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I just finished listening to the audiobook of Simple Genius by David Baldacci... and in an authors note at the end he specifically mentions this Wikipedia article as a reference for the Beale cipher. Worth a mention? PageantUpdater 10:28, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
I too have just read David Baldacci book with similar Interest and note here and there everyone talks of the key document and seeks another documant for the other two cyphers, but where did Beale or anyone suggest there are other key books? It occurs to me that the simple knowing the first letter of the numbered word gives the 2nd cypher meaning, and he never gave the other cypers a key. So common sense says to me it is the same key document just a different lerrer order. Has anyone tried deciphering using the last or second 3rd etc letters of that same document to give meanings that can be used? --203.99.251.254 (talk) 01:43, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
"Others have also questioned why Beale would have bothered writing three different ciphertexts (with at least two keys, if not ciphers) for what is essentially a single message in the first place.[5]"
The reason is obvious, he would have wanted to have compartmentalized security so that cracking one code does not give an attacker all of the cyphertext at once. I'm not saying that it's a hoax or not, just saying that this is a silly reason that it might be a hoax.
124.168.239.125 (talk) 05:27, 25 September 2010 (UTC)
Of course, just because it's the logical thing to do doesn't mean it's what someone would do ... in fact, given that all the cryptanalysis has suggested Beale, assuming he existed and wrote the plaintext, was rather an amateur, it would follow that he took a self-outsmarting amateurish approach to security as a whole. Hmm ... Daniel Case (talk) 16:31, 19 July 2011 (UTC)
Beale used a version of 'Declaration of Indepedence' different from the original. To extract the hidden message, the following 5 modifications must be applied to the original DOI text:
Furthermore:
Finally, in the decoded text there are 4 errors, probably due to wrong transcription of the original paper:
After these modifications, I successfully decoded the exact text. ;-)
Mirko —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.4.193.128 (talk) 10:51, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
Another likely explanation that fits the evidence for the "10 words that must be removed" is if he had lost count and accidentally started back at 480 after 489, rather than going to 490; that is, if the numbers go "480 481 482 483 484 485 486 487 488 489 480 481 482 483 484 485 486 487 488 489 490" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2605:A601:657:8901:6C90:5314:4B71:426B (talk) 04:48, 8 July 2015 (UTC)
Someone - probably someone to do with the recently released (2010) short film "The Thomas Beale Cipher" - had inserted a reference to a non-existent "Dr White" in the "Truth or Hoax?" section here (which I removed). While I wish them every luck with their film, I don't think that subtly vandalizing a Wikipedia page is the best way to achieve wider public awareness of their work. Perhaps go and do some interviews instead? Nickpelling (talk) 18:11, 1 July 2010 (UTC)
There is a site (http://bealesolved.tripod.com/) claiming to have actually solved this cypher and to have posted pictures of the Beale vault. Is there any way to verify this? Toddcarnes (talk) 05:15, 5 February 2011 (UTC)
Till then, it's just one of the "solutions" people have claimed to have found for years. Daniel Case (talk) 16:22, 19 July 2011 (UTC).
If you assume that it is a hoax then there must be a "joke" somewhere in it. I took Jim Gillogly's decipherment of cypher one where he used the Declaration of Independence. there are 26 x 20 letters and at 26 x 7 =182 or 183 =1 ="A" P N R B A B F D E F G H I I J K L M M N O Then subtract the alphabet in order starting with P-A =16-1=15 etc. you will get 15, 12, 15, 2, 4, 4, 1, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 6, 6, 6. On a 26x26 alphabet square; G intersect G = M M-A= 12 O intersect O =c C-A =2 L intersect L = W W +4=A D intersect D = G G-A =6 With this code you only get even numbers so, odd numbers are "null" This would spell "Gollllllllddd. You can argue about the plus 4 equals L but I think it works. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mark stahley (talk • contribs) 19:10, 3 May 2011 (UTC)
Not sure who should be told about this, so I'm placing the info here. One of the three images of the Beale Ciphers embedded in the article has at least one error.
