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\begin{document}

\title{Episode 13 --The Beale Ciphers}
\subtitle{European section -- Season 3}
\author{}
\date{}

\begin{frame}
  \titlepage
\end{frame}

\begin{frame}{The Beale papers}

\begin{center}
\includegraphics[width=5cm]{images/bealepapers.eps}
\end{center}
 
\end{frame}

\begin{frame}{Publishing information}
 
\begin{center}
\includegraphics[width=10cm]{images/bealepapers1.eps}
\end{center}
 
\large
Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1885, by J. B. Ward, in
the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
 
\end{frame}

\begin{frame}{Opening paragraph}

\begin{center}
\includegraphics[width=8cm]{images/bealepapers2.eps}
\end{center}
 
\end{frame}

\begin{frame}{Opening paragraph}

\large
The following details of an incident that happened many years ago, but which has lost none of its interest on that
account, are now given to the public for the first time. Until now, for reasons which will be apparent to every one, all
knowledge of this affair was confined to a very limited circle -- to the writer's immediate family, and to one old and
valued friend, upon whose discretion he could always rely; nor was it ever intended that it should travel beyond that
circle;\ldots
 
\end{frame}

\begin{frame}{Opening paragraph}

\large
\ldots but circumstances over which he has no control, pecuniary
embarrassments of a pressing character, and duty to a dependent family requiring his
undivided attention, force him to abandon a task to which he has devoted the best years of
his life, but which seems as far from accomplishment as at the start. He is, therefore,
compelled, however unwillingly, to relinquish to others the elucidation of the Beale papers,
not doubting that of the many who will give the subject attention, some one, through
fortune or accident, will speedily solve their mystery and secure the prize which has eluded
him.
 
\end{frame}

\begin{frame}{Act 1 -- 1817-1820}

\begin{itemize}\pause
\item Thomas Jefferson Beale, from St Louis, heads a party of 30 adventurers for a two years hunting trip to Santa
Fe.\pause
\item A year into that trip, in March 1818, some of the party, while in a short excursion, stumble upon and Gold and
Silver mine.\pause
\item The whole party settles around the mine and start to dig it out.\pause
\item In the summer of 1819, they decide to secure their findings in a vault in Virginia ``in a cave near Buford's
tavern, in the county of Bedford''.\pause
\item In 1819 and 1820, Thomas J. Beale heads two parties to deposit gold and jewels in the vault, although not the
initial one.
\end{itemize}

\end{frame}

\begin{frame}{Act 2 -- 1820-1822}

\begin{itemize}\pause
\item Thomas Beale decide that they need some reliable person outside their group ``who should [\ldots] be confided in
to carry out their wishes in regard to their respective shares'', in case of an accident to themselves.\pause
\item They pick out Mr Robert Morriss, keeper of the Washington hotel, in Lynchburg.\pause
\item Thomas Beale visits Robert Morriss and stays at his hotel for a few months from January 1820.\pause
\item Beale comes back in January 1822, and stays a few more months at Morriss' hotel.\pause
\item Before leaving, he hands him a secured box, ``which, as he said, contained
papers of value and importance''.\pause
\item Morriss is asked to keep the box until further
notice from Beale or his associates.\pause
\item In the event of noone returning for the box, Morriss is to wait until 1832, when he should receive the key to the
secrets inside the box.
\end{itemize}

\end{frame}


\begin{frame}{Act 3 -- 1832}

\begin{itemize}\pause
\item Ten years later, noone has come back for the box.\pause
\item Morriss never receives any information or key.\pause
\item Still, he decides to keep on waiting.
\end{itemize}

\end{frame}


\begin{frame}{Act 4 -- 1845}

\begin{itemize}\pause
\item More than 20 years after receiving the box, Morriss finally decides to break it open.\pause
\item He finds in the box :\pause
  \begin{itemize}
  \item two letters from Beale, adressed to Morriss himself ;\pause
  \item some old receipts ;\pause
  \item three unintelligible papers, covered wich figures.\pause
  \end{itemize}
\item The first letter tells the story of Beale and his party of adventurers.
\end{itemize}

\end{frame}

\begin{frame}{The second Beale letter}

\begin{center}
\includegraphics[width=10cm]{images/bealepapers3.eps}
\end{center}

\begin{quote}
Dear Mr. Morriss. - You will find in one of the papers, written in cipher, the names of all
my associates, who are each entitled to an equal part of our treasure, and opposite to the
names of each one will be found the names and residences of the relatives and others, to
whom they devise their respective portions. From this you will be enabled to carry out the
wishes of all by distributing the portion of each to the parties designated. This will not be
difficult, as their residences are given, and they can easily be found. 
\end{quote}
 
\end{frame}

\begin{frame}{The first cipher}

\begin{center}
\includegraphics[height=6cm]{images/bealepapers4.eps}
\end{center}
 
\end{frame}

\begin{frame}{The third cipher}

\begin{center}
\includegraphics[height=6cm]{images/bealepapers5.eps}
\end{center}
 
\end{frame}

\begin{frame}{The second cipher}

\begin{center}
\includegraphics[height=6cm]{images/bealepapers6.eps}
\end{center}
 
