All Ciphers

[Kalinine]

These ciphers are so damn hard haha

Same for the ciphers in The Giant.

[WaterKH]

So not sure if anyone noticed this yet, but I found what looks like a face and an uppercase "P" (For those who don't know, all of my other handles are waterkh lol) - 

Current ideas on it:

a) The face represents a moon and sun mixed together - this could refer to Alchemy or something else. The P could be some reference to Alchemy

b) (What I'm currently going with) The two face looks very similar to paintings by Picasso <- P - Though this is what I think it could mean, I haven't been able to turn anything up other than Kryptos which is a monument in front of the CIA building I believe. It has several ciphers engrained into it, so I thought maybe it could be a nod to that.

Anyways, looking for any ideas on what that could be!

 

[Nieno69]

I already tried to see a picture in the Background.... you see both ciphers are on the same "sort" of paper ... you have darker places on it

Further both ciphers have 20 words... So I thought you can maybe put them together...

 

Btw. Nice find...

[Nieno69]

6 hours ago, vigiliisgaming said:

So not sure if anyone noticed this yet, but I found what looks like a face and an uppercase "P" (For those who don't know, all of my other handles are waterkh lol) - 

Current ideas on it:

a) The face represents a moon and sun mixed together - this could refer to Alchemy or something else. The P could be some reference to Alchemy

b) (What I'm currently going with) The two face looks very similar to paintings by Picasso <- P - Though this is what I think it could mean, I haven't been able to turn anything up other than Kryptos which is a monument in front of the CIA building I believe. It has several ciphers engrained into it, so I thought maybe it could be a nod to that.

Anyways, looking for any ideas on what that could be!

 

In fact the kryptos has "only" three ciphers on it and only 2 of them are decrypted... already looked for them but feel free to try yourself

I read the comments on glitxhing Queens picture

With a little "immagination" (sometimes you must turn around the letters) you get this numbers if you use the periodic Table...First I thought it's fit the whole text but you have to play around with it so i dont think it's the right way...

8 39 8 103 111 7  R 38 39 2 85 108 39 18 91 74 38 39 39 6 79 M 47 11 89 13 D 74 39 49 M 59 67 T 8 53 71 114 39 8 77 7 22 7 52 84 102 E 19 92 A 8 19 92 Z 39 53 8 8 39 E E 92 53 Z

 

O=8 (no oy /yo in the periodic system) y=39 (there is no YL / Yi / LY / iY ....) according to this and imply that I didnt make a mistake you get the text above...

[WaterKH]

Maybe, the only thing I would have a problem with is the capitalization. They are very particular in where it is. But this is good thinking!

Also, I believe there are 4 ciphers? I may be wrong though!

[Nieno69]

39 minutes ago, vigiliisgaming said:

Maybe, the only thing I would have a problem with is the capitalization. They are very particular in where it is. But this is good thinking!

Also, I believe there are 4 ciphers? I may be wrong though!

Yeah sure you are correct... there are 4

Back to topic:

Not Quite sure about the capitalization... and spaces...I think the only correct is the key... 

[Nieno69]

I dont have any ideas at the moment

Lets sum up:

About the castle cipher: 

After Analyses it has an Indice of Coincidence similiar english which means that there could be only one alphabet used - so it's monoalphabetical? ...and the kasiski test suggests the password is 9 letters so "the castle" is correct?

The clocktower indice suggests it's poly...and pw like 6 or 9 letters...

[WaterKH]

I think it is possible it is mono and that the keyword is TheCastle - The implementation of the key is the thing I can't figure out. I've never heard of the Kasiski test though, so I'll be sure and check that out. 

I think the biggest part in solving this thing is the "face"/ symbol and the Letter/ symbol.

 

EDIT: Using this: http://www.simonsingh.net/The_Black_Chamber/vigenere_cracking_tool.html - There seems to be no repeating sequences, which could potentially rule out poly-alphabetical, but then again it could just mean that we are using a running key. It could also mean that there are no double words included in the text (eg - "the" repeating twice)

[Shootinfish]

These are the results I am getting not sure if I setup the tests correctly though

[Nieno69]

32 minutes ago, Shootinfish said:

These are the results I am getting not sure if I setup the tests correctly though

I only see M and 2 Z uppercase... why you think there is an uppercase K?

