking at the two documents (I really wish there were seriously high resolution scans of these docs, it'd help to sort out the asterisks which I used to represent characters I couldn't reasonably identify)

    (M*ADMKNE#R-N-STA-KNARE) (ACSM)
  *TFRNENP*NSEWPBSERCBBNSENPRSEINC
  PRSENMRSEOPREHLDWLDNCSE(TXFLFTCXLNC*E)
  AL-*RPPITXLYPPIYNCBEMEKSE*C*SEPRSE
  WLDRCBRNSE*T*SNE*TXSE-C*SLE-CITRSEWLDNCBE
  ALW*PNCBETSMEL*SERLSEVRGLSNEASNWLDNCBE
  (NOPFSENLRENCBE)NTEGDDMNSENCURER*BR**
  (TEWETFRNENC**TSENCBEI*G)
  (FIRSEPRSEONDE71NCBE)
  (CDWSEPRSEONSE74NCBE)
  (PRTSEPRSEONERDE76NCBE)
  (TFNGCMSOLEMRDELUSETOTEWLD*WLD*CBE)
  (194WLD'SNCBE)(TRFXC)

Page 2

  ALPNTEGLSE-SE ERTE
  YLSE MTSE-CTSE-WSE-FRTSE
  PNRTRSEONDRSEWLDNCBE
  *WLDXLRCMSPNEDVLDSTSMEXL
  DULMT6TUNSENCBEXC 

  (*UNSARSTENMUNARSE)
  KLSE-LRSTE-TRSE-MKSEN-MRSE
  (SAE6NSESEMRCE)

  NMRCBRSNEPTE2*TEWSRCBKN*E
  **MLSE74SPRKSE29KENO*OLE17SRTRSE
  8S*LECLG*E**NUTRE*KRSEPSESHLE
  6SIMTCSEHTLSENCUTCTRSNMRE
  99.84S2UNEP2SENCRSEAOKTSENSKSEN*SE
  NSREONSEPVTSEWLDNCBE(JXORL)
  *NMSENRSEINRNTRNTRLERCBRNSENTSRCR*NE
  LSPNSENGSPSEMKSERBSENCEAVXLR
  HMCRENMRENCBE     1/2MUNDDLSE
  D-W-MIYMPL XDRX

This is the sort of problem I'd like to give to my child (as Douglass Adams states throughout his books) ... no bias or formula to work with. The "Street Smart" comment struck me a bit. When I was a kid, being "Street Smart" was a compliment used in contrast to someone who is "Book Smart". Being "Book Smart" was bad. Street Smart == Application of knowledge, Book Smart == would beat you at trivial pursuit/Jeopardy, but wouldn't know what to do with that knowledge.

EDIT: Ahh, half my comment was missing!

Ahh great, thanks for sharing.

I've added a few bits to a git repo:

https://github.com/d122/Murder-Mystery

Just some basic python code in there for now.

I'll have a look at the differences in our transcriptions when I get back from work tomorrow, and maybe try and think of some more angles to approach this.

    (MnD MKNE#R-N-STA-KNARE) (ACSM)
  oTFRNENPtNSEWPBSERCBBNSENPRSEINC
  PRSENMRSEOPREHLDWLDNCSE(TXFLFTCXLNC*E)
  AL-pRPPITXLYPPIYNCBEMEKSEinCdSEPRSE
  WLDRCBRNSEnToSNEnTXSE-CrSLE-CITRSEWLDNCBE
  ALWlPNCBETSMELrSERLSEVRGLSNEASNWLDNCBE
  (NOPFSENLRENCBE)NTEGDDMNSENCURERcBRne
  (TEWE TFRNE NCbrTSE NCBE InG)-
  (FIRSE PRSE ONDE 71 NCBE)-
  (CDnSE PRSE ONSE 74 NCBE)-
  (PRTSE PRSE ONER DE 75 NCBE)
  (TFNGCMSOLEMRDELUSETOTEWLDnwLDnCBE)
  (194WLD'SNCBE)(TRFXC)

  ALPNTEGLSE-SE ERTE
  YLSE MTSE-CTSE-WSE-FRTSE
  PNRTRSEONDRSEWLDNCBE
  nWLDXLRCMSPNEDVLDSTSMEXL
  DULMT6TUNSENCBEXC 

  (mUNSARSTEN MU NARSE)
  KLSE-LRSTE-TRSE-MKSEN-MRSE
  (SAE6NSESEMRCE)

  NMnRCBRSNEPTE2pTEWSRCBKNsE
  86MLSE74SPRKSE29KENO*OLE17SRTRSE
  356LECLGsEouNUTRf*KRSEPSESHLE
  651MTCSEHTLSENCUTCTRSNMRE
  {99.84.52} UNEP25ENCRSEAOKTSENSKSENrSE
  NSREONSEPVTSEWLDNCBE(JXORL)
  *NMSENRSEINRNTRNTRLERCBRNSENTSRCRsNE
  LSPNSENGSPSEMKSERBSENCEAVXLR
  HMCRENMRENCBE     1/2MUNDDLSE
  D-W-MIYMPL XDRX

Here is an updated version of your work. I went through and replaced all the asterisks with the letters. The lines I replaced are in lowercase. The asterisks that remain are characters that are to scribbled to read.

