Morse Code : Can anyone help with this ?

[KIFIS]

Can anyone decode this morse message which is expressed as thirty two groups of four figures each? It is thought to be connected with military operations as it was found wrapped in a bundle of old military related documents. The text will most likely come
out in English as all the words on the form are in English. However it could be in Chinese in which case the decoding will be very difficult indeed. Does anyone know of enthusiasts who talk to each other in morse as perhaps someone may still have an old book of codes ? I know this is a difficult one but any help would be sincerely appreciated.


THE CHINESE TELEGRAPH COMPANY
TELEGRAMS ACCEPTED FOR ALL TELEGRAPH STATIONS IN THE WORLD.
TELEGRAM No 218 32 words
GIVEN IN AT . Changsha 20-11-1910

Peking 0365 6752 0022
1016 1129 0086 6874
7003 1252 4020 7371
1934 2989 2283 4979
0327 4905 3353 5542
6599 1641 5731 0091
6349 7371 5545 1356
0007 0806 0895 Seal


KIFIS

[Icarus]

I doubt very much this is morse code (although that may have been the mode of transmission), it looks more like a Beale Code.
I'm at work now but when I get home I'll check my books and give you some more ideas or try to crack it myself.

[This message has been edited by Icarus (edited 29 January 2001).]

[Icarus]

Hmm.
Too stuctured to be a Beale.
But thisis interesting and worth further pursuit - "The Chinese codes in 1935 were called "Mingma". They were basically made up of four digit numbers. The Chinese did not encode the name of either the sender or receiver, nor the date or the time of the message.
This seems to fit the code above; guess it's going to be a long night!

[KIFIS]

Icarus

Many thanks for your interest . You have already told me much I did not know. I’ve never heard of the “ Beale code “ or the Chinese code of “ Mingma “.Even if you can’t crack this message perhaps sometime in the future you might explain these codes to me and why the code structure should vary. I have one other telegram from the same bundle of war documents (also from Peking 1910 ) that I could put up only if you think it might help as I don't want to strain the friendship.

KIFIS

[Icarus]

The Beale code is named after the Beale brothers who hid around 24 tonnes of gold and silver in a hill side in the US. They left a coded message with a good friend as to the whereabouts of the stash, and a note to him explaining that if they died they were to take the note to someone else (who I cant quite remember). The note essentially referenced words in the Declaration of Independance (I think) by quoting numbers,
eg
20,132,1042,65,.. etc etc
and once deciphered would lead you to the exact whereabouts of the gold/silver.
Anyway the guy with the note passed on too, and thousands of people have tried to crack the code successfully but to date no one has. (Because there is a missing page from the note).
So somewhere just outside a small US town (again I can't remember which one off hand) there is an awful lot of money in the form of gold and silver waiting to be found.
The Chinese (other than Sun Tzu) were very late arriving in the land of Cryptography, and it appears that the most well known ciphers is the Mingma Code, which as I said consists of 4 digit blocks like that you published above and they were transmitted by telegraph; so I am making an educated guess that is what it is, although there is a similar code (named the Stitler Code) that takes on the same format.
I'll see what I can do, but it may take some time!

PS - Please yes, put up the other as well, thanks.

[This message has been edited by Icarus (edited 30 January 2001).]

[KIFIS]

Icarus

The story becomes more and more interesting. Here is the second telegram. It was wrapped in the same bundle as the first one. Both of these were found in the Chinese Historical Archives in Beijing. You will notice there is a slight change in the wording of the title of the telegram with the word imperial being included. Also the word “ Seal “ is missing at the end.

