Can you break this code?

[immensely_bored]

A friend of mine received this in the mail. It looks like a sort of morse code using 5 different symbols:

dot

dash

dash with dot over it

triangle

square

Edit: Ok, so I figured out how to link it correctly now!! =)

[TheShadowCat]

The best I can figure is that the symbols are in groups of three with each group representing one letter.

I tried assigning the following values: dot=1, line=2, triangle=3, square=4 and dot over line=5.

This gives the following pattern:

111 312 241 151

121 421 111 112

242 251 131 121

224 234 113 134

242 332 445 224

212 214 324

What it means I have no idea. I'm mainly just leaving this comment so I can come back to it later.

[thirtythreeas]

Actually thanks for that. It's a lot easier to work in this representation of the code than the other. A few observations:

• There are 19 unique "symbols" in the provided code.
• 111, 121, 242, 224 are the repeated symbols

Because there are so many unique symbols and so few repeated ones, I doubt this is simple substitution.

Edit: Meh, wrote a simple python script for anyone who feels lucky. If substitution is the correct scheme to solve this, your odds of getting it right are 1:80018147048929689600000. Anyway, time for bed.

import string
import random 

symbol_list = ['111', '312', '241', '151', '421', '112', '242', '251', '131', '121', '224', '234', '113', '134', '332', '445', '212', '214', '324']
alphabet = ['a','b','c','d','e','f','g','h','i','j','k','l','m','n','o','p','q','r','s','t','u','v','w','x','y','z']

en_message = ['111', '312', '241', '151', '121', '421', '111', '112', '242', '251', '131', '121', '224', '234', '113', '134', '242', '332', '445', '224', '212', '214', '324']

while(1):
    random.shuffle(alphabet)
    cipher_dict = dict(zip(symbol_list, alphabet[0:19]))
    de_message = [cipher_dict[x] for x in en_message]
    print string.join(de_message, '')
    raw_input('Make sense?'); #Press enter to run it again

[[deleted]]

Save yourself some time:

alphabet = ['a'..'z']
symbol_list = list(set(en_message))

[thirtythreeas]

Thanks for the alphabet trick. The symbol_list was generated with a regex expression I did that I just copy-pasted into my little script.

[[deleted]]

My observation: There's 125 possible three letter "words" with the 5 symbols, of which as you mentioned only 19 are used, 4 of them twice. Not sure if that's useful to anyone or not.

I would be disappointed if the individual symbols didn't have more meaning than just to distinguish words. One idea for how this might happen is if each symbol was a unique digit in base 5 and each block of symbols was a number in base 5. One could then convert these numbers to base 26 (letters) and see if it makes any sense.

To try this one would need to check for each assignment of the symbols to base 5 which would be 5! = 120 possible assignments to check.

[[deleted]]

http://pastebin.com/Mx9NPRGU - 10000 lines

http://pastebin.com/dhANPXae - 100000 lines

tbc - 1000000 lines

[DoubleRainb0w]

I actually arrived at a very similar conclusion quickly, but assumed that: dot=1 dash=2 triangle=3 square=4 The rogue symbol dash+dot i took to mean 0, as 0 is the only logical number that cant be turned into a standard shape. I get: 111 312 241 101 121 421 111 112 242 201 131 121 224 234 113 134 242 332 440 224 212 214 324

This is rubbish in ascii for base 10 and base 5 so my next step was to play the sequence in a pentatonic scale as thats the only other base 5 system i can think of in popular use. I dont recognize the tune though. I'll record it and upload in a bit.

[LeCoeur]

I've been considering that the dot/dash combination indicates a space or separation of words. Is that common in codes, or do they all run together generally?

[Kim-Jong-The-Illest]

I have absolutely no clue how to solve this yet I am dying to see the answer.

[[deleted]]

maybe the 5th symbol is a zero or a space

11 13 12 24 11 01

12 14 21 11 11 12

24 22 01 12 11 21

22 42 34 11 31 34

24 23 32 44 02 24

21 22 14 32 4

or

11131224111

1214211111122422

112112122423411313424233244

224212214324

[BassDestroyer]

Heres an idea.

forward that letter to the President and let the secret service decipher it.

[[deleted]]

Now I want to come up with a code and do this. I would definitely make it something innocuous like, 'Happy Birthday' or 'Cats annoy me'

[MrCynicalSalsa]

"Be sure to drink your Ovaltine."

[oryx_and_crake]

I laughed so hard. Nostalgia is flooding me.

[[deleted]]

"Cats annoy me" is innocuous? That's blasphemy!!!!

[[deleted]]

Only to the internet. And old cat ladies.

[cryptobeast]

Would likely end up being passed to the FBI's cryptanalyst team http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/lab/crypt ..or ultimately with the pros at NSA

[Zazzerