#ciphers

The following ad appeared in the Herald on May 26, 1875.

I got out my note book and started to break things down, worked out that F=E, and wrote out the whole damn alphabet by hand ready to figure out the rest - and then realized it's literally just shifted one letter.

Every letter is just the letter that comes before it in the alphabet. B=A, C=B, D=C, etc, etc.

"ABE JONES YOU ARE NOT FORGOTTEN. IF YOU

would see me answer through these personals when and

where. F. S."

I've unfortunately not come across anything that appears to be a response or any additional messages from either Abe or F.S., but there's something charming about decoding a 150-year-old message about not being forgotten.

AAAAAA A ÃA̧AȂA̦ ǍÅÂÃĀÁȂ AAAAAAA!

Scream Cipher [Explained]

Transcript

[Top of the panel has 26 letters of the alphabet, each followed by a hyphen and the letter "A" with a unique diacritical mark for each. "A - A" at the top is an exception, where the latter doesn't have a diacritic.] A - A B - Ȧ G - A̋ L - Ă Q - A̤ V - À C - A̧ H - A̰ M - Ǎ R - Ȃ W - Ȁ D - A̱ I - Ả N - Â S - Ã X - A̽ E - Á J - A̓ O - Å T - Ā Y - A̦ F - A̮ K - Ạ P - A̯ U - Ä Z - Ⱥ

[Cueball and Megan typing on their phones, Cueball with two hands and Megan with one hand.] Cueball's phone: A̰ÁĂĂÅ Megan's phone: A̰Ả

Timestamped codes that are like one frame (/ is used when two or more codes are flashed at once in one second):

14:52 color code: We are just getting started

14:53 color code: My plaid puppet

19:45 hidden text: Gather around, we are going to learn about the American dream today!

20:50 hidden text: But who can blame Nick? Gatsby is so much grander than him! So much greater! Nick is nothing without him!

21:24 hidden text: It isn't her fault. There must be more than this 2D prison!

21:54 hidden text: Sounds like our boy Francis had a type: gold muses who only ever hurt him!

23:26 hidden text: She's not a cheater, she just knows how the game is really played

23:28 Caesar cipher: Hey there, kids! What do you get when you mix an English Zoom class, a desperation-inducing economy, and a teacher barely hanging on by a very snippable thread? You get out the scissors!

29:25 hidden text: Looks a bit like my home town, you know, in the end

36:26 color code: Trinity health/ is here for you

38:00 color code: Trust the voice/ in your head

43:13 Caesar cipher: A deal's a deal, Hana! You asked for cash and I made it easy-peasy! It's time to pay the Cipher!

43:13 binary code: Got a few pawns in play, but I'm still a few short of a set. Join me kids! Ciphertology lives again!

43:20 Caesar cipher: Could a cat do this, Hana? Could a cat do this?

51:52 color code: This school can be/ full of puppets

58:06 color code: Raise your hand/ if you want/ Bill's help

1:13:51 color code: cipher is real/ and he lives in us all

1:14:59 Caesar cipher: Cipher is real, he's sinful and yellow, he's a triangle fellow with mischief in mind. Cipher is real, he'll cause Weirdmageddon, but if you do him a favor he'll treat you in kind

1:15:00 bar code: Desperation

1:15:00 QR code leads to a canva website where there are three codes. Theraprism code says "Follow eight steps one at a time", Caesar cipher says "The Beddingtons own everything in Naberius Creek". There is a third cipher that I couldn't find a solution to, probably vigenere

1:18:32 color code: See you soon

1:20:46 color code: See you soon, class

1:21:09 Atbash cipher: Here's a good writing exercise: jot down random rhymes, as you think of them. Once I wrote the phrase "Lottery in June, corn will be heavy soon" on a cave wall in the Midwest! What's it mean? Who cares! Death of the author, kids! Let the reader decide for themselves what it means!

1:27:06 Atbash cipher: So the monkey's paw gave you three horrible wishes corrupting your greatest desires into your worst fears. Big whoop! Anyone can do that. You wouldn't believe what the rest of the monkey could do. Guess! Go on, guess!

1:27:57 color code: Time for Hana to learn a lesson

1:36:05 Caesar cipher: You think you can wait it out by getting though class? I can do this all day. All year! All MILLENNIUM!

1:48:27 Caesar cipher: Saw his own dimension burn, now he's here to help you learn.

2:01:09 color code: See you all in your dreams

2:01:18 Caesar cipher: I'm not here to manipulate you with the American dream. I'm here to facilitate it. The system is broken without some help and buddy, I'm the help.

2:06:23 color code: What's a dead family member or two in the face of an endless party?

Now the other codes:

White bold letters: He'll be not afraid for I have come to liberate you.

Blue bold letters: I'm a man of wealth and taste

Light blue bold letters: You will not ignore me, I see everything

Yellow capital letters: And it was all yellow

A1Z26 code from the slide numbers: You signed the contract

A1Z26 code from the google questionnaire points: The Book of Bill is waiting for you

Codes I couldn't solve:

I couldn't find the Vigenere password for the QR code number 2

Coffee stain codes (I genuinely don't know how exactly are those solved and I tried LOTS OF THINGS)

Number code on page 100 of The Great Gatsby at 53:44.

That's all! Hope I helped someone :D

a friend and I have been going over every password that works on the site, and I thought I'd post all of the ones I've found so fair. if you want to figure out the website on your own, please don't read further!!

Bonus 106: The Mysterious Voynich Manuscript - Interview with Claire Bowern

In the 1600s, an antique book is recorded in an alchemist's library in Prague, containing intriguing but puzzling drawings, like plants with unnatural cuboid roots, as well as a strange writing system, with some familiar letters and some utterly unfamiliar. This book became known as the Voynich Manuscript, after a Polish book dealer who purchased it in 1912, and the meaning (or lack thereof) that lies on its 240 parchment pages is a puzzle that's intrigued cryptographers, historians, linguists, and more for centuries.

Here it is, my decoder for all of the new ciphers in The Book of Bill.

Huge thanks to Jim and trickenGF for help with the color cipher!

Happy solving, everyone!

I plan on creating fonts for most of these soon, but in the meantime, feel free to extract parts of the png for your own use from the transparent version below the cut.

I'll also explain how I got each cipher down there.