Image 2, line 18 at the end, the last digit (2) does not have a comma following, and so anyone (such as me) attempting to replicate the decryption will obtain a value that is wrong (2270, the result of 2 being concatenated with the next value, 270) when copy/pasting the values into a spreadsheet. AncientBrit (talk) 01:01, 3 February 2013 (UTC)
"If you assume that it is a hoax then there must be a "joke" somewhere in it." I know I laughed out loud when I read about it in Singh. I think the clue is in the "price fifty cents". And I think a useful bit of research would be to find out how many copies the author sold. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.168.134.24 (talk) 22:47, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
It is not in the s:en:Beale Papers.--Inspector (talk) 03:24, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
gold is valued in the article at $63m ... $63m = $63,000 ... I think you mean $63MM, $63,000,000
same issue with the silver, etc. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.81.197.249 (talk) 15:13, 24 October 2013 (UTC)
I came across this website that makes a pretty strong case for Thomas J Beale and the Beale Ciphers being true. The website also talks about why the ciphers didn't need to be decoded.
http://www.bealetreasurestory.com/index.html
Qewr4231 (talk) 18:33, 6 March 2015 (UTC)
This seems to be a long, rambling account of one particular person/group's activities with no sources at all. Does it belong on the page? If so, can someone please provide sources and citations? 50.88.246.163 (talk) 10:21, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
I agree, it looks as though it's been lifted from a text 86.164.38.40 (talk) 21:09, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
I am the codebreaker and individual responsible for the discovery. I am new here, please help let me know if I have made any mistakes in coding if you can assist. Otherwise my talk handle is GLDNONE (talk) 18:31, 5 April 2015 (UTC)
Not to act smart, but if nobody knows to reference my work, and I am the first to discover these facts, and comprise them using my own due dilligence, who am I supposed to reference? You can see the dilema seeing as I am the only known reference to search for this information online at this time....just the fact of why I included my name. Also...how do I upload graphics to clarify the information at hand?107.3.5.79 (talk) 02:50, 6 April 2015 (UTC)
The purpose of a Wikipedia talk page (accessible via the talk or discussion tab) is to provide space for editors to discuss changes to its associated article or project page. Article talk pages should not be used by editors as platforms for their personal views on a subject.
Here is the Link to the new website created for this affair to be discussed, including work on the ciphers and mapping. Please stop editing my information if I am posting links and other sources for the purpose of getting the addition of these facts and related information out to the board. We have numerous finds that are pertinent and should be granted the ability to present them here if within the rules. Please see that I am trying to work with Wiki rules and have never used this forum. I believe the information to be involved in the plots. If you would like to comment here I would be happy to cite references as well from my work to have a more intellectual meeting on the grounds of solving the Beale. http://bealecipher.com/archives/91 To be honest there are some theories here that are completely off-base, and should also be edited for clarity. I should not be the focus of arguments to erase my work each time, while leaving completely erroneous statements linked above, that clariify little, if any information posted from the Beale. They do exactly the opposite. I hope you will actually read the information in full through the links posted. There are numerous people who can benefit from this info, and instead of erasing my work, try assisting me as I previously asked?GLDNONE (talk) 22:01, 11 April 2015 (UTC)
See http://www.angelfire.com/pro/bealeciphers/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.5.87.37 (talk) 01:44, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
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Can 'someone' do a 'modern equivalent figure' for a more recent date than September 2011? Jackiespeel (talk) 10:38, 22 November 2016 (UTC)
Done, using the London Fix price per Troy Oz as recorded by Kitco. Lyrric (talk) 18:54, 25 January 2017 (UTC)
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I tried locating the pamphlet which was supposedly entered in Library of Congress in 1885, but I am unable to coax a good query that actually shows me such a thing was entered in the Library of Congress at all...
"A RECONSTRUCTION OF THE KEY TO BEALE CIPHER NUMBER TWO" by John C. King DOI:10.1080/0161-119391867971
states:
"When a copy of the pamphlet [31] was discovered in 1979, Matyas [25] determined how the keytext should be renumbered so that B2 can be cleanly decrypted."
