Talk:Dorabella Cipher

reference to expand this stub

http://homepage.mac.com/turder/iblog/B561081935/C663716685/E538429514/index.html
"From issue 2479 of New Scientist magazine, 25 December 2004, page 56 "

attempting to solve the cipher

Ok, so this Edward fellow simply pops an encrypted note, upon which the intended recipient's name has been scribed, in with a letter to this woman's family home. He does so, we are safe to assume; frequency of occurrence our knight on a horse here, with no prior arrangement with her. If Edward and Dora had ever discussed cyphers, codes, et cetera, it is my opinion that Dora would have shared this with someone in her family. He sends no hint of a key, nor did he do so at anytime thereafter. Perhaps he didn't have to. This encrypted message could be the key to reading the message contained, for Dora, within the words of the actual letter. Don't suppose we have that lying around anywhere, do we? Conversely, if the alleged encrypted message is exactly that, Edward would most certainly have had an operating platform: if cypher it be, then he could not have written it straight from his head - again, frequency of occurrence. If he kept an occult journal he may well have come to a point where he could write as fluently as if he were writing English. But does such a journal exsist? I don't think so.

Example:

Z75025 H610N4181 A01Z5 R4181 T01F89K610A

Now, I know exactly what that says - and it does actually say something, I can assure you. Without me offering any form of operating platform, decyphering that, while certainly a definite possibility, would be a bit of a task.

I do feel a relationship between the "message" and the letter exsists. It was not unusal for husbands to dictate a letter while his ROCK OF GIBRALTAR did the scribblin'. Whether it's a message or a key, it was written by a smart man, so fashioning a letter which also contained an occult message would not have seen him break a sweat.

Interesting story though.

The idea of it having musical links is also very interesting.

Hi Peter!

Did you think about turning the paper? The full stop in the text is not at the bottom of the line.

SF

Well, it depends on how you look at it. I could argue that the period is at the end of the symbol that precedes it. That would be in keeping with Elgar writing out the message, working from some master copy. The period would mark one end (as opposed to the end) of a section (without indicating direction - that would provide too much information to a would-be decryptor :)), not the end of a sentence. Once the message is converted to the symbolic form, it would be natural to mark the separation point by placing a period at the end of what was just written. I think if the last symbol before the period had been a "w" or "m" shape, Elgar might well have put the period on the baseline.

It's all supposition at the moment, unless someone uncovers a document hidden in some little old lady's attic, in which EE reveals all :) PeterBrooks 19:28, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

It now appears that the message is definitely in two parts, one in Latin, one in English. I'm getting closer... AncientBrit 17:34, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

The curves in the 'letters' might stand for how many curves in a letter there are. For example: a=1 curve b=1 curve c=1 curve d=1 curve e=2 curve f=1 curve g=2 curve and what direction it's positioned in is how many straight lines there are in the letter. a=1 straight line b=1 c=o d=1 e=0 =f=2 g=0 or 1 h=2 i=1 j=1... the curvey letters being what they are, would be rotated depending on how many straight lines they have. going clockwise, a=1 curve and 1 straight...so it would be one curve rotated clockwise 1 unit. of coarse..some lettters could be the same......i give up. forget it. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 172.168.29.33 (talk • contribs) 02:28, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

There are apparently examples (in Elgar's own hand) of his early use of the cipher, so we already know how the symbols were defined. I believe I have already had some success in decrypting part of the message, and a publication is in progress (but far from ready).