I found something that could be a thing...it's about the uppercase letters..will tell you more after I work ed it out

[Shootinfish]

Sorry I copied the text from the original frontpage post and didn't check it

I can see know there are both the same case after checking the image I have rerun the test

[WaterKH]

So this is saying we have a key of about ~2-3 and it's poly? That means if we check every 3 letters we should get a frequency for those letters, and possibly find the solution...

[Nieno69]

@Shootinfish

@certainpersonio

Lets share my thoughts about the castle cipher

I think "The Castle" is the key

And it's an alberti cipher

But you need to "build" an alberti cipher disk..

It's too mich to type on the phone so please look for it on google...

I think i got the first two words with this: I Rely

If you use the cipher you get "IXRELVX"

You see the "x" should stand for "end of word"

Then you get: I Relv

- you only have 20 letters in the plaintextalphabet - so you need to preprocessing the plaintext and then encipher it...

So backwards you get RELV - which with a normal alphabet the v could/should be an "y"

You can easy do this in excel or build a disk yourself...

 

That could explain the uppercase letters M & Z (you have a uppercase (plain on outer ring) and lowercase (cipher on inner ring) alphabet

 

But the cipher itself is very complex- there are many ways to encode it ...e.g. could change the alphabetindex every letter or every word ...or some letter is put in or in a plaintext there is a double letter word e.g. "egg" but only "eg" was encipher ed to make it more difficult...or a letter is put in random....

The Key used could also be "The Casl" because of double letters ..

Progressing through it means lots of work because one letter decipher ed means nothing because it can change every letter or have an second algorythm...

To sum up: i'm pretty sure this is the correct cipher (alberti disk cipher)...what do you think?

I could share a picture of my "Tabula recta" later... if interested...

[anonymous]

I dont understand what you guys are doing, but great work. Really, its incredible how you are solving all those crazy documents. Thumps up for you (and also the people from the other solving-related topics)

[certainpersonio]

@Nieno69 The Alberti Cipher looks like it's a polyalphabetic cipher that doesn't follow the traditional rules of polyalphabetic ciphers. You might be onto something with this. I'm going to work on this a bit more over the weekend. 

A quick glance over the wiki page about it gave me a few ideas:

• First, is there a standard alphabet for either of the two disks used? My guess is probably not, but it wouldn't hurt to find out
• Second, I like your idea of using "TheCasl" to prime the alphabet. Another idea I had is to used the key ("The Castle") as the starting/index value for the decryption. Ex: start at "T", then move to "h", etc.
• Third, not sure how the encryption/decryption process works, but it might be based on the spacing in the original cipher. Maybe it doesn't correspond to spaces in the plaintext, but breaks in the encryption/decryption process.
• Fourth, need to figure out how nulls are thrown in. There will be a consistent process, otherwise how would anyone decrypt it?
• Fifth, there seems to be a codebook that comes with this cipher (or at least according to the wiki). We should see if that helps with decryption.

And I would definitely love to see your tabula recta if you get a chance to post it. I'm thinking it'll help me get up to speed faster. 

[Nieno69]

25 minutes ago, certainpersonio said:

@Nieno69 The Alberti Cipher looks like it's a polyalphabetic cipher that doesn't follow the traditional rules of polyalphabetic ciphers. You might be onto something with this. I'm going to work on this a bit more over the weekend. 

