NYT: Code Found on Pigeon Baffles British Cryptographers

[Poll_Blind]

[div class="excerpt" style="border: 1px solid #bfbfbf; border-bottom: none; border-radius: 0.3846em 0.3846em 0em 0em; box-shadow: 2px 2px 6px #bfbfbf;"]Code Found on Pigeon Baffles British Cryptographers[div class="excerpt" style="border: 1px solid #bfbfbf; border-top: none; border-radius: 0em 0em 0.3846em 0.3846em; background-color: #f4f4f4; box-shadow: 2px 2px 6px #bfbfbf;"]They have eavesdropped on the enemy for decades, tracking messages from Hitler’s high command and the Soviet K.G.B. and on to the murky, modern world of satellites and cyberspace. But a lowly and yet mysterious carrier pigeon may have them baffled.

Britain’s code-breakers acknowledged Friday that an encrypted handwritten message from World War II, found on the leg of a long-dead carrier pigeon in a household chimney in southern England, has thwarted all their efforts to decode it since it was sent to them last month.

As the bird’s story made headlines, pigeon specialists said they believed it may have been flying home from British units in France around the time of the D-Day landing in 1944 when it somehow expired in the chimney at the 17th-century home where it was found in the village of Bletchingley, south of London.

After sustained pressure from pigeon fanciers, Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters, its code-breaking and communications interception unit in Gloucestershire, agreed to try to crack the code. But on Friday the secretive organization acknowledged that it had been unable to do so.

More at the link!

PB

[mike_c]

1. presumably an old one-time pad with no extant key?

That would be tough to break if it was done properly.

[struggle4progress]

6. +

[Science Geek]

7. Exactly

One time pads were used extensively during WWII and messages enciphered with them are almost impossible to crack. It was, and is, an extremely good encryption method.

[brewens]

2. Must be one of those one time pad code messages. They would know not to even

attempt that. You can't crack it if you don't have the other pad.

[longship]

3. Yup! Probably a one-time pad.

I wonder if they tried a Caesar cypher?
(just kidding)

[NoOneMan]

4. Windows 8 Serial Keys

[flamingdem]

5. It's a pidgeon poem: I like to poop

poop I like to do
on your head
and on your head
this is my message
if you can't figure it out
I'll show you

[alcibiades_mystery]

8. Send it to the people who decrypted the Zodiac Killer's coded letter

They'll figure it out in a weekend! (The FBI was stymied).

[sakabatou]

9. I thought that there was one last letter which they have had to break

[HopeHoops]

10. Good fucking grief. That's his little black book for all of his pigeonettes.

You have to speak pigeon to interpret it, but he must have had an impressive collection! Either that or he was a pimp.

[msanthrope]

11. Be Sure To Drink Your Ovaltine!!!

&feature=related

[jpak]

12. It's a takeaway order for jellied eel, curry and fish and chips