An anonymous contributor placed a link to the work-in-progress despite my request elsewhere that access to the work be restricted to those to whom I specifically provided the access path, so I added a rider to the entry rather than delete it outright; however, an administrator has deleted that rider and I have since discovered that Google now lists the partial document (despite the presence of a robots.txt file requesting that it be excluded from search engines' content), so I see no real purpose at this stage to continue to allow the full document to be referenced. Accordingly I have deleted the entry here and when I have prepared a suitable sample document I will contribute further. AncientBrit 18:29, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Sure. Do let us know when you get it published! — Matt Crypto 19:05, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Will do. Funny how I changed from being PeterBrooks to AncientBrit, though. I joined Wiki ages ago as AB, then the account seemed to go walkies when I didn't access it for quite a while, so I was forced to create a new account as PB. Suddenly AB re-appears without warning (and based on cookies, I figure - I didn't specifically log in as one account or the other). Weird. Another mystery to be investigated by Drawde Ragle, no doubt. Who am I this time? - AncientBrit 21:25, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Think about music.

Draw a scale through each line of text; I would almost bet that each end point or the max of every curve will meet a musically significant point.

I don't know but it is as good of guess as any I have read on this site.

==

Hello all,

I stumbled across this article some time ago and have been working at a solution for the cipher ever since. Two things about the encrypted message jump out at me.

1. It contains 87 characters. 87 is a subprime number: it is the product of two primes, 3 and 29. My deduction is that the message is perhaps meant to be arranged in some combination of 3 rows and 29 columns, or vice versa. The scientists who encoded the Arecibo Message used the same technique: since the message was meant to be viewed as a specific field of rows and columns, the scientists composed the message so that the number of bits was a subprime number. That way, any alien receivers would have only two ways of arranging the bits in a rectangular grid - one which produced gibberish, and one that produced logical shapes. I'm speculating that the Dorabella Cipher may contain a similar device. Then again, it may only be a coincidence that the message has 87 characters.

2. There is some mystery surrounding the "dot" in the third line. I propose that the dot is part of the fifth character in that line, the three-looped one with openings facing upper left. The characters used in the encryption have two variable fratures - number of loops (1-3), and rotational orientation (8 positions). This leaves 24 possible variations. My guess is that the dotted character is the 25th one, allowing a working alphabet of 25 characters. I think that the 26th alphabet letter (maybe an uncommon one like Q, X, or Z) either does not appear in the message, or some mechanism is used to make two English letters appear as the same glyph. Maybe C and K are depicted as a common glyph, or "QU" is transcribed as "KW." Anyway, these are my speculations.

Also, I assume that's Elgar's signature at the bottom right. Is it? I can't read it at all. If it isn't his signature, maybe it has something to do with the message.

Any thoughts?

Rjfogle (talk) 22:46, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

The first thing to note is that there is evidence from one of Elgar's exercise books showing exactly how the cipher was constructed, with examples of its use. It is a 24 symbol system, with I and J, and U and V doubling. See previously unpublished work by Eric Sams - go to the bottom of the last page and examine Appendix D.

The "signature" is in fact the date - July 14. 97.

Despite the small number of characters, the calculation of William F. Friedman's index of coincidence (IC) indicates a value close to that for English text, suggesting the use of a simple monoalphabetic substitution cipher.

My own research has elicited the fact that it is a two part message, separated at the dot on the bottom line. One message is in Latin, the other in English. Calculation of the index of coincidence for each message (in spite of the even smaller sample sizes) yields values that support the separation into Latin and English.

The entire combined message has been reversed (probably by being rotated 180 degrees) and the addition of the date may be a deliberate attempt to mislead by providing a visual cue for the wrong orientation. The entire message also appears to have been rotated by one character, and the English message is arranged in an 8 x 8 matrix, the decrypted text being read off in columns rather than rows.

There appears to be more steganography than cryptography at work in this cipher, and there also appear to have been a considerable number of errors probably introduced by Elgar as he converted the encrypted text into his symbol set in his head.

My current focus is to characterize the types of error that may have been made, and thereby identify the probable solution to at least 73 characters out of the 87 with some degree of reasonable confidence. Reference appears to be made to a meeting with "somereten" at nine. This may be Elgarese for John Weaver Somerton's surname. Somerton was the Worcester choir superintendent at that time. HTH, AncientBrit (talk) 18:31, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

The Elgar Society Competition 2007/08

There were only seven entries to the cipher competition and none of them were judged to have solved Dorabella. The Elgar Society put an article of mine on their website for a year but did not print it in the Society Journal.

