When we've solved Voynich, there's plenty more to do:
Top 10 uncracked codes
Although the internet has spawned a multi-billion dollar industry in creating and cracking codes, crypologists have yet to solve some of the oldest riddles. Below are ten of the most notable:
By Nick Britten 8:30AM GMT 01 Feb 2011
1. The Phaistos Disk is considered the most important example of hieroglyphic inscription from Crete. Discovered in 1903, both sides of the clay disc are covered with hieroglyphs arranged in a spiral zone, impressed on the clay when it was damp. Forty five different types of signs have been distinguished, of which a few can be identified with the hieroglyphs in use in the Proto- palatial period.
2. Linear A is one of two linear scripts used in ancient Crete discovered and named by Arthur Evans. Linear B was deciphered in 1952 by Michael Ventris and was used to write Mycenaean Greek. Linear A is partially understood but parts of it produce works unrelated to any known language.
3. Kryptos is a sculpture by the American artist James Sanborn, located on the grounds of the Central Intelligence Agency in Langley, Virginia. Since its dedication in 1990, there has been much speculation about the meaning of the encrypted messages it bears.
4. Chinese Gold Bar Cipher. In 1933, seven gold bars allegedly issued to a General Wang in Shanghai, China. These gold bars, which contain pictures, Chinese writing, some form of script writing, and cryptograms in Latin letters, appear to represent metal certificates related to a bank deposit with a U.S. Bank and the Chinese writing has been translated, and discusses a transaction in excess of $300,000,000.
5. Beale Ciphers are said to be three encrypted messages which pinpoint where a man named Beale buried two wagons-full of treasure at a secret location in Bedford County in the 1820s. It is claimed one of the messages has been solved, which detailed the tons of gold, silver and jewels that were buried, along with a general location. The still unsolved messages supposedly give exact directions, and a list of who the treasure belongs to.
6. Voynich Manuscript is at least 400 years old and is a 232-page illuminated manuscript entirely written in a secret script. It is filled with copious drawings of unidentified plants, herbal recipes of some sort, astrological diagrams, and many small human figures in strange plumbing-like contraptions. In 2004 there were some compelling arguments which described a technique that would seemingly prove that the manuscript was a hoax, but to date, none of the described techniques have been able to replicate a single section of the Manuscript, so speculations continue.
7. The Dorabella Cipher was written by the composer Elgar in 1897. He sent a letter to a young friend, Miss Dora Penny, the 22 year-old daughter of the Rev. Alfred Penny, Rector of St Peter’s, Wolverhampton, and with it a cipher which to this day has remained unsolved.
8. Chaocipher. John F. Byrne invented Chaocipher in 1918 and tried unsuccessfully for almost 40 years to interest the U.S. government in his cipher system. He offered a reward to anyone who could break his cipher but the reward was never claimed. It has latterly been re-examined by members of his family to determine whether there is any commercial value in it.
9. The D’Agapeyeff cipher is an as-yet unbroken cipher that appears in the first edition of Codes and Ciphers, an elementary book on cryptography published by the Russian-born English cartographer Alexander D’Agapeyeff in 1939. Offered as a “challenge cipher” at the end of the book, it was not included in later editions, and D’Agapeyeff is said to have admitted later to having forgotten how he had encrypted it. It has been argued that the failure of all attempts at decryption is due to D’Agapeyeff incorrectly encrypting the original text. However, it has been argued that the cipher may still be successfully attacked using computational methods such as genetic algorithms.
10. Taman Shud. An unidentified male body was found on Somerton Beach in Adelaide, Australia in 1948 wearing a sweater and coat despite the hot day, carrying no identification. There were no clues as to his identity and dental records and fingerprints matched no living person. An autopsy discovered bizarre congestion, blood in the stomach and enlarged organs but no foreign substances. A suitcase found at the train station that may have belonged to the man contained a pair of trousers with a secret hidden pocket, which held a piece of paper torn from a book imprinted with the words “Taman Shud”. The paper was matched to a very rare copy of Omar Khayyam’s ‘The Rubaiyat’ that was found in the backseat of an unlocked vehicle and on the back of the book was scrawled five lines of capital letters that seem to be a code. To this day, the entire case remains one of Australia’s most bizarre mysteries.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstop ... codes.html
We also have a phaistos disk thread:
http://www.forteantimes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6509