The lines that Have the dash - next to them stand out heavily. As someone has stated before (I believe it was thinkalone 6), they may represent Interstates. The biggest question is what language did Ricky McCormick speak? Was he known to use any slang?

Another part that stuck out at me was the numbers 99.84.52. I would have to take a punch and say that it is a PO box combination code. I put the numbers in brackets {---} to spot easlily. But what got me was the lines before and after the numbers, 651MTCSEHTLSENCUTCTRSNMRE and UNEP25ENCRSEAOKTSENSKSENrSE It has to be an address of some sort and location. UNEP25ENCRSEAOKT. This looks possibly like an adress. I focused on that portion for a few minutes and could not bypass the feeling of an address. Where to I dont know. But thats all Ihave for now. I am going to get some sleep and dive back into it when I wake up. If you have any comments or even something to help or add, Email me when you reply so that I will know when to check. Thanks! Y! Plutoniumrings

I think the 99.84 is a radio station

My first though also, but 99.84 isnt a radio station (Im in st louis); 99.9 used to be the classical station here though; I see nothing St. Louis related in the texts, that makes much sense unfortunately

My bad, so many people are going onto other sites and just posting garbage..

I got a site with a pic of the guy

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1371604/FBI-asks-cod...

if that's the case, it'd be 99.7 or 99.9, american stations use odd numbered frequencies.

{99.84.52} ip address not to far from the place he`s body was found

I developed a coded language when I was a kid, which I still use sometimes. I have looked at Ricky's notes but all I have is some theories based on my experience with my own language. Hopefully that helps.

My own language is letter-for-letter encryption, which makes it a lot easier to memorize the key (I was 8 years old when I invented mine). I suspect that is what Ricky did since I noticed that some individual characters were corrected.

Also, after almost 40 years of using my own language, I have developed "shorthand for the shorthand", so some of my words are abbreviations or shorthand for actual words - which makes letter-for-letter decryption tricky. When things get complicated, I insert a character I know does not belong in my key to indicate the beginning and end of some shorthand alteration. I suspect Ricky might have used parenthesis.

My key duplicates some characters (i.e. they mean something else depending on how they are used). I am wondering if Ricky's numbers are not always numbers. One piece that struck me, was the "99.84S2..." sentence because in my own system I don't use the number zero. So I thought, wouldn't it be interesting if Ricky thought the same way, and a period is shorthand for a zero in a telephone number?

I do not write things down in code just for the fun of it. Although it is fun trying to decipher code. I use it to write down passwords, bank account numbers, etc. that I don't want anyone to know. In other words, very precise pieces of information. The problem is, for all we know, Ricky could have been an aspiring artist and these could be his lyrics that he thought were worth millions. This is a lot of writing for one codified note. My guess is that these are several pieces of information that may not be necessarily related, such as a list of contacts or a log/diary of some sort. The note on the FBI site looks like it was all written down in one sitting. Therefore, there is a high likelihood that these notes were transferred from somewhere else (or Ricky's head) as a way to safeguard something for himself and nobody else (i.e. the law). Therefore, the diary/log idea is less likely than a list of contacts or places.

I would love to hear how this story ends.

large pics http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/fb/Ricky_McCormic...

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/58/Ricky_McCormic...

Your text files appear to be missing the indention that was in the original note. Any Python developer could tell you that whitespace can be extremely important. ;-)

When I trying to convert from hand-writing to upper-case text, I couldn't help but think about the loss of fidelity.

It's an important point. It may have meant something, or it may have meant that he was writing on a piece of paper against a surface that wasn't large enough, so he had to shift the paper around (I wonder why the second page has a bunch of circles around text, while the first page does not).

I love python (I did this in python):

https://github.com/d122/Murder-Mystery

But you are both correct, the indentation, circling etc. may be important, but I just wanted to get the letters down initially. Start with the basics and work up!

You need to decipher the code using the Hungarian language not English. The only set of words in the entire two pages that could be translated to a meaningful English phrase is on the first line of page 2 (NOTES) The words are "SE ERTE", which means "I do not understand" in Hungarian. It is not unusual for people that speak foreign languages to intermix languages. In this case however, its placement on the first line of the "NOTES" page seems to be a "Key" to solving or "Understanding" the crypto.

I am a Hungarian and just reading the comments on this case. You are not the first one came up with the idea. Unfortunately, it didn't ring any bell in my language. 'I don't understand' is NEM ÉRTEM / NEM ERTEM in Hungarian. SE ERTE doesn't mean anything in this context. The closest thing could be NEITHER FOR HIM/HER = SE ÉRTE

what about a safe or lock combination for the 99.84.52?

