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Finding an old book about teenage love and axe heads

memebake — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 14:27:26 -0800

[Bookfinder filter] Trying to find a book I read at school, in the UK, in about 1987. It was a book for teenagers, with two interweaving stories across different times: one thread involved a teenage couple in modern times, and the other thread was about some Norse warriors, including a berserker, in ancient England. The two threads were tied together by an ancient axe head. The final section of the book was written in a cipher. Bits I can remember: The berserker character hiding somewhere and holding the axe during some crisis, the teenagers in modern times finding the axe-head somewhere. The two teenagers meeting in a cathedral, and using a code to write to each other.

The reason I want to find the book: The last 10 or so pages were hand-written in a weird code based on rectangles and dots. It was the code that the teenage couple had used to write to each other, and I think the last 10 pages were a coded letter from one of them to the other. At the time when I first read the book, I could not crack the code, so I never found out how the book ended.

Years and years later, I realised that the characters must have been using the Pigpen cypher - the book was quite sneaky in that it described how the code looked, but didn't give you enough info to actually translate it without outside help.

From what I remember, it was a pretty good book, and I'd love to track it down now and work out the ending.

This is all a bit of a longshot, but you never know with the power of the interwebs these days. Thanks!

MANF ANGWA RDASM ORT = ?

0xFCAF — Sat, 16 May 2009 00:14:55 -0800

MANF ANGWA RDASM ORT. What does it mean? Mike Doughty's guitar has letters (like the stickers you'd put on your mailbox) that spell out the above words, one per line. It's not rot13 or any other Caesar shift. Google turns up nothing. Nothing obvious looking at anagrams. Any ideas?

cemr kc TOCEC DRSC QEI CWOVVC VSUO MKXXON FSOXXK CKECKQO

Countess Elena — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 18:43:41 -0800

Tell me what cipher I need for my daily commute. I want to write privately in my little notebook, without worrying what words might catch someone's eye. Yes, I know nobody actually bothers looking at what anyone else is doing on the subway, but there's hardly even room in the car to move an elbow, and it makes me more self-conscious than usual. Besides, I have an Issue about keeping my drafts hidden and secret. I want to feel comfortable carrying around a notebook with my rough drafts and other sensitive material in my purse, while I travel around to the office and various office-related duties.

It doesn't need any actual security. It just needs to be opaque enough for the casual gaze or snoop, and by its codeness, say "this is none of your business." I tried rot13 for this purpose, but I felt like I was tapping things out in Morse code. The writing I did in rot13 was strained and telegraphic.

Can you suggest a cipher that lends itself to being written quickly and fluently? Or do I just have to practice a simple shift like rot13 until I get the facility to do that?

KidCrypto

kaytrem — Tue, 08 Aug 2006 21:42:24 -0800

Cryptofilter: My daughter is at summer camp and I can snail mail her or I can send email that will be printed out and delivered. The email is fast but readable by whoever prints/delivers the paper etc. Looking for a cipher that would be easy to learn and use... I would send her the instructions and keyphrase in regular mail then encrypt messages in the email. I want it to be more than a simple substitution but simpler than a one time pad. For fun and learning... any thoughts?

Can this be decrypted?

Blazecock Pileon — Fri, 04 Aug 2006 10:52:36 -0800

Is Scientific American's spell-checker broken? (via justkevin) This post title has the structure of ciphertext:

Gbalf Xozmn Ram Rqzyk Wtacu Lkugc Aaxjx Owkyu Dkoxk Zamdg Bnuio Nmrxk Zmqyf Nqeog Ziqxf Gutxe Nkmxd Gzmqj Brqge Kxkfs Qqzui Nactg Djfnq Eenaa Xjnk

Are there strategies for analyzing and decoding this text?

Does anyone know of any famous codes or ciphers that have gone unsolved for lengthy periods of time or remain unsolved?

mokujin — Fri, 07 May 2004 01:46:41 -0800

Does anyone know of any famous codes or ciphers that have gone unsolved for lengthy periods of time or remain unsolved? I am thinking specifically of things like The May Day Mystery and the Voynich Manuscript (also here). So things more like those and generally less like the Beale Cipher. Maybe something to do with Art Brut or Outsider art or perhaps Kabbalic systems like Gematria. Or, if all else fails maybe something by the Rosicrucians or Freemasons?

Put another way, I am looking for cryptic and complex visual systems that maintain an internal logic (however faulty or suspect) and ESPECIALLY anything having to do with the interpretation and/or decipherment of such systems.

How does this riddle from "Speak Memory" work?

adrober — Sat, 03 Apr 2004 14:29:59 -0800

In Nabokov's autobiography, "Speak Memory," there is a puzzle of sorts. It goes like this (from pg. 70): "We subjected [Uncle Ruka] to a test one day, and in a twinkle he turned the sequence '5.13 24.11 13.16 9.13.5 5.13 24.11' into the opening words of a famous monologue in Shakespeare." I'm stuck, can anyone help?