THE IMPERIAL CHINESE TELEGRAPH ADMINISTRATION
TELEGRAMS ACCEPTED FOR ALL TELEGRAPH STATIONS AROUNDTHEWORLD.
TELEGRAM No 109 282 words
GIVEN IN AT Kalgan 30-6-1910

Peking7120 6511 6752
6874 7003 2976 1378
7376 6135 3883 3541
7368 4483 6382 7962
2362 5118 3653 7585
6804 8363 5364 1666
8530 9424 1977 4744
0827 9864 6804 9349
3466 3026 1977 0147
4743 9361 0827 1370
6420 0147 7505 8088
5361 8101 5364 2603
9984 1827 8324 4743
0827 7505 8088 8803
9173 7314 6704 9494


You will note there are four groups that are similar 1977, 0417, 8088, 7505 and 0827 is used three times. Does this exclude English and point to Chinese characters ? It is not going to be easy for you. If this posting goes off the screen before you come to some conclusion then call me up. I will be watching.

KIFIS

[Pom Pax]

TELEGRAM No 109 282 words
GIVEN IN AT Kalgan 30-6-1910

Can't help with codes but it is likely that the No. 109 means that this was the 109th telegram sent from Kalgan office since its opening in 1901!
In his account of the 1907 Peking to Paris race Luigi Barzini tells of sending a telegram to "Daily Telegraph" from Pong-kiong office (the next office 200 miles N-W of Kalgan) on 18th June 1907. His telegram was numbered 1, on enquiring if this meant the first of the day he was told "No, sir, from the time the office was started, six years ago."

[Icarus]

Might take a while!
Shame you didnt post a couple of weeks ago; I would have seen you were from MEL earlier -I was there 2 weeks ago for 2 days on business; could have filled you in a little on the art of cryptography.

[foghorn]

Is there a possibility that these are four figure cypher groups encoded on a one-time pad? If so we will never know without access to the pad.

It's a possibility, although the repeated groups will probably rule this out as they're statistically unlikely in a one-time-pad encoded message.

[Icarus]

I did think of one time pad at first but withdrew that thought quite quickly as it is not a common Chinese way of doing things.
Only Sun Tzu used something similar, usually based on the first forty words of a poem.

It appears to be Chinese Commercial Code.

Trouble is finding information as they are not that well documented.

[Flight Safety]

KIFIS, I can identify certain features in the messages that might help to identify the code used.

In the first telegraph from Changsha, it says there are 32 words in the message. That number corresponds exactly with the number of 4-digit blocks, as long as you also include the words "Peking" and "seal" in the word count. The second telegraph says it's 282 words long. But you correctly pointed out the word "seal" is missing from the end of the second message, which suggests that the second message is incomplete, as there's nowhere near 282 word blocks in that message.

So each 4-digit block seems to correspond with a single word. You correctly pointed out that certain blocks are repeated in the second message. This could mean that a "page" cypher was used, where a select list of words were written (or typed) on a page (or pages) and each one was assigned a 4-digit block code to represent them. There may have been many such lists in the "code book" with different "pages" being used for different days, as none of the blocks in the first message seem to repeat in the second message (though I didn't check them all).

Now whether English words or Chinese words were used I can't tell, but it does seems that whole "words" were encoded in the 4-digit blocks. The fact that the rest of the message is in English, and the fact that the telegraph system being used was meant to exchange messages from all around the world suggests that the encoded words were English words.

The other possibility is that this was some form of early system to transmit Chinese words in morse code, as there might have been a simple "number book" with each number corresponding to one Chinese word character. 4-digit blocks would allow up to 10,000 Chinese characters (words) to be encoded. The word "Peking" at the beginning of both messages suggests that maybe a number code called "Peking" was used to transmit the Chinese words. In fact, isn't there a character code (memory storage code) for Chinese characters in the PC Windows environment called "Peking" or something like that?

Later...

I checked a Windows 95 programming book, and there's a code called Chinese (PROC, Singapore) that uses code page 936. This code uses 4 digit blocks (hexidecimal digits instead of base 10 digits) to represent all of the Chinese characters. I wonder if the "Peking" code was similar?

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Safe flying to you...

[This message has been edited by Flight Safety (edited 31 January 2001).]