A quick glance over the wiki page about it gave me a few ideas:

• First, is there a standard alphabet for either of the two disks used? My guess is probably not, but it wouldn't hurt to find out
• Second, I like your idea of using "TheCasl" to prime the alphabet. Another idea I had is to used the key ("The Castle") as the starting/index value for the decryption. Ex: start at "T", then move to "h", etc.
• Third, not sure how the encryption/decryption process works, but it might be based on the spacing in the original cipher. Maybe it doesn't correspond to spaces in the plaintext, but breaks in the encryption/decryption process.
• Fourth, need to figure out how nulls are thrown in. There will be a consistent process, otherwise how would anyone decrypt it?
• Fifth, there seems to be a codebook that comes with this cipher (or at least according to the wiki). We should see if that helps with decryption.

And I would definitely love to see your tabula recta if you get a chance to post it. I'm thinking it'll help me get up to speed faster. 

The spacing is something i tought about too but i didnt found anything at this time

You can do multiple things with the numbers on the alphabet..e.g. "1" could mean rotation 1 left/right...

It also could mean that the letter is not part the plaintext 

Or there is like you said a codebook

When it comes to the uppercase letters you change the way in decipheronh (outer ring is in ciper text inner ring in plain)

The picture should answer most of your questions: Tabula recta: There you go 

 

Further to explain my thoughts a link with an example

https://vcrypto.tonyo.info/venetian_crypto/website/index.php/alberti

Further it could certainly be that there is another inner or outer alphabet

Edit: I used the one from the link above

[Imbathijs]

I created this account in the hopes I could contribute to this amazing effort you guys are putting in.

I am a long time zombies fanatic, and even though I have no knowledge of cracking cyphers, I did find something interesting that is not yet discussed in this thread. I have only found one other post about the same object / text. That post is by @Shootinfish. I am linking a picture of the machine uploaded by him. Some of the text is of noticeably high resolution and seems to be encrypted. The text in particular reads:

Lautenrk u. vvenderknr
maison glaicha
farbgunya-Nr. hubrn

Then there is another plaque reading " Ratrprtiflmepa"

Besides that, the numbers around the button on the top right go from 0 to 120 in inclines of 13 each time (0  13  26  39 .. etc) but jumps from 104 to 120 (a jump of 16) between the last 2 numbers.

I initially thought this machine (found on the floor in front of the dragon head in the church) was a unique object, but there are several of the exact same machine to be found throughout the map. This seems to take away from its significance, as cyphers usually are unique. Nonetheless it might be worth looking into. Perhaps it will give a key that can be used for the two remaining cyphers?

Obviously I am uncertain if any of this is of any significance, but I hope it helps in some way.

To conclude I'd like to give my thanks to all of you who work tirelessly to solve these puzzles of all sorts. I love the zombie community <3

Imbathijs
 

[certainpersonio]

@Imbathijs Welcome to the forum! Thanks for bringing this back up. I agree that there is definitely something fishy about the writing on the machine. Not only is the majority of the machine covered in German writing (as confirmed by google translate), the writing is definitely in higher resolution than the rest of the text on the machine.

My first thought was that this is a different language, perhaps something regional the area around Hohenwerfen castle. However, no languages from that region seemed to match the text. Furthermore, googling words from the text didn't pull results from other languages. The closest I got was "Glaicha" is a name in Tagalog (Filipino), but the entire text doesn't translate.

However, trying to find out what "Nr." could mean, I stumbled across a website that says this is a fairly standard german abbreviation for "number". Upon looking further, "u." is also an abbreviation for "and". This makes me wonder if the text is actually German, but full of compound words or something. Unfortunately I have no working knowledge of German to confirm this idea, and if no-one else does, then I'll see if someone on the translation subreddit can help.

Lastly, I've checked the index of coincidence for the text. This helps both from the perspective of it being a possible cipher, but also from language checking. Each language has a slightly different IoC, so if we can find the ones that match it we'll narrow into a possible language. The IoC is 1.49 (0.057), however, the total text available was only 63 characters, which means that small variations can drastically affect the value. When trying to compare this value to comparably sized English and German sentences, the results in English and German varied wildly with each sample, but it was consistently lower than both of these. I'll see if further research can reveal which languages share an IoC that low, but according to the IoC wiki page it appears most languages have a higher IoC than our value. 