The outline article is on my page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Stevebkk

I will edit it and reinsert graphics. Should it be part of the Dorabella Cipher article or a separate entry? --Steve (talk) 02:08, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

I vote for part of the article. separate section, encyclopedic tone, ... ww (talk) 04:30, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Javier Atance

Who is Javier Atance? There is no reference. The implication is that he sent a competition entry to the Elgar Society. If the Dorabella note represents a score, can we see it? --Steve (talk) 22:34, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

He is a spaniard. I think he was right. Text are notes o scales. Just music that says words. My solution needs 3 pages of details. m.t.i. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.47.62.68 (talk) 00:17, 5 October 2016 (UTC)

The solution is so easy that results incomprehensible that nobody got a key. I.m an expert on prerroman Iberian script. A sequence of 7 different signs, as noticed in Dorabella, may clearly indicate, as in old sillabaries or semialphabets or alphabets, a try, at least partially, to write they down . The 7 initial signs are the alphabet-musical notes- DO, RE, MI FA, SOL, SI, LA.

All the signs are compose of 1,2, o 3 semicircles, there are many repetitions and the variations are only positionally, as musical notes. I,m not a musician and unable to play the music except for the 7 first signs. 7 first are only the key to play the others, I think. For details about musical contain  consults a musician but first complete-close the sings with a line to see the letter as a partiture. Es necesario trazar una linea que cierre los semicírculos para obtener una clara visión de la partitura. The complete result in FB. M.T.I.MADRID.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.47.62.68 (talk) 01:47, 5 October 2016 (UTC) 

Possible vandalism reverted

Someone using IP address 190.155.221.132 (IP tracing suggests a source at sea) chose to remove the tone annotation without giving a reason. It's also their sole contribution and that smacks of vandalism. I have reverted the edit; if the user concerned feels they made a legitimate edit, perhaps they would be kind enough to properly identify themselves and explain why the annotation should not remain. AncientBrit (talk) 04:37, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Tim Roberts' Solution

Tim Roberts claimed to have cracked Dorabella in September 2009, although his solution is disputed. The solution can be found here and some discussion here. Can someone with more expertise in this area indicate whether this is worth including in the article? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Helenabella (talk • contribs) 08:36, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

FWIW, the Unsolved Problems site referenced seems to have accepted the Roberts solution. Mark Whybird (talk) 11:26, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

The Unsolved Problems Site is "developed and maintained by Tim S Roberts" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.41.229.134 (talk) 06:10, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

An easy-to-read one-page mathematical justification for the solution has been added to the Unsolved Problems web site. 138.77.2.133 (talk) 05:06, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Tim Roberts provides a simple, one page justification for his solution at http://unsolvedproblems.org/S12frev.pdf. It is fascinating Elgar used multiple languages in the Dorabella cipher to defeat easy decryption. The same strategy is also present in a musical checkerboard cipher found in the opening six measures of the ‘Enigma’ Variations (see http://enigmathemeunmasked.blogspot.com/2010/09/elgars-dark-saying-musical-checkerboard.html). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.51.54.153 (talk) 22:05, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Possible plagiarism?

The last paragraph of the article's 'Background' section reads odd to me.

"Could there be a connection between Dorabella and the mystery of the Enigma Variation's original theme? Well, yes, there could, possibly, but this is an area in which there are many possibilities and few certainties."

