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Two Centuries On, a Cryptologist Cracks a Presidential Code

online.wsj.com — Over 200 years ago, Thomas Jefferson's friend created a mysterious cipher that has baffled codebreakers ever since. Until now.

Who dugg this? Made popular Jul 3, 2009

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  • alx1507, on 07/03/2009, -5/+205Why didn't they just call Nicolas Cage?
  • nosecohn, on 07/02/2009, -0/+138It amazes me how much the leaders of the day prized learning, discovery and intellectual pursuits. Our country sorely misses that quality in its recent leadership.
  • postal21, on 07/03/2009, -3/+73Im surprised it didnt take him to Ben Franklins house where he used 3d spectacles to find the arc of the covenant.
  • featureBlend, on 07/02/2009, -4/+64President Jefferson (R.I.P.) intrigues me, excellent article, GENIUS!!
  • BxBoy, on 07/02/2009, -3/+49His name is Robert Patterson
  • Loki101, on 07/03/2009, -2/+47"We've all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters will eventually reproduce the entire works of Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the Internet, we know this is not true."

    - Robert Wilensky
  • mrpunman, on 07/03/2009, -0/+41Or Tom Hanks
  • dpantages, on 07/02/2009, -0/+38It might seem sad that it was broken, but look at what you learned because it was. Given the time period, that cipher was way advanced, and obviously was never broken, until someone used a device capable of doing computation at a rate way more advanced than that of a human. That's simply awesome.
  • Frodoholic, on 07/02/2009, -2/+39Thomas Jefferson, my dead, historical crush. <3
  • BxBoy, on 07/02/2009, -4/+36Interesting that it takes one Mathematician to crack another Mathematician's code.

    Looks like 'Lost' codes.

    13, 34, 57, 65, 22, 78, 49
  • inactive, on 07/03/2009, -0/+21Jefferson was my favorite founding father.
  • hawkspur, on 07/03/2009, -0/+20Jefferson liked his chocolate dark.
  • simmons42, on 07/03/2009, -1/+20In the immortal words of MC Frontalot:

    "You can’t hide secrets from the future with math.
    You can try, but I bet that in the future they laugh
    at the half-assed schemes and algorithms amassed
    to enforce cryptographs in the past."

    heh, I was just listening to that earlier today...
  • egemenbor, on 07/03/2009, -0/+19too late he's probably dead by now..
  • OldManLever, on 07/03/2009, -2/+20OMG he was like so dreamy in Twilight.
  • Shimee, on 07/03/2009, -1/+19There are bigger things to worry about these days, like lizard people.
  • inigomntoya, on 07/02/2009, -0/+18Agreed. There are very few things that completely captivate me. Some of these tings include US History (specifically the first 30 years of our country's birth) and cryptology. Kind of sad that the code was broken, but its really cool to get a glimpse into the life of one of this country's great founders.
  • KibblesnBitts, on 07/03/2009, -1/+17Jefferson is the man. He had the strength and wisdom to go against his strongest political beliefs for the benefit of the United States (Louisiana, for those who slept through 10th grade history)
  • cruzlee, on 07/03/2009, -0/+15Oh I understand it, in death cryptographers have an identity!

    His name was Robert Patterson!
  • vroom101, on 07/02/2009, -5/+20Pure Mathematics is King of the Sciences, Applied Mathematics is the Queen. Ever in harmony and agreement, forever they will rule.
  • AdamPatterson, on 07/03/2009, -0/+14Do not let Dan Brown get ahold of this news...
  • Lynxist, on 07/02/2009, -1/+13That cipher was pretty damn hardcore.
  • kubedawg, on 07/03/2009, -4/+13His name was Robert Paulson!
  • Aethra, on 07/03/2009, -0/+9Dude. You know those numbers bring bad luck.
  • Dustin00, on 07/03/2009, -0/+8The man cut out the resurrection of Jesus from his Bible.

    He's my hero!
  • twodollars, on 07/03/2009, -1/+8Chuck Norris would have pressed the code for details, and he would have made that bitch sing.
  • geoken, on 07/03/2009, -0/+7The problem is they couldn't use spectacles without traversing the dangerous, booby trapped secret catacombs below the White House in order to find the crypto-compass which would lead them the Franklin's gyro-key which would be necessary to activate the glasses.
  • SirBruce, on 07/03/2009, -2/+8Physics is the truth; math is simply a model of it.
  • viking0895, on 07/03/2009, -1/+7they could of just put the cipher on digg.it would of got solved much faster then two centuries.
  • Tubal22, on 07/03/2009, -0/+5Doogie Howser could have solved it on his IBM PS/2.
  • JDLamb88, on 07/03/2009, -3/+8Is it weird that the heading excited me greatly? Something about secret codes and cracking them makes me aroused.
  • DAVENP0RT, on 07/03/2009, -0/+5http://xkcd.com/435/
  • inactive, on 07/03/2009, -2/+7While Jefferson was indeed the man, this:

    "He had the strength and wisdom to go against his strongest political beliefs for the benefit of the United States'

    is not why. This in itself is not such a great quality and can be used for great harm.
  • Assyrian, on 07/03/2009, -0/+4I'm gonna use these to play lotto.
  • corbinat, on 07/03/2009, -0/+4Or Russell Crowe
  • focom, on 07/03/2009, -0/+4His name is Robert Patterson!
  • adodds, on 07/03/2009, -0/+4It amazes me that this code was so sophisticated for its time that it took a genius mathemetician + advanced technology that wasn't available in Jefferson's time to crack it 200 years later.
  • ChromaVita, on 07/03/2009, -0/+4Pauly Shore would have made a series of popular movies in the mid-90's and then slip from the spotlight for a while.
  • kinseyincanada, on 07/03/2009, -0/+4ok i actually laughed out loud after reading this, but its like 3 in the morning .
  • HamburgerH3lper, on 07/03/2009, -4/+713, 34, 57, 65, 22, 78, 49 my new lotto numbers
  • Gizza, on 07/03/2009, -1/+4Your lotto goes up to 78?
  • TwilightMadness, on 07/03/2009, -1/+4We have endured a mini (intellectual) dark age over the last couple of years, hopefully we can emerge from it stronger than we went in.
  • yaosio, on 07/03/2009, -0/+3Yes, nobody in today's word wants learning discovery and intellectual pursuits. *makes a post on the Internet*
  • jememy, on 07/03/2009, -2/+4Or MacGyver
  • handheldchimp, on 07/03/2009, -1/+3It's not stalking if they're dead...it's research.
  • geoffrey, on 07/03/2009, -0/+2Or Matlock.
  • billalbertson, on 07/03/2009, -1/+3I use a similar method for creating certain GPG pass phrases, except the grid is also usually keyed to physical items which I then need to have in hand in one place in order to come up with the pass phrase (random lines from books and such, which are part of yet another grid). Useful if you want to make sure you have to be in a public place to release the key.
  • DLun203, on 07/03/2009, -0/+2Jack Bauer would have told his superior to leave the room. Then he would have tortured it using obscure objects lying around until the code told him everything it knows.
  • MeekoTheRaccoon, on 07/03/2009, -0/+2A recent issue of WIRED Magazine [The Mystery Issue] Had an article on the CIA sculpture "Kryptos"

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kryptos

    Wired stated that Dan Brown was interested in using the sculpture as a plot point in one of his upcoming books.
  • voomfoo, on 07/03/2009, -6/+8Math, my dear boy, is nothing more than the lesbian sister of biology.
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