I have a nephew who has Asperger's Syndrome - severe. One of the things he loves to do is invent languages and list thousands of words as a dictionary and even write short stories with them. The image seems to have just a touch of the same feel. Significant repetition (NCBE) and limited variation of the letters (E is overrepresented). The story hints that the victim wasn't competent mentally. It mentions he could read and write; why mention that unless people would think he couldn't for some other reason?

Anyway, just a thought, probably doesn't mean anything.

Asperger's precludes anyone from having the necessary toolbox to be even remotely considered 'streetsmart', as is mentioned in the article.

Interesting perspective however.

Depends on where they are on the spectrum - one of the better salespeople I knew was diagnosed mildly AS. He was extremely smart, had gotten very good at reading people's mannerisms, and didn't get uneasy with that sort of manipulation - it's not a black and white thing.

And, frankly, "Street Smart" + "Murdered" = "Not Street Smart Enough"

Granted I'm not a psychologist but am extremely familiar with the literature/research on AS, and everything I can recall promotes a severe disability in recognizing, interacting, and making connections with/between individuals, groups and environments--which is how I would define 'streetsmarts.'

But you're absolutely right in saying that it isn't black and white. There are also plenty of misdiagnosed cases; and the research and criteria continually evolve.

"McCormick was a high school dropout, but he was able to read and write …"

As a high school dropout myself, I'm a little insulted by the implication that all high school dropouts are illiterate!

On the other hand, hopefully we don't graduate illiterates.

Well, I guess that depends on whether your standards for literacy include knowing the differences between "they're", "there", and "their".

Personally, having worked as a writer and wanting to be a novelist, my standard for literacy does include knowing the differences between "they're/there/their", "we're/were/where/wear", etc. So from what I've seen about 50% of students are graduated illiterate.

I'd also add that they should know how to use who and whom, but then that would be making our population 90% illiterate.

Whatever happened to whom? You never hear or read it anymore.

It's gone the way of will and shall, nobody seems to know or care about the difference.

"Do not ask for who the bell tolls..." -- sounds like crap, but that's the way they'd write it today.

no they wouldn't. they'd write "don't ask who the bell tolls for." which sounds fine.

We know that he's had this "language" since he was a child so I'm going to go out on a limb here (and introduce no small measure of my own bias) and guess its not a cerebral cipher that will easily be unraveled by simple frequency of note correlation.

I've likely got a touch of Asperger's myself and I know I have a bigger touch of synesthesia. I remember vividly during my childhood certain words being an explosion of color and texture and even having under-tones of other unrelated sounds. Even today I've got my own little "esperanto" in my mind for words and concepts that don't feel right in normal language. I use them on occasion on my unfortunate family, although its tough to say "oranger than orange with a texture like crumpled sandpaper and snow" succinctly.

Is there a way to just output the letters as a stream of phonyms? I tried "say" at the command prompt but this ends up reading the names of the letters and not their sounds. I'm going to guess this "code" is a stream-of-consciousness type thing and would be very interested in hearing it slurred out fast as basic sound.

> Is there a way to just output the letters as a stream of phonyms?

After noticing the frequency of NCBE, I focused on these three lines from the first document:

  (FLRSE PRSE ONDE 71 NCBE)
  (CDNSE PRSE ONS*E 74 NCBE)
  (PR+SE PRSE ONREDE 75 NCBE)

They seem pronounceable in a sort of pig-latin style - "Flur-say pur-say ohn-day 71 nick-bay"

> although its tough to say "oranger than orange with a texture like crumpled sandpaper and snow" succinctly.

As a side-note, do you know of any books/novels that authentically explore with that kind of language and method of internally expressing concepts? I think it's interesting to learn how people interpret the world.

I lit on that too. I find myself adding syllables and sounds to words in my mind all the time to "smooth their edges". Some words just don't fit together without "help".

I thought maybe "Firse Perse On de 71 Nice be"

I'm perusing the thought that maybe he's taking notes on how people treated him or something.

Yeah, I think it is more phonetic shorthand than any kind of cypher. Unfortunately, it's a long shot that we'll be able to get any insight into it without knowing more about the victim's personal characteristics or habits.

are there any freeways around st louis that would go along with these numbers? If he is street smart, and the family said that in 1999....maybe is was homeless, but creative at getting what he needs.

I blew up the docs and printed em....kinda helps....im gonna search for info on this guy.

What if the S is actually a 5?

I had thought of that to many times it is written as if you can take it either way

71,74,75 are all interstates in/around Cincinnati

AHA!....i think he was going around and looking at cars on the sheet that says NOTES, that would explain the reccurences and the circling, he was keeping the vehicles separated.....he went to go see a car and got murdered by the owner?? oh yeah i live in SOCAL, so the freeway thing was a longshot....i also believe that this man has Aspergers and Dyslexia....but they balled up his symptoms as Aspergers. One word keeps calling to me .... PSESHLE....take the first three letters PSE change them to SPE and add SHLE SPESHLE....this guy had the basics, mixed with his own different thinking style.

