Sherlock, the next message (pig pen code)
Monday, August 9th, 2010 10 Comments
The next message from Anonymous has been received. It’s some form of visual code,
and the clue is:
where is it the pigs live?
From this, I take it that we are dealing with a “pigpen cipher”, which is a geometric simple substitution cipher which exchanges letters for symbols which are fragments of a grid (Wikipedia article). The image below is sourced from Wikipedia.
Following this through to completion, I extract the message as:
SHERLOCK I HAVE FOUND YOU
Still the same “xx” signature, so Anonymous hasn’t chosen to reveal their name yet.
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i have figured out the first four words to the message>>>>>Sherlock i hate forwd. i am working on the last word now
I’m glad I figured it out before my brother found this post… that would’ve ruined the whole thing for me!
Also, I thought the ‘Xx might have been a hint to the pigpen cipher? Because of the two X grids? Unless that was on the other messages as well. I haven’t gotten around to looking at those quite yet.
Decoded the message pretty easily. Had made this code when i was in school (1998), only thing was that i used a Dash instead of a dot and the dash was on top of the symbols with no internet at home (India).
Didn’t know it was called the PIGPEN cipher. just found that out.
Is there a way to post it to the website ?
What did you want to post to which website?
you didnt even need the cipher for it, it begins with sherlock and ends with you so the rest is easy to figure
Can’t figure out how to post to the website or the forum at “The Science of Deduction”, help?
the code says : sherlock i have found you ! well thats what i got
Hi!
I didnt kmow about this pig pen code, but i did slowed this messege.
First gues was that all these a letters (obvious). And there are 2 types of letters: dotted and non-dotted. From this we can see that ther are 13 non-dotted and 13 dotted letters.
Second gues was that there supposed to be some conection between each dotted and non-dotted letter. And this conection must be stable.
Then I just thougt that the first word is SHERLOCK. Dont know why… just because it fits)
That means that 5 sign – L and the 7 – C. These 5 and 7 are dotted and non-dotted letters of the same shape (dot is the only differrence).
So the piriod between C and L = 10 letters. By this you can find out all the others letters.
The main difficulty of this method is that you have to figure out that since letter S period is different…
It was funny to slove this messege. Only when I’ve done it I was thinking: what it means WHERE PIGS LIVE)))))
The note that accompanied the Pig Pen code (http://www.thescienceofdeduction.co.uk/hidden-messages/hiddenmessage3) reads:
‘Sherlock Holmes!
Here’s a picture you might enjoy:
[PICTURE GOES HERE]
Also, where is it the pigs live?
Mwah!
Xx’