I also tried using the text as a key-phrase for the clocktower cipher in both a Vigenere cipher as well as a Beaufort cipher. It did not work with either.

In conclusion, I have absolutely no idea what the text means or if it's even a cipher. 

[tEScarecrow]

Hey there all. I've been a member here in the past, but cannot recall the spelling of my old handle, or its password. So I am back with a new one, but I never stopped reading all the fine work this community does. I'm also hoping to provide some insight here. 

@certainpersonio I may be of some help with translations. While I don't speak conversational German, I do have a decent knowledge of the language. Thank you proclivities for European music! I also have a fair amount of knowledge on other Bavarian languages, as well as some French and Scandinavian. There is one word that jumps out immediately from @imbathijs post. "Maison", which is French for "house" or "home". While I am still working on figuring out whether the rest is of any language. I do believe this may be a possible keyword for.....something. Being that there is the oft mentioned children being safe in the "house", and that at one point Griffin Castle doubled as a home for Samantha. And that we have previously been in France, it isn't all that far fetched there is something here.

It may be nothing, but i really think there's something here. Especially considering the rest, as of now, is gibberish. And how clearly it is provided for us to see, or that it doesn't fit at all with the other clearly legible German on the console. I will also try to find out what the Tagalog name Glaicha is in English, as I fortunately work with several Philippinos. Given that these two words appear side by side, I feel it may be a title, ie: "House _____". 

I wont be able to help much if the rest is a cipher, as I'm quite the novice. But I am hoping to learn and can still maybe help provide context along the way. Feels good to be posting again, have really always loved this game and its lore as well as how this community comes together to figure this stuff out. Hope any of what I've said helps in any manner, time to get working on the rest!

[anonymous]

@Imbathijs welcome and for @tEScarecrow welcome again. Great respect for what you guys are doing here with all the codes and stuff. Perhaps reverse the colours and you can see the text more clear, if that helps? Good luck anyway, with cracking the codes.

[Shootinfish]

It seems they are manufacturing codes for a band recorder the detail they have used is fantastic

http://www.cdvandt.org/1998004T.pdf

I'm not disappointed I love all the old technology and detail they add to the maps

 

[Nieno69]

@certainpersonio 

Actually i'm from germany and you are correct about "nr." And "u." But for the rest in its current Form it have no german meaning...

The "paper" in the bottom left actually Begins with "wer" which means "who" but you cannot read more of it...

[tEScarecrow]

@Shootinfish I ran "Lautenrk" through google translate, it autocorrected as "Lautenwerk" which translates to "according to factory". So it being a manufacturing code would make sense. Still doesn't explain why there would be missing letters, or why there's French right in the middle. German unlike English doesn't have too many adoptive words from French, or other languages for that matter that I'm aware of. And this isn't a situation where it's replacing a word they don't have, or even part of regional slang, seeing as the castle is in Austria. As i theorized, it may be part of a title, but the problem with that is its not capitalized. Still is very odd that a French word would just be thrown in there for no apparent reason. This lends some credence to it being a reference to the children, which makes it time for being a keyword, or at least a breadcrumb to lead us in the right direction. 

[Shootinfish]

I maybe wrong and they have made something out of the cryptic manufacturing code but I searched images and videos and there isn't a lot of hq but it looks like its been copied from the actual machine

Its described as a tonschreiber b so check it out and see what you find

[certainpersonio]

@Shootinfish Dude this a great find! It's even better, they wrote it down wrong from the machine! 

It's a German Wehrmacht tape recorder AEG Magnetophon Tonschreiber B with AEG 2-hole bobbies.

Spoiler

 

I pulled those images from here. If you zoom in you can see that text is actually different in-game from what's on the machine in real life!

"Laufwerk u. Verstärker m_____en gleiche Fertigungs- Nr. haben" and "Netzprüflampe"

*the m- word has a scratch in the middle of it so I can't tell what it says, but perhaps @Nieno69 will be able to figure it out with better context.

Now, I wonder if Treyarch did this on purpose. In other words, is the change in spelling significant or is it an accident?