Interstate 71, 74, and 75 are near Cincinnati.

Here are some other links to save you some searching:

http://www.websleuths.com/forums/showthread.php?t=131822

http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_product=SL...

I feel as if someone could talk to his family, this would be so much easier....I did notice how it sounds like his family was never intrigued by this kids home-made language, that he had since he was a kid....i dont think they would disregard this language unless they knew it had any discernable patterns, but once again we dont know his folks.

That's why I'm not too confident that there's anything to find here - the case went all the way to the FBI, so they certainly followed all the leads they had and talked to any witnesses and family members. And, not to be morbid, but the victim was 41 in 1999, so his parents are likely deceased by now.

Maybe the 71, 74 and 75 were busses?

I kind of read that to be: First press on the 71, Second press on the 74 Third press on the 75

Someone further down suggested that 71,74,75 might be a combination to a padlock.

I think in any case this points to it being directions of some sort. PRSE is probably a verb of some sort if those are infact directions.

I think pad locks only go up to 35?

As a lifelong St. Louisan, there are lots of drug problems north of St. Louis, which is where his body was found. And, basically any place across the river into IL is pretty nasty and full of hookers and crack. You have to drive a long way to get to civilization like the suburbs of Chicago. So, if I had to throw a guess out there about some random numbers that a dead guy was writing, I'm going to go with drug related in some way. Addresses, measurements, dollar amounts, something like that And, none of the numbers have any relationship to highways or streets in the area. But, there's a house with the address of 194 Orchard Drive and it happens to be located near highway 367 in between Alton and St. Louis, which is the only description of the location of the body that I've been able to find. Also, the house was sold in early 2000, six months after the body was found. It's all grasping at straws because, let's face it, random ciphers don't get you anything. You have to know more about the person than the FBI has said. It would help if they told us whether he was a known drug user, pimp, gang banger, or even an avid churchgoer, anything would be better than what they've done which is, "Here's this random string of letters and numbers with no context. Tell me what they mean."

Or, Jesus, even how he died. I never saw anything about what actually killed him. A tap to the back of the head? Strangulation? The FBI is not being very smart if they actually want information from the public.

What is really odd is that the FBI is handling this case. What made this a Federal case?

Well over half the time E is used it is preceded by the letter S. It seems E is only used with very few letter preceding it. BE, LE, RE, TE and SE

not a reply. but at the bottom p1 (194 wld's ncbe) (194 countrys of the world map.) 194 recognized countrys in the new world order. dec 71 UN meeting investigate. sep 74 UN meeting investigate. re dec UN meeting investigate. E is used as a statement ending. its not code but personalized info. also look up compounding intrest and sinking bonds. 99.84.8 is a intrest table rate at 7%. 99.84% at 8 years

Interesting. I was looking at the letter strings as possible penny stock symbols

can there be an connection between "194 WLD'S" and McCormick adress at 194 Orchard Dr, Belleville. At the corner with "West Blvd"

99.84.5.2 is IP for SBC

not a reply but NCBE appears at least 11 times: National Conference of Bar Examiners

if E is no meaning. i think NCB = http://www.ncb.com/default.aspx?id=614

Does NCBE mean: National Centre for Biotechnology Education? Does WLD's mean World's?

Does NCBE mean: National Centre for Biotechnology Education? Does WLD's mean: World's? National Centre for Biotechnology Education has to do with DNA, etc.

if E is no meaning then: National Central Bureaus (NCB) - Each INTERPOL member country maintains a National Central Bureau staffed by national law enforcement.

There appear to be at least 2 (if not 3) different types of E. The first is a very distinct E. The second has a more curved shape for the back (like a bracket '(' rather than '['), the final (which seems to only appear at the end of lines) appears more like an arrow, with the back being triangular <-

I found it quite hard to decipher the original images the FBI provided.. So I pulled them into Photoshop converted them to Grey-scale and ran them through a Genuine Fractals routine and mathematically increased the resolution by 700% without losing any image quality, then I filtered them 3 times with some unsharp masking, to bring out some hidden details, finally I inverted the colors which makes several characters that were unrecognizable before appear.. especially on the 2nd page where the smudging is.

The files are 8 mb in size and I have it in both regular and inverted format.

Inverted View http://www.mediafire.com/i/?f5zukpyfsjdct5s

Enlarged Regular View http://www.mediafire.com/i/?84z1owcxf52ktmc

Pretty cool - it definitely helps to read things better, although it actually resulted in me removing more characters from my transcription! After seeing them more clearly, I was less confident to make a judgment on which letter they may be.