\end{frame}

\begin{frame}{Your task}

\begin{center}
\LARGE Break the second cipher 
\end{center}
 
\end{frame}

\begin{frame}

\end{frame}


\begin{frame}{Act 5 -- 1862}

\begin{itemize}\pause
\item Morriss tells the narrator about the box and its content.\pause
\item Morriss entrusts the narrator with the box and the deciphering of its content.\pause
\item The narrator manages, ``by accident'', to break the second cipher using the DOI.\pause
\item The cipher used is a kind of book cipher.\pause
\item Every letter in the plaintext is replaced by the number of a word in the DOI, starting with that letter.
\end{itemize}

\end{frame}

\begin{frame}{Act 6 -- 1885}

\begin{itemize}\pause
\item The narrator, having tried unsuccesfully to break ciphers 1 and 3, published his story, along with all relevant
elements.\pause
\item His name is withdrawn from the document, and only the name of his agent J. B. Ward, appears.\pause
\end{itemize}

\begin{center}
\includegraphics[width=10cm]{images/bealepapers7.eps}
\end{center}

\end{frame}

\begin{frame}{Act 6 -- 1885}

\begin{itemize}\pause
\item The narrator warns the reader about the danger of getting involved too deeply in the Beale ciphers.
\end{itemize}\pause

\begin{center}
\includegraphics[width=10cm]{images/bealepapers8.eps}
\end{center}

\end{frame}


\begin{frame}{Truth or hoax ?}

\begin{itemize}\pause
\item Many cryptographers have claimed that the two remaining ciphertexts
have statistical characteristics which suggest that they are not actually encryptions of an English plaintext.\pause
\item Still, in the late seventies, Carl Hammer proved that the Beale cipher is not just a random
jumble of numbers and that it is a genuine cipher.\pause
\item Others have also questioned why Beale would have bothered writing three
different ciphertexts (with at least two keys, if not ciphers) for what is essentially a single message in the first
place.\pause
\item The third cipher appears to be too short to list thirty individuals' next of
kin.\pause
\item If the Declaration of Independence is used as a key for the first cipher, it yields non-random results, such as
the sequence abfdefghiijklmmnohpp. The chances of such sequences appearing multiple times in the one ciphertext by
chance are less than one in a hundred million million.
\end{itemize}

\end{frame}

\begin{frame}{Truth or hoax ?}

\begin{itemize}\pause
\item Analysis of the language used by the author of the pamphlet (the uses of
punctuation, relative clauses, infinitives, conjunctives, and so on) has
detected significant correlations between it and Beale's letters, suggesting that they may have been written by the same
person.\pause
\item The letters contain several English words, such as "stampede" and
"improvise", not recorded before the 1840s; implying composition no earlier
than twenty years after their purported date.\pause
\item The DOI used to encrypt the text is not the standard version. The decryption only works with the exact version
given in the papers, so how come the narrator knew that he should use that version ?\pause
\item The plaintext of the second cipher refers to the content of the two others, which seems useless unless the author
knew that one would be deciphered first.
\end{itemize}

\end{frame}

\begin{frame}{Attempts to solve the mystery}

\begin{itemize}\pause
\item Numerous attempts have been made to dig out around possible locations of the treasure.\pause
\item For more than a hundred years, people have been arrested for trespassing
and unauthorized digging.\pause
\item There is reportedly a story of a woman digging up the cemetery of Mountain
View Church in February 1983, because she was convinced that Beale had
hidden the treasure there. This took place at the top of Porter's Mountain exactly
four miles east of Buford's Tavern.\pause
\item One dig was completed in the late 80s with the land owner's permission as long as any
treasure found was split 50/50. The treasure hunters only dug up ancient civil
war artifacts. Surprisingly the value of these artifacts paid for time and
equipment rental; at least these hunters broke even.
\end{itemize}

\end{frame}

\begin{frame}{Attempts to solve the mystery}

\begin{itemize}\pause
\item Since 2007, Roy Dallas has been actively studied the ciphers and reported some results.\pause
\item He explained how to decode the first cipher, saying that it was not a
cipher, but a game/puzzle.\pause
\item His solution is related to numerology, mor than cryptography.\pause
\item In 2009/2010, he announced that he had managed to deduce the coordinates for the location of the treasure.\pause
\item In March 2010, mettalic probes at revealed metal buried under the surface of the supposed location. Excavations
were supposed so start soon.\pause
\item Since then, Roy Dallas' website is closed, and no more news are posted. Other websites report that only shards of
decayed metal were found.
\end{itemize}

\end{frame}

\begin{frame}{The Bible Code}

\begin{center}
\includegraphics[height=7cm]{images/biblecode.eps} 
\end{center}
 
\end{frame}

\begin{frame}{The Bible Code}

\begin{center}
\includegraphics[height=7cm]{images/exodus38:19-39:8.eps} 
\end{center}
 
\end{frame}

\begin{frame}{The Bible Code}

\begin{center}
\includegraphics[height=7cm]{images/twintowers.eps} 
\end{center}
 
\end{frame}

\begin{frame}{Moby Dick}

\begin{center}
\includegraphics[height=7cm]{images/mobydickdiana.eps} 
\end{center}
 
\end{frame}



\end{document}