[Icarus]

Just because the code shows blocks of four digits does not mean that each block represents one word. This is simply the format of the mesage.
Niether would one digit necessarily represent one Chinese character or a letter of an alphabet (English for example).
In fact the Chinese often used one digit to represent one (Chinese) spoken 'sylable'.
Going back to the groups of digits one needs to also look within each group and across groups to find repetitions to aid with the dicipherment.

[KIFIS]

Icarus, Flight Safety, Pom Pax and Foghorn:

Gosh! Where do you gentlemen get all this knowledge from. I almost feel guilty for asking such a difficult question. Flight Safety’s observation that there is possibly a page or two missing from the second telegram is probably correct. The page I copied from the bundle of Military documents was alone but that doesn’t mean the missing pages were not in another bundle. ( I did not open them all). The entire cache of documents were all written in Chinese with some in Manchu. The only words of English to be found was contained on the “ letterhead”s of both the telegrams. I can’t comment on the encoding pads as I don’t understand how they fit into the system. I must say I’m now “behind the aeroplane “ as the aeroplane is flying me. Thanks all for your efforts so far. I watch with great interest.

KIFIS

[Flight Safety]

Icarus, you could be right. The word count could be nothing more than a transcription aid to assist the telegrapher in making sure that he'd received a complete message. The telegraph number and station name could then have been used to request a repeat transmission if it became necessary.

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Safe flying to you...

[Deaf]

FS I think you are right about the 4 digit code for transmission of Chinese characters. Vague memories (not sure from where) that this was the normal method of sending characters by Morse as how else could it be done. A major library may have a copy of the code books(s).

[Deaf]

Had a bit of a look around home, nothing on codes but Chinese dictionaries also use a similar system with one or more indexes eg

1. Characters in order of radical (base of character water,fire,man etc) and number of added strokes being the base order and numbered

2. Total number of strokes to give number as per 1

3. Phonetic (a number of systems) to give number as per 1

I have a couple of Chinese/English dictionaries and they both use this system with different four digit numbers (due to characters being included/excluded).

The system was probably standardized and a major library should have a copy. Censorship requirements in WW1 would have ensured copies were widely distributed in the none chinese world.

[KIFIS]

Deaf

Thanks for the input. Every little bit must surely help with a problem as complex as this. I am lost as it has gone past anything I know about decoding and I am relying on others.

KIFIS

[Icarus]

KIFIS:
As I mentioned previously it does appear to be Chinese Telegraphic Code (CTC) in format.
Unfortunately it seems all the Chinese GF hosties are too shy to respond to my request for help in translating the Chinese to English now that I have got that far; or maybe my 'rep' is too well known and they are staying away on purpose!
Anyway, I have befriended a young lady who works for a big (aviation) telecoms company in SIN and she is going to help me (to help you).
I hope to have the plain text within the next two weeks (this is assuming that we are talking about a straight substitution and no further encryption was used).
I hope to be in SIN end of next week, so give me a few days after that and hopefully all will be revealed.

[Icarus]

KIFIS:
Well things are getting interesting.

We have decoded all into Chinese ,but found 2 problems.

(1) about 16-28% of it unable to decode (decode number does not have a known (to me) Chinese Character).

(2) It's written in old classic Chinese and most of the words are no longer in use now.

What we can confirm is - it's obviously a report/message to Peking higher authority.

The 1st telegraph (from Changsha) , is attention to "your honour" of Army Force...

The 2nd telegraph (from Kalgan) , is attention to Land force , re : "force secret "...

We have difficulties in translating the rest into English as it might be very misleading.

We will see if anybody else can give us a helping hand and make a good guess of it (at least something that sounds logical).

[KIFIS]

Icarus:

Thanks a lot for your efforts in helping with this most difficult problem. I really appreciate your input and look forward to the eventual translation. If the code can be broken then we could apply it to many of the other coded telegrams that are located in the First HIstorical Archives in Beijing.
What you have decoded so far fits in with my thoughts that the two telegrams are of military significance as they were found with bundles of military messages written in Chinese script. China was in both political and military turmoil in 1910 and these telegrams may be of great interest to historians.