I'll include my transcription below. I've marked questionable characters with an asterisk, and the circled sections are enclosed in square brackets:

Document 1 - P1

  (MND MK NE* RSE-N-S-*-KNARE) (ACSM)
  *TFRNE NP*NSE NPBSE RCBBNSE NPRSE 1NC
  PRSE NM*SE *PREHLD WLDNCBE(TFXL* TCXL NCBE)
  AL-*RPPIT XLYPPIY NCBE M*KSEWCD RCBR NSE PRSE
  WLDRCBRNSE NT **NE*T*SE-CRSLE-CITRSE WLDNCBE
  ALWCPNCBETSME LRSE RLSE UR GLSNE AS N WLDNCBE
  (NOPFSE NLSRE NCBE) NTE GDDMNSENCURERCBRNE
  (TENE TFRNE NCBRTSENCBE 1NC)

  (FLRSE PRSE ONDE 71 NCBE)
  (CDNSE PRSE ONS*E 74 NCBE)
  (PR+SE PRSE ONREDE 75 NCBE)

  (TF N*CMSP SOLE MRDE LUSE TOTE WLD*WLDNCBE)
  (194 WLD'S NCBE)(TRFXL)

Document 2 - NOTES

  [ ALPNTE GLSE-SE ER+E
  YLSE MTSE-CTSE-WSE-FRTSE
  PNRTRSE ONPRSE WLD NCBE
  N WLD XLRCMSP NEWLD STS MEXL
  *ULMT * TUNSE NCBE ** ]

  [ (M*NSA*STEN MUNARSE)
  KLSE-LRSTE-TR SE-TRSE-M*SE *-MRSE
  (SAE*NSE SE N MRCE) ]

  [ NMNRCBRNSE PTE 2PTE WSR*B****
  36 MLSE 74SPRKS E 29KE NO*OLE 175 R*RSE
  35 SLE CLGSE *UNUT*E *KRSE PSESHLE
  651 MTCSE HTLSE NCUTCTRS NMRE
  99.84.5 *UNEPLSE NCRSE AO*TSE N S*SE N* SE
  N5REONSE PVTSE WLD NCBE (JXOR*) ]

  [ *NMSE NRSE 1N2 NTRCE RCB*NSE NTSRCR*N
  LSPNSE N GSPSE MKSE R BSE N CBE *XL*R

  HM CRE N MRE NCBE     1/2 MUN D DLSE ]

  [ D-W-M14 *PL X*RLX ]

http://www.stltoday.com/news/article_60dc223e-5b1b-11e0-9833...

http://www.stltoday.com/news/article_bcc02074-5b1a-11e0-b199... news stories about Ricky McCormick printed at time of discovery

I think You are all digging into this a little too Deep. Though We know little about this Fellow, We do know He was a High School drop out turned Bum. Again, I think "penny stock symbols", "compounding intrest and sinking bonds", "new world order conspiracy theories", and even simple mathematical algorithms can be ruled out here. I'll have to agree with the "pig-latin style""phonetic shorthand" idea.

Looks to me like it might be a mnemonic text compression scheme, not encrypted text. I've known one person who used pictograms as mnemonic memory aids. I think this man was using the first letter of words as mneumonic aids to each word in his note. Therefore, each letter has a context sensitive meaning that reminded him of the text of his note. However, don't assume he could spell -- he may have heard the wrong sounds for the beginning of words and therefore may misspell even the first letters of a word. While most people get at least the first letter of a word correct, I know a few who that seem to have an auditory equivalent of dyslexia and make mistakes there too.

In that vein, the key will be the numbers and related letters around them, especially the repeated ones. The numbers are likely not encoded since the meaning of the rest of the text is obscure.

For example, "E 71" "E 74" and "E 75" on page 1 might mean Interstate (or "Enterstate") 71, 74 & 75. Then the trailing "NCBE" could mean "nice camping by interstate (enterstate)" or "no collecting by exit" or, well, practically anything. Without knowing a lot more about the man and his life, it would be impossible to even begin to guess.

Final insight. Page 1 is organized and formatted nicely, and appears like it might have been done on lined paper. It is probably a copy of some original notes about things important for him to remember. If this is really a mnemonic compression scheme, then this page will be the rosetta stone. It would be interesting to know whatever became of page(s) 2 and later of his transcribed notes (nobody denotes a page as page 1 unless there's more than one page). The notes page is more haphazard, with groups circled. It was probably the notes he was taking that day, or at least the notes he hadn't spent time to transcribe yet. One of the last notes was probably why he was killed, although its doubtful any of them are notes about killer -- they're probably about something completely unrelated and he was just unfortunate enough to be seen taking notes while looking at something in the wrong direction.

I hope they catch the murderer someday.

Looks to me like it might be a mnemonic text compression scheme, not encrypted text. I've known one person who used pictographs as mnemonic memory aids. I think this man was using the first letter of words as mnemonic aids to each word in his note. Therefore, each letter has a context sensitive meaning that reminded him of the text of his note. However, don't assume he could spell -- he may have heard the wrong sounds for the beginning of words and therefore may misspell even the first letters of a word. While most people get at least the first letter of a word correct, I know a few who that seem to have an auditory equivalent of dyslexia and make mistakes there too.

