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Encrypted Civil War Message Finally Decrypted, 147 Years Later
from the wasn't-that-hard,-actually dept
When talking about encryption, people often talk about just how long it would take a certain level of computing to crack the code, so there may be some interest in the fact that it apparently took 147 years to decipher a coded Civil War message... but it turns out that the main reason it took so long was that no one looked. The message had been stored in a bottle and was apparently delivered to Confederate General John Pemberton during the battle of Vicksburg (which the Confederacy lost) on July 4th, 1863. The bottle was given to the Museum of the Confederacy back in 1896 by a former soldier, but the museum staff never bothered to pull the message out of the bottle until a few months ago. After discovering the message was coded, the museum asked some top code breakers to see if they could decipher it, and it apparently took them a few weeks. The message? It probably wasn't that important either, as it basically told General Pemberton he was in trouble and wasn't getting any reinforcements:
"You can expect no help from this side of the river."
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Re:
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Re: Re: yeah, that's a neat trick
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This changes everything
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Re: This changes everything
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Wow, some regular "coder" can crack WEP in a few minutes, yet this prehistoric code takes two weeks to crack?
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Piling on
LoL
But different from others above I will point to the exact point where it is.
.
Now it is easy to find it, just by highlighting it and clicking CTRL+F(on Firefox).
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Re:
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The Full message
You can expect no help from this side of the river. Let Gen'l Johnston know, if possible, when you can attack the same point on the enemy's lines. Inform me also and I will endeavor to make a diversion. I have sent some caps (explosive devices). I subjoin a despatch from General Johnston."
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Re: Re: Re: yeah, that's a neat trick
I believe the dude's name, if I remember it correctly, was Clint Eastwood or Marty McFly, or something like that. He had a Delorian that he said needed to get up to 87 miles per hour for the flux capacitor to work. I thought he was smoking crack at the time, since my time travelling device just has a spinning lotto wheel on the back of it.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: yeah, that's a neat trick
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;)
Using a program made by someone else, does not a "coder" make. :D
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Re: ;)
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Re:
Yeah... whoops. Fixed. :)
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Re: Re: ;)
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Re: Re: This changes everything
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Re: ;)
The bullet was in the bottle so that it would sink if it was tossed into a river.
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