I did a google search on those two sentences but didn't find anything. Still it doesn't seem like something you'd read in a pseudo encyclopedia. Thoughts? tildetildetildetilde —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.164.69.63 (talk) 05:33, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

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Wayne Packwood Solution

The description of this solution makes no sense. Can somebody post a proper description, please? Unfortunately the reference cited is behind a paywall.147.147.24.76 (talk) 12:16, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

I've accessed his paper and I could provide a more clear description, in a fair light. Full disclosure, though, that I also recently proposed a solution that I would like to see added here. I know it can be frowned upon to add one's own work, so if anyone is interested in helping, you can find it here. Or if it is ok to add it myself, I would be as unbiased as possible. I'm new to Wikipedia so if someone can give me some guidance, that would be great. ZackeryBelanger (talk) 22:25, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

Wayne Packwood's "solution" is 4 years old now and has never been proven legitimate, mainly because it seems nobody except Wayne can fully comprehend it. I have a copy of his article from the JULY – SEPTEMBER 2020 edition of MUSICAL OPINION QUARTERLY and have read it many times. I am not sure but if his solution is to be believed then it must be missing a number of critical steps. I have asked professional cryptographers for their opinion of it but never received a reply, possibly suggesting they cannot make any sense of it either. So it is perhaps not surprising that the description on Wikipedia is so obscure. Can any professional cryptographers please post up a methodology or, failing that, if they are unable to validate or replicate his methodology, at least post a fair critique? Given his solution is now 4 years old and nothing further has come of it, it might seem doubtful that an understandable description will ever be obtained. Gallip pine (talk) 09:02, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

I also can't make heads nor tails of Wayne Packwood's solution. I have now posted my own solution on YouTube and would very much appreciate your critique. I have found it to be an eclectic substitution. The key is a simple rosette arrangement of symbols that Elgar could be reasonably assured was recognizable by Dora Penny. The text revealed is straightforward, readable (whole words in proper order), personalized to the recipient, references a contemporary fictional character, and relates to a recent event - later detailed in Dora's memoir (1937). The music revealed is a simple exercise of piano scales, specifically 'Contrary Motion". And the same technique applied to the other known early examples of this encryption system yield similar results. The video can be found here: [1] Thanks. MichaelHorsfall (talk) 18:15, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

It is a pity you did not get your solution checked out by a professional cryptographer before investing so much time and effort into what is a beautifully produced and presented video. There is only one part of your presentation that I find interesting and that is the way you obtained DORA at the beginning. Unfortunately the remainder and bulk is highly imaginative and far too subjective to be called a viable solution. Sorry, but no, I personally cannot endorse your solution. Gallip pine (talk) 19:55, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

Spanish terms in the Dorabella Cipher's cleartext

Relying on Elgar's surviving notebook key, the Dorabella Cipher's curlicue symbols generate what appears to be a random series of letters. On closer inspection, however, the cleartext was found to contain eight discrete Spanish words. The first Spanish word peca is encoded by symbols 2-5 in Row One. Peca means freckle and spot. That is a remarkable find as there are four conspicuous spots on the cryptogram, one above character 66 in Row Three, and three more in the date. Another Spanish term in Row One is ir encoded by characters 16-17. Ir is the verb go. Pairing ir with peca suggests the phrase "Go [to the] spot." Following that implied directive leads to the first spot in Row Three that marks the text sequence "EDU", Elgar's pet name coined by his wife Alice based on the first three letters of the German translation of Edward as Eduard. The title of Elgar's musical self-portrait in the Enigma Variations is "E.D.U." Elgar's signature is curiously absent from his cryptic missive to Miss Penny, and now the reason why is now known as it is incorporated within his cipher. It is astonishing that this feature was not spotted sooner. Robert W. Padgett (talk) 00:49, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

Is this an error?

Perhaps this is just a case of poor grammar, but the following quotation is taken directly from the Wikipedia article. It suggests that an enciphered letter was sent to Dora Penny accompanied by the Dorabella cipher. So was the letter also encrypted?

"The Dorabella Cipher is an enciphered letter written by composer Edward Elgar to Dora Penny, which was accompanied by another dated July 14, 1897." 49.182.178.97 (talk) 23:25, 10 November 2024 (UTC)