In that vein, the key will be the numbers and related letters around them, especially the repeated ones. The numbers are likely not encoded since the meaning of the rest of the text is obscure.

I hope they catch the murderer someday.

otfrnen

No offense, and I think your approach to the cipher sounds like a pretty good one, but why do so many people try to self-diagnose with Asperger's?

Pretty sure there are clinically-accepted criteria for it that go beyond "nerdy and slightly awkward".

Its a scale. With a bell curve. No one is 0% and no one is 100%. Why do half of people claim to be above average?

"Nerdy and slightly awkward" might just mean "a little bit left of the middle". And some are more than others. How far left do I need to be before I get my official merit badge?

> Why do half of people claim to be above average?

Because of illusory superiority. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_superiority)

That would be why more than half of people claim this. I should have said "Why could half of people claim to be above the median."

Oh dear. I think I might be below average.

Better than having feeble kids, I guess.

To be fair, I don't believe he outright said his reasoning for being diagnosed, you're just assuming he's taking the label for being "nerdy and slightly awkward", presumably for being on this site.

In reality, his comment leaves nothing to indicate that doctors/et al couldn't have indicated that he's borderline over the years.

Check out a book called THE PHYSICIANS OF MYDDVAI. New York Public Library 1897: 71073 It is in Google Books. I notice the use of the appostrphys (sp) and certain letter groups appear throughout this book.

A definition may be an intention, vs an interpretation of phrase. I have not yet dicerned that the note was intended to communicate to anyone but the author, Therefore, is not required to communicate via speach.

NCBE like a Place Like National Conference of Bar Examiners. Just i don't know why he want to write

  (FLRSE PRSE ONDE 71 NCBE)
  (CDNSE PRSE ONS*E 74 NCBE)
  (PR+SE PRSE ONREDE 75 NCBE)

Just the thing i don't know want the mean of the number... Just like he want to calculate some thing... I don't know...@@

OK i don't know how this may help you when i was a 18 month old kid i was partly stroke by lightning and did not speak until i was 5 and English was not my really first language was speaking Yiddish at the same time when i could talk again at about 5 years of age. i got no special help for a long time if i needed to spell something i just did it so i could understand it, i didn't care if some else could read it. i remember writing person like he did PRES OND AND I'M ALMOST 70 NOW MAYBE HE WAS LIKE ME AND THESE ARE HIS NOTES THERE NOT CODE AT ALL, BUT HOW HE SEES THEM sorry about the upper case i still do it LOL i had to use spell check or you would laugh at me so i was trying to read it like if i was a bad speller and i used to make my own kind of short hand just a try I'm sure I'm off base

Gary

Did you guys miss the zune pulse for 99.84 and the references to xlr (jacks for microphones and speakers).. I don't have time but look at this through the lens of Roadie... are there references to (audio) speakers?

Just goes to show how dead a language Lisp really is when even the FBI can't find someone that understands the code.

Wow, this is what gets upvotes these days. Nice.

If I ever murder anybody, I'm going to leave a lot of "encrypted notes" around. It will turn out that one is a review of a restaurant and the other is just random noise.

True to the cryptic.

For double bonus points, make sure you have enough entropy in your code that it "trivially" decodes to your restaurant review in one half, and the other half is just plausible-looking noise.

A better image of the text can be found on the FBI's site: http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2011/march/cryptanalysis_032...

I kind of wonder if this is an alternative to the old "You've won a free trip, come to this location to collect your prize" used to catch criminals on the lamb.

It seems like this might be a ploy to tempt the ego of the murderer into providing the decryption of his own note. In other words, solving this puzzle may land you directly on the suspect list.

Not really, the victim made the language himself and did this for quite some while.

A bit of pedantry: it is "on the lam" not "on the lamb" but that is a common enough misconception that I feel pointing it out is actually productive rather than nit-picky.

Absolutely. I am not a native speaker, so I appreciate it, when people improve my knowledge of the English language.

I just read your last two comments carefully. If you hadn't mentioned it, I would have thought that you were a native speaker of English.

The lam/lamb mistake is exactly the sort of thing that even native speakers would screw up. You also have an extra comma in "appreciate it, when" but that's minor.

It's probably because you invite people to correct you that you're so good.

Same here.

Your last comma is probably superfluous, I think.

Thanks for the clarification.

To me, as an idiomatic expression goes, it always made sense to be on the "lamb". I thought the expression had originated from shepherding--like a shepherd chasing after a loose sheep.

The online etymology dictionary (http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=lam) says it's of uncertain origin, but does not mention ovines.

It comes from lam meaning to thrash or pound. So you're stomping your feet running quickly.

