logoSteckley & Associates

A Challenge Problem in Anti-Cryptography

This is a simple experiment in anti-cryptography, wherein the goal is to create a transmittable message that is easy to decipher rather than difficult. Ideally, such a message contains its own primer to teach one how to read it. (Recall the movie "Contact" where Ellie figures out how to read the alien transmission.)

The message contains a continuous string of 4,299 binary digits. And it contains a primer as well as a primary message.

Normal communications rely on both sender and reciever having a shared context and a coding system used to encode the message. For example, the document you are reading uses the english language and the english alphabet. But when sender and receiver have never met and so do not both know a common coding system, then how might they communicate? One must create a message that relies on some minimal context that is guaranteed to be shared, and then use that to bootstrap the teaching of a coding system.

If you have an affinity for this kind of challenge, take a crack at figuring out the message. Please send me your answer (or your questions). You can email me at: andrew@steckleyandassociates.com.

Anti-Cryptography Message

I'm very curious to hear about how people approach this problem and the thinking process they use to solve this. Or by which they fail to solve it.

Note:

(As soon as anyone has cracked it, I'll post an update here too.)

Good luck!

Answer (as submitted by Max Langhof, Germany, July 2019):

111111 000000 111111 -> message is in blocks of 6 bits (also used as delimiter later) 000000 000001 000010 000011 000100 000101 000110 000111 001000 001001 001010 001011 001100 001101 001110 001111 010000 010001 010010 010011 010100 010101 010110 010111 011000 011001 011010 011011 011100 011101 011110 011111 -> count from 0 to 31 000001 000010 000011 000101 000111 001011 001101 010010 010011 010111 011101 011111 -> primes to 31 (1 2 3 5 7 11 13 17 19 23 29 31) 111111000000111111 -> delimiter 000011 000101 -> 3x5 000 000 000 000 000 -> all 0 image 001011 000111 -> 11x7 11111111111 11111111111 11111111111 11111111111 11111111111 11111111111 11111111111 -> all 1 image 000110 001010 -> 6x10 111111 100001 100001 100001 100001 100001 100001 100001 100001 111111 -> box 000111 000111 -> 7x7 1000001 0100010 0010100 0001000 0010100 0100010 1000001 -> cross 111110 111100 -> 62x60 00000000000000000000000000000000000000000001110000000000000000 00000000000000000001000010000000000000000001111000000000000000 00000000000000001111000000000000000000000000011100000000000000 00000000000001111110000000000000000001100000001100000000000000 00000000000011111100010000000000000101000000000110000000000000 00000000000011111000110000100000000011000000000110000000000000 00000000000111111000001111110000000000000000000110000000000000 00000000000111111000011110100000000000000000000011000000000000 00000101100111111000111100000000000000000000000001000000000000 00001100100111111000011000000000000000000000000000000000000000 00011001001111111000000000000000000000111100000000000000000000 00010000101111111100000000000000000000001100000000000000000000 00010000111111111110000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 00100000011111111110000000000000000000000000000011100000000000 00100000001111111110000000000000000000000000000011110000000000 00100000000111111111000000000000000000000000000001111000000000 01000000111111111111000000000000000000000000000001111000000000 01000000111111111110000000000000000000000000000000111100000000 01000111111111111110000000000000000000000000000000011110000000 00000011111111111100000000000000000000000000000110001110000000 00000011111111111100000000000000000000000000000111000110000000 00011001111111111111110000000000000000011110000011000110000000 00011111111111111111111100000000000111111111000111000011100000 00011111111111111100001110000000000000000001100110000001100000 00011111111111111100000000000000000000000001110111000001110000 00001111111111111100000001100000000000000000010111000000110000 00000111111111111101000001110000000000000000010111000001110000 00000001111111111111111000111000000111000000000111000000111000 00100001111111111111111111011000001111111001000111000000111000 01100011111111111111111001011000000011111111000011100000001000 11001011111111111111100000011000000000011100000011111110000000 00000011111111111000000000110000000000000000000111111000000000 11100001111111110000000000110000000000000000000111111100000000 01100000011111111000000000111000000000000000000011111100000011 00000111101111111000000000111000000000000000000011110100000011 00000111111111111100000000111100100000000000000011110000000111 00000011111111111100000001111111110000000000000011000000000000 00000000111111111110000001111100000000000000001010001000001110 00010000011111111110000000000000000000000000011011011101111000 00010000111111111110000000000000000000010000011000011111111000 00111000111111111110000000111111111000000000011000011111111100 00000000111111111111000001111111111100000000010001111111111100 00000000011111111111000011111000111110000000010000111111111100 00111000011111111111000011100000001110000000011100011111100000 00010000111111111111000011111000011110000000011111111111100000 00000000001111111111000001111100111100000001111111100111100000 00000000011111111111000000111000110000000001111111110111000000 00000100101110111111100000000000000000000011111111100110000000 00001100000000011111100000000000000000000011111110000110000000 00001000011111001111110000000000000000000111111001110000000000 00000111111111000111111000000000000000011100111111111000000000 00000111111111100111111100000000000001111000111111111111100000 00000000111111111111111111000000000011110000111111111111100000 00000000001111111111111111100000000111100001111111111111000000 00000000000111111111111111111111111110000001111111111000000000 00000000001111111111111111111111111100000001111111111000000000 00000000001111111111111111111111110000000001111111110000000000 00000000000111111111111111111111100000000001111111100000000000 00000000000011111100111111111100000000000011111100000000000000 00000000000000011100001111111000000000000011111000000000000000 -> Marilyn Monroe 111111000000111111