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Truman False @gogodidi.bsky.social · 1d

but I haven’t been able to bag the snake. And when I feel myself getting all Captain Ahab about it, I walk away.

I haven’t seen this repeated-intervals thing mentioned elsewhere, so I thought I’d bring it up.

Hereby thereby endeth the thread.

Truman False @gogodidi.bsky.social · 1d

that get ABCDABCD to represent repeated letters, not just repeated intervals, in a plausible intermediate step. But I haven’t been able then turn that intermediate step into the one that counts. That is, I think it’s some kind of periodic cipher with period four ...

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Truman False @gogodidi.bsky.social · 1d

When I learn a new computer language or get a new toy like a 3D printer, I tend to use Kryptos as a five-finger exercise. I haven’t been been able to turn this observation into an actual result. That is, I’ve applied various forms of de-superencryption ...

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Truman False @gogodidi.bsky.social · 1d

So, if you look at the spaces *between* the letters in K4, are there any repeats? Yes, there’s a set of four intervals that immediately repeat — sort of ABCDABCD. With the halfway point right at the sixtieth character.

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Truman False @gogodidi.bsky.social · 1d

That would keep from the repeating letter problem that gives away K1 and K2, turning instead into a repeating *interval* problem. The spaces between the letters along an alphabet would repeat even if the absolute letters don’t.

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Truman False @gogodidi.bsky.social · 1d

It’s a coincidence, but if you bump “HAL” one letter up along the alphabet, you get “IBM.” But with a progressive key superencryption of length one, you’d bump each letter up one more time than the previous one. You’d get “ICO.” One bump ahead for “H”, two for “A”, three for “L."

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Truman False @gogodidi.bsky.social · 1d

We learn melodies not by their absolute notes but by the intervals between them, so such a madly modulated melody might still be recognizable, even in this altered form. There is a simple form of superencryption that does the same basic thing: every however many letters, bump it up another notch.

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Truman False @gogodidi.bsky.social · 1d

Basically, you encrypt your text, and then encode it again in some very simple way. That disguises the repeated letters that give away periodic ciphers. Think of it as a song that’s been transcribed so the key goes up half a step either way each new measure.

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Truman False @gogodidi.bsky.social · 1d

But K4, what’s the X that marks the spot?

Here, for as little as it might matter, is what I think. There’s a pretty common form of “superencryption” — super not in the sense of Superman but of “a top level over something else."

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Truman False @gogodidi.bsky.social · 1d

K3 gives itself away as a transposition cipher — one in which letters are shuffled, not transmogrified — by having letter counts that match the basic profile of English text: about this percent are E, about that percent are T, and so on. That’s the “X” marking the spot.

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Truman False @gogodidi.bsky.social · 1d

Both K1 and K2 have plain texts that have been chosen to highlight that feature — the repetition in the coded text --by giving a can’t-be-random wodge of five letters taht also appaer repeated elsewhere in the coded text. That’s a pretty deliberate “X marks the spot” in both cases.

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Truman False @gogodidi.bsky.social · 1d

The signature of a periodic cipher, like the quagmire cipher used in K1 and K2, is that there is a tendency to repeat digrams or trigrams that happen to line up in the same way more than once with respect to the rotating key.

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Truman False @gogodidi.bsky.social · 1d

Since #Kryptos is in the news again, here’s what little I guess wildly about K4.

John Schwartz @jswatz.bsky.social · 4d

Gift link for the Kryptos story:

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/16/s...

A C.I.A. Secret Kept for 35 Years Is Found in the Smithsonian’s Vault

www.nytimes.com

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Reposted by Truman False

Carl Quintanilla @carlquintanilla.bsky.social · 2d

1. Washington DC

#NoKings 👑

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Truman False @gogodidi.bsky.social · 2d

Double points for the long s.

Katie Skeen, PhD @skeen.bsky.social · 2d

In Philadelphia, #nokings goes back a long way.

sign says "I said no kings" in eighteenth-century typeface

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Reposted by Truman False

Enoemos @enoemos7.bsky.social · 7d

@radiofreetom.bsky.social
Tom,I just thought you should know your real identity
This is who AI told me the man in the pic was

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Truman False @gogodidi.bsky.social · 10d

For what it's worth, here’s the same guy getting blowback for attending the Holocaust denial conference put on by Iran’s then-president, the Holocaust denier Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

hudsonvalley.news12.com/monsey-rabbi...

Don’t wave this guy as your flag.

Monsey rabbi riles some by attending Iran Holocaust conference

A local rabbi has outraged some Hudson Valley residents by attending a Holocaust conference sponsored by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss, of Monsey, is a member of Netu...

hudsonvalley.news12.com

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Truman False @gogodidi.bsky.social · 11d

"in fact" -- in fact, you don't actually know squat about actual Jewish life, do you, if you're holding up the NK as somehow being definitive of "true Judaism." They're wacky extremists to play to the camera to fool people who know actual squat about Jewish life. Such as, apparently, yourself.

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Truman False @gogodidi.bsky.social · 14d

Update on the MoCo loco.

Erin Reed @erininthemorning.com · 14d

1. 4 months ago, The Supreme Court gave families a right to opt out of LGBTQ+ education in schools.

Now, in Montgomery County, Maryland, where the case originated, the results are in.

Only 43 families out of 160,000 students have exercised that new right.

Subscribe to support our journalism.

Only 0.03% Opt Out Of LGBTQ+ Education In Maryland After SCOTUS Gives Them A Right To

After SCOTUS gave families a right to opt out of LGBTQ+ education, Montgomery County, Maryland is reporting only 43 families took them up on it.

www.erininthemorning.com

Truman False @gogodidi.bsky.social · 14d

Harlan Ellison would know.

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Reposted by Truman False

Patton Oswalt @pattonoswalt.bsky.social · 14d

It has begun. No flesh shall be spared. Also, I’m in Milwaukee, Hammond and Flint this week! Go to pattonoswalt.com for tix!

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Reposted by Truman False

Benjamin Dreyer @bcdreyer.social · 18d

"The anti-Semitic attack in Manchester was wrong, but

Annnnnnnnnd blocked.

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Reposted by Truman False

Secret Agent Number Six @designationsix.bsky.social · 21d

Next time you feel blue just remember Stephen Miller can go to prison because he does not have Presidential immunity.

Follow me for more life hacks.

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Reposted by Truman False

Karen Attiah @karenattiah.bsky.social · 21d

As a former gamer, I cannot overstate how big of a deal this right-wing takeover of Electronic Arts is.

Are they going to create video games where they kidnap and dismember journalists like Jamal Khashoggi?

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