KIFIS

[Few Cloudy]

Icarus,

I often wondered about the second Beale message. As the first message was a book code - seems reasonable that the second one should be too.

Did anyone try to use the covering letter that went with it as a key?

If it works, I'll share the gold with you...

[Icarus]

From memory, the first Beale code was deciphered against the 'Declaration of Independance'; however, the document/book/whatever that the second (and of course more important [financially!!]) code has never been found or worked out.
One needs to look very hard at what literature was accessible in the US around that time (1820's).
I believe the 'stash' is currently valued at around US$20M.

The covering letter was lost hence that is why no-one has got very far in finding the gold!! It is believed the letter did contain instructions on how to decode the ciphertext.

[This message has been edited by Icarus (edited 01 July 2001).]

[supermunk]

I can recommend "The Code Book" by Simon Singh. There is a whole chapter devoted to the Beale ciphers. As to the story of the rest of this thread, I am sure that I have seen another article somewhere about Chinese ciphers in a similar vein but I can't place it.

[This message has been edited by supermunk (edited 02 July 2001).]

[maxrevs]

If you are interested in Codes, try "The Code Breakers" by David Kahn. ISBN 0-684-83130-9. Kahn mentions the Thomas Jefferson Beale story on page 771. According to some of the Treasure Hunting magazines (my living in dreams hobby), there are also thoughts that the treasure has been found. Kahn also goes into the code breaking that was going on, prior to the Pearl Harbor attack.
It's good stuff lads, so if you want a good read, give it a try.
Regards, Max.

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When I push the panic button, the breaker pops!

[maxrevs]

KIFIS
Have looked into the Chinese Morse Code, and came up with the following info:
The Chinese used thousand of wooden block, with the Chinese Letter on one side, and the four digit number on the other. This allowed someone who could not read, to pick the number, stamp it on an ink pad, and produce the letter. See:
http://www.wnt.com.au/chinlinc.html
Also, if you want to take it further, there are about 100 pages of Chinese letters and numbers on http://www.reasearch.att.com/~reeds/ctc.pdf
If you wanted to spend the time, print out the pages, and use them to string the message together, and try and find a Chinese elder, to help you decipher it.
Hopes this helps, Regards, Max

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When I push the panic button, the breaker pops!

[maxrevs]

KIFIS
That second address should read:
http://www.research.att.com/~reeds/ctc.pdf
Regards, Max

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When I push the panic button, the breaker pops!

[Icarus]

Been there, done that!
There's actually quite a lot missing from that document in terms of being able to translate the message cleary.
Also, as the messages originated in mainland China, it is likely a different cipher as different versions were fairly 'location specific'.

[KIFIS]

Maxrevs:

Many thanks for your input to this most difficult question. I have been in touch with people all over the world and the answer to finding the Chinese decoding methods has always been negative except for Icarus and yourself. The book containing the ten thousand telegraphic numbers is the answer but where to find this book is the problem. However, we are progressing. Icarus is well on the way to solving the problem and when it is done we will put it up here and like all things that at first seem insurmountable it will appear simple. ( I hope !!) Thanks again.

KIFIS

[Paddington]

I'm impressed by all this code-breaking knowledge. It's got me interested in the subject. Where can I find out more? Good luck with this one :)

[maxrevs]

Paddington,
Try "The Codebreakers", as mentioned above. It's costly, but lots of info. "The Code Book", by Simon Singh (ISBN 0-385-49532-3) is top of the line, and a little cheaper. It's got enough to get your feet wet.
Best regards, Max

[Icarus]

If you buy the book (agreed, a good read) don't get too excited about the competition - it's over! But have fun trying to break them anyway, only got to stage-7 myself before the competition was won. :D