Author here, this was the last of four cryptograms from #35 of Klaus Schmeh’s list of 50 unsolved cryptograms. The first 3 were cracked in 1948, 1996 and 2019 with the last one remaining uncracked for 76 years. Wood initially set up the cipher to try to prove he could pass the key through a medium after his death.
The key ended up being the Lord's Prayer from a 1912 German Bible. The message reads Hier bin ich. Totsiens. T.E.W. "Here I am" in German, "goodbye" in Afrikaans, with Wood's initials.
Since the release of Fable I’ve been using Claude and OpenAI to try to tackle these open problems, Opus 5.5 wrote the search code and identified the books to use for the key phrase and Astra verified the results. All the code and results related to the search are up on GitHub - https://github.com/creilly11235/wood-cryptogram-1950
Totally fair, I did heavily edit and spent a lot of time refining the step through to try to make the process interesting and understandable but I should have done the writing myself.
I came across this line yesterday, I copied the text but not a link to the source unfortunately. It was in reference to PRs but it seems like a good standard to hold ourselves to.
“Don't let the AI write prose or any text another human (or the reviewer) will read. Here, the whole intention is that the text comes from a human and reflects the humans thoughts exactly. Also, as long as AI written prose is detectable, you show care for the reader by writing it well yourself. Try to have empathy for the reader as you write!”
a beautiful (static?) website for showcasing a beautiful cipher
excellent work on both fronts (solving, and showcasing)
while he failed to demonstrate that the spirits of men continue to exercise control over this realm (after all, is it not Satan who presently rules this world?), he left something beautiful and interesting that genuinely took a while to solve considering how close it was to the computing revolution
not that bold, but I suspect a discussion on the topic would either be unfruitful - or if it was a good conversation, would be shutdown by the site operators
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[ 0.24 ms ] story [ 42.5 ms ] threadThe key ended up being the Lord's Prayer from a 1912 German Bible. The message reads Hier bin ich. Totsiens. T.E.W. "Here I am" in German, "goodbye" in Afrikaans, with Wood's initials.
Since the release of Fable I’ve been using Claude and OpenAI to try to tackle these open problems, Opus 5.5 wrote the search code and identified the books to use for the key phrase and Astra verified the results. All the code and results related to the search are up on GitHub - https://github.com/creilly11235/wood-cryptogram-1950
Klaus has confirmed the results here - https://klausschmeh.net/woods-cryptogram-from-the-crypt-anot...
I came across this line yesterday, I copied the text but not a link to the source unfortunately. It was in reference to PRs but it seems like a good standard to hold ourselves to.
“Don't let the AI write prose or any text another human (or the reviewer) will read. Here, the whole intention is that the text comes from a human and reflects the humans thoughts exactly. Also, as long as AI written prose is detectable, you show care for the reader by writing it well yourself. Try to have empathy for the reader as you write!”
Thanks for taking the time to take a look!
excellent work on both fronts (solving, and showcasing)
while he failed to demonstrate that the spirits of men continue to exercise control over this realm (after all, is it not Satan who presently rules this world?), he left something beautiful and interesting that genuinely took a while to solve considering how close it was to the computing revolution
Bold claim that anyone is in charge at all, frankly.