I'd posit that solving this puzzle almost certainly will land you on the suspect list, however, I don't think that it's a ploy.

I know that it isn't practical for the FBI to publicize the approaches that they've attempted in deciphering this, but I'm very discouraged by the prospect of spending time on what might be simply redoing a small corner of a failed effort by someone much more qualified.

I agree. I'm certainly not their ideal codebreaker but would have given it a go for fun trying to come up with some off-the-wall stuff based on what I do but the lack of disclosure is a huge turn off.

How about them not feeling charitable enough to offer any reward for something they've probably wasted many thousand man-hours on?

Yeah, but think about how many more thousands of man-hours would be wasted if there was a reward.

Like most similar “for fun” code-breaking competition, this one presumably will trigger forums where all the classic strategies tried by the FBI will be tested once and signalled as failed.

On the contrary, sometimes "out of the box" thinking by a non-expert is exactly the lightning bolt from out of nowhere that can cause a breakthrough.

True! ...but if they could tell me that they had already tried X, Y and Z classes of rot cypher, then I'd at least know I wasn't going down a path that's already been examined.

You could be disregarding the answer from the start, all because the FBI told you to.

This was super interesting to try. Even more interesting are the thoughts everyone has had. My version, parsed so I could take a look at patterns.

				(PI)

(mndmvneaRSE-n-sta-unare) (alsm)

tf r nen pt NSE N PSER cb NSE N PRSE inc

PRSE N MRSE opreh ld-en-ld NCBE (tfxl ftexl NCBE)

al-pr ppit xly ppiy NCBE mek SE inc d RCBR NSE PRSE

WLD RCBR NSE ntog nen tx SE - crsle - cit r-SE WLD NCBE

alwlp NCBE tsme LRSE RLSE urglsneas N WLD NCBE

(mopfsen LSRE NCBE) ntegddm NSE n curer cbrnt

(te-n-et-frne NCBR tse NCBE ing)

(flr SE PRSE ON DE 71 NCBE) (cdn SE PRSE ON s DE 74 NCBE) (prt SE PRSE ON re DE 75 NCBE)

(tf nbcmspsolemrdeluse tote WLD N in ld NCBE) (194 WLD's NCBE) (trfxl)

some combinations:

tf, tfr, tfn, tfxl, ftexl, trfxl

"rcbr nse prse wld rcbr nse" (this seems poetic in structure)

ncbr, rbcr, ncbe

(se could = it, at, on, we, he, in) se, nse, nen, mrse, prse, pser, rlse, lrse, rse

I find WLD the most intriguing since there seems to be a contracted version of it also. WLD'S. Could be- can't, you'd, she'd, who'd, why'd, how's, who's, won't- as each of these form a new word when removing the contraction.

I also wished there was a much larger version available, if they truly wanted help that is. Its hard enough to read, especially when reduced in size.

The top right very hard to read. I've seen several versions of it now. I translated to "alsm" put that into google, and came up with an old google coder page for Username: alsm...@gmail.com.

Really intriguing. The first page has 'p1' up in the corner, which makes me think the sequence of the pages might matter...

The whole thing reminds me of pages in my notebook where I kept all of my Windows and Adobe license codes.

Maybe he was selling pirated copies of Windows and Adobe in the street?

My thought was maybe it's a one-time pad and the P1 identifies the particular key in use. But you're probably right, it's most likely a page number.

http://groups.google.com/group/sci.crypt/browse_thread/threa...

This person Globemaker seems to be on the right track.

Maybe FBI is simply hiring ;-)

This appears to share the same ciphertext characteristics as traditional prison kites.

what makes you say that?

Negative.

If you replace the "N"s with and asterisk and "E"s with a slash you get something that looks like this:

  (M*D MK*\#R-*-STA-K*AR\) (ACSM)
  oTFR*\*Pt*S\WPBS\RCBB*S\*PRS\I*C
  PRS\*MRS\OPR\HLDWLD*CS\(TXFLFTCXL*C*\)
  AL-pRPPITXLYPPIY*CB\M\KS\i*CdS\PRS\
  WLDRCBR*S\*ToS*\*TXS\-CrSL\-CITRS\WLD*CB\
  ALWlP*CB\TSM\LrS\RLS\VRGLS*\AS*WLD*CB\
  (*OPFS\*LR\*CB\)*T\GDDM*S\*CUR\RcBR*\
  (T\W\ TFR*\ *CbrTS\ *CB\ I*G)-
    (FIRS\ PRS\ O*D\ 71 *CB\)-
    (CD*S\ PRS\ O*S\ 74 *CB\)-
    (PRTS\ PRS\ O*\R D\ 75 *CB\)
  (TF*GCMSOL\MRD\LUS\TOT\WLD*wLD*CB\)
  (194WLD'S*CB\)(TRFXC)

