Good Soldier Shweik
Private
- Joined
- Oct 17, 2018
- Location
- on a volcano
I have a guy trying to impress his girl, a no no, with the mechanics of the northern wire cypher. Is this a reasonable discussion?
"
"It is a remarkably simple system at base, but it is complicated in its execution. It is in two parts, common nouns like the names of generals, colonels, rivers, cities have other words replacing them. And the nouns that are used a lot have two or three alternate names which you are supposed to use them interchangeably. The Mississippi is variously the Yellow, the Nile, and Yangtsee. The Tennessee is the Pechora and the Lena. The Cumberland is Seine, Tiber, and Amazon. The Ohio is the Danube, the Volga and the Rhone. General Grant is Alqi, Butler is Cpunz, Sherman is Mcnaughten, Bragg is Kindness, Pemberton is reg41."
"Don't they know they know about their names?"
"Theoretically they don't. Stanton would have their heads if they interfered with the cypher, so they keep quiet. They don't need to know, so they don't"
He lapsed into didactic mode, which always amused her. His saxon accent became more pronounced "The next part is where it becomes fiendishly complicated. It is called The Route. Every week they change this at 4:00 sunday morning. When you prepare a message you write it on a grid of between 18 and 42 letters. Then you follow the route when you write the message. For example, I would send a message that general Butler is going to go to Baton Rouge on the Missippi and attack general Bragg, I would send the message 'cpuns going to attack kindness at sticks using yangtsee. I will show you. This route is a very simple one, we just start in the upper right using a 10X5 grid, like so..... I will have a few random letters to fill in the rest of the grid, and voila, an incomprehensible message that the confederates will tear their hair out trying to figure out. "
She looked at the message "ystskekatc,wegucsktagp,penwisitnu,aqaitadai,qzygstncog. That looks miserable."
"They change the route weekly. This will prevent the confederates ever getting translated in time to do anything about it."
Y S T S K E K A T C
W E G U C S K T G P
P E N S I S I T N U
A Q A I T A D A I S
Q Z Y G S T N C O G
"
"It is a remarkably simple system at base, but it is complicated in its execution. It is in two parts, common nouns like the names of generals, colonels, rivers, cities have other words replacing them. And the nouns that are used a lot have two or three alternate names which you are supposed to use them interchangeably. The Mississippi is variously the Yellow, the Nile, and Yangtsee. The Tennessee is the Pechora and the Lena. The Cumberland is Seine, Tiber, and Amazon. The Ohio is the Danube, the Volga and the Rhone. General Grant is Alqi, Butler is Cpunz, Sherman is Mcnaughten, Bragg is Kindness, Pemberton is reg41."
"Don't they know they know about their names?"
"Theoretically they don't. Stanton would have their heads if they interfered with the cypher, so they keep quiet. They don't need to know, so they don't"
He lapsed into didactic mode, which always amused her. His saxon accent became more pronounced "The next part is where it becomes fiendishly complicated. It is called The Route. Every week they change this at 4:00 sunday morning. When you prepare a message you write it on a grid of between 18 and 42 letters. Then you follow the route when you write the message. For example, I would send a message that general Butler is going to go to Baton Rouge on the Missippi and attack general Bragg, I would send the message 'cpuns going to attack kindness at sticks using yangtsee. I will show you. This route is a very simple one, we just start in the upper right using a 10X5 grid, like so..... I will have a few random letters to fill in the rest of the grid, and voila, an incomprehensible message that the confederates will tear their hair out trying to figure out. "
She looked at the message "ystskekatc,wegucsktagp,penwisitnu,aqaitadai,qzygstncog. That looks miserable."
"They change the route weekly. This will prevent the confederates ever getting translated in time to do anything about it."
Y S T S K E K A T C
W E G U C S K T G P
P E N S I S I T N U
A Q A I T A D A I S
Q Z Y G S T N C O G