So it seems that all research prior 1) was based on the Hart papers (with differences in ciphertext!), or 2) that between 1885 and 1979 any other originals had been suppressed (by whom? librarians at the Library of Congress?). 3) Another possibility is that this 1979 "original" is a fake, but I find no other mention of this notable discovery of this original pamphlet, other than in the paper by John C. King mentioned above. All other sources, including wikipedia take as fact that the pamphlet was and since 1885 always has been part of the Library of Conguress...
Could this Beale treasure story have been a recruitment exercise? A recruitment hoax from 1885, or later? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.109.97.92 (talk) 15:20, 29 April 2019 (UTC)
Isn't it well known that the Bedford Historical Preservation Society has one of the only surviving original copies of the Beale Papers pamphlet? I would check on that avenue if you were moving to confirm the authenticity of the Beale Ciphers and the numbers in them.
This section apparently makes the assumption Beale enciphered the three texts, e.g. 'Beale used a version of United States Declaration', 'is always used by Beale as a "y"' etc. Paragraph 'Background' in the first sentence makes it quite clear that the only source for the story is a pamphlet published by Ward 60 years after the alleged events, but progressively this is lost sight of, so that some way in, the average reader has probably forgotten it. It cannot be said Beale 'did' anything; I suggest 'Beale' is changed to 'the pamphlet'. Which brings me to the point. 'The Friend' is alleged to have deciphered the second text about 50 years after the alleged events, using a (unique) modified version of the DOI, with several numbering mistakes. ***How then could Beale, 50 years earlier, have used the same modified DOI with the same numbering mistakes to encipher the text?***. In my opinion this proves the whole thing was a money making scam by Ward. 86.187.230.228 (talk) 22:17, 3 June 2021 (UTC)
In March of 2023, cryptographer James Simpson made a breakthrough in decoding the B1 and B2 ciphers. By discovering that the key was formed by numbering a series of repeating alphabets, he broke down the numbers and converted them to plaintext. The page of plaintext of B1 was arranged to deliver Old English Block ciphers, encasing letters from words on multiple lines in the proximity of each other. These formed shortened and abbreviated stennos, and left areas filled in spaces between them with low frequency nulls used as filler. Taking notice of the patterns of specific numbers and their placement in the cipher, he was able to locate a map from their mines to the depositories in Virginia within the matrix of the numbered cipher. The B2 cipher was also concealing a message using the same key, as well as a local map of the KGC depositories formed using an array of number patterns. The B2 was said to have been broken by the author, JB Ward, but in reality the statements made in the Beale about using the Declaration of Independence as a book code would lure researchers and cryptographers off into a dead end search for a book code for B1 and B2 for decades. The real key was found by merely listing a series of alphabets and their corresponding placement in a numerical sequence.
Is this a possible addition even though it is published by Ron Gervais on his Angelfire web page about the Beale Papers? The ciphers are found there on links to a page with copies of worksheets and resulting information that has never been seen, so its a new break in the ciphers and I think it deserves merit here. GLDNONE (talk) 12:54, 16 March 2023 (UTC)
Como poderia divulgar se realmente encontrasse a mensagem esse é uns dos maiores problemas 138.99.199.211 (talk) 19:37, 14 October 2023 (UTC)
I think I may have decrypted it, though it isn't what you would think, I may be wrong but there's nothing wrong with giving it a try
“The sunshine was warm, the breeze gentle, as they strolled along the beach, contemplating life’s mysteries and the beauty of the vast ocean.” Tectumargenti (talk) 23:31, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
Most of the article is unsourced or uses low-quality sources including dictionaries and IMDb, huge chunks look like original research (if we can call paragraphs of speculation that), and the writing switches freely between taking the claims at face value and acknowledging that this may be a hoax.
I don't know if anyone's deeply invested in the article, but I will start cutting back most of the unsourced speculation and superfluous information in the coming weeks unless the situation improves. — Arcaist (contr—talk) 12:29, 20 April 2024 (UTC)