Catching a killer

[Walsingham]

Help the FBI with their cryptanalysis.

 

http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2011/march...analysis_032911

 

I figured you goons might have some left field ideas.

 

EDIT:

 

It's just occurred to me that a more useful thing to do if you cracked the code would be to keep it to yourself to encode things you didn't want the FBI to know about!

Edited April 1, 2011 by Walsingham

[Serrano]

Why do I get the feeling you've just got us all put on a list somewhere

[Walsingham]

Why do I get the feeling you've just got us all put on a list somewhere

 

Nonsense. I've had you on that list for ages.

[Gorgon]

Are we sure this is even a code, or just random symbols left to confound someone. It would have to be reasonably simple for easy recall in writing, he probably didn't re invent the wheel if it were a code.

[Walsingham]

Are we sure this is even a code, or just random symbols left to confound someone. It would have to be reasonably simple for easy recall in writing, he probably didn't re invent the wheel if it were a code.

 

My friends and I have been having a go at this today. We think it's a form of shorthand, with semi-random noise in it. Repeated phrases such as 'sprse' are sometimes broken, and we wonder if the interval is the significant portion. Once you get used to looking for them, the broken chunks stand out, rather like brackets in a piece of html.

 

I can't see someone who was a school dropout, or anyone who wrote so quickly, using a letter substitution or one time pad per se.