  ALP*T\GLS\-S\ \RT\
  YLS\ MTS\-CTS\-WS\-FRTS\
  P*RTRS\O*DRS\WLD*CB\
  *WLDXLRCMSP*\DVLDSTSM\XL
  DULMT6TU*S\*CB\XC 

  (mU*SARST\* MU *ARS\)
  KLS\-LRST\-TRS\-MKS\*-MRS\
  (SA\6*S\S\MRC\)

  *M*RCBRS*\PT\2pT\WSRCBK*s\
  86MLS\74SPRKS\29K\*O*OL\17SRTRS\
  356L\CLGs\ou*UTRf*KRS\PS\SHL\
  651MTCS\HTLS\*CUTCTRS*MR\
  {99.84.52} U*\P25\*CRS\AOKTS\*SKS\*rS\
  *SR\O*S\PVTS\WLD*CB\(JXORL)
  **MS\*RS\I*R*TR*TRL\RCBR*S\*TSRCRs*\
  LSP*S\*GSPS\MKS\RBS\*C\AVXLR
  HMCR\*MR\*CB\     1/2MU*DDLS\
  D-W-MIYMPL XDRX

"(T\W\ TFR*\" Seems like shorthand for "Tuesday\Wednesday\Thursday-Friday"?

someone might have broken the code: http://i.imgur.com/UOgD2.jpg

It looks like a personal shorthand to me.

"(FIRSE PRSE ONDE 71 NCBE)- (CDnSE PRSE ONSE 74 NCBE)- (PRTSE PRSE ONER DE 75 NCBE)"

First Person I saw on the 71 bus? Second Person I saw on the 74 bus? Third Person I saw on the 75 bus?

When I saw those lines spelled out like that, I read them as above. Just kinda made sense. Looking at the rest.

>One has to wonder though, if the FBI can't figure this out, who can?

This is frustrating. Why would we assume the best people possible all work for the FBI? Is there nothing else the best people could be doing? We already know that everyone isn't hiring the top 1%

Please dont put the FBI on a pedestal

When i first attempt a cyrptoquote I stick with familiar terms, vowels in particular and repeating letter such as "RCNNBSE" could be "tallest" because of the repeating NN...then work off of that. Put enough familiar words and letters for "RCNNBSE" together and try to decipher. It sounds like he(she) is describing a location. either but landmarks or directional bearing 71 NCBE, 74 NCBE, 75 NCBE... 71 west (east perhaps) 74 west (east perhaps) 75 west (east perhaps)

194 WLD'S NCBE 194 west

It is just a key for an encrypted ebook.

When you start to download an Adobe PDF a small file with the extension .acsm is first downloaded. This is used by Adobe Digital Editions to send the activation ID to the delivery server which will use that ID to generate an encrypted PDF/ePub eBook, which is then downloaded to your PC.

Write the code in a file and save it as 'foo.acsm' Login to the dead guys account and download his encrypted adobe ebook.

one of those notes appears to be in lisp

Has anyone else noticed that there seem to be no Q's or Z's in the text? That leads me to believe that the code is somehow related to the telephone dial (or keypad). There are a couple of characters that look slightly like Q's, but which I think are R's and there is one character on the NOTES page that looks like a Z, but which I think is a 2, since it comes after the string of numbers.

How do they know the notes compromise clues in the case? They could be pages of a shopping list, for all we know.

True, but even a shopping list could reveal information that narrows down where the killer lives or shops or something.

Anybody have a copy of the legible characters so each of us doesn't need to transcribe the same text?

That's assuming that a copy of the legible characters wouldn't lose any of the original information -- the way words are written could matter.

Precisely my thinking. It would have been helpful if there were higher resolution scans of these images.

I had difficulties reconciling 5's and S's, or the various ways in which the letter "B" was written (it really looked like there were two "B"'s in the document, though that would be difficult to tell even with higher-res photos as anything handwritten is subject to whatever surface it was written on).

I noticed that too, he has a fast b and a slow b, and he was right handed ( if the smudge is his hand)...I think the page with NOTES on the top was two days and the second paper was the third day.

And if a mistake gets into the transcription?

Ideally the transcribed characters would have an "assurance rating" indicating how sure they were of its accuracy.

This guy seems to have done a pretty comprehensive analysis:

http://groups.google.com/group/sci.crypt/msg/9d801bc10df8b58...

Interesting: http://groups.google.com/group/sci.crypt/browse_thread/threa...

heres a queston:

Who added the computer j in the paranthasis at the top of page one and the paranthasis themselves in this section do not appear to be the orginial writers in either style nor weight.

I would go futher to say that someone has "worked" on this document.

Looks like LISP to me. Or just the rantings of someone out of touch with reality.

Might as well be Perl code.

Reminds me of the movie 'Spider' - maybe it's just nonsense.

Im new, and i have been looking into the decoding of this code, i cant say why....but i cant stop thinking about this.

D-W-M14 is a gun

I'm guessing ROT13

it's a trap

Richard Feynman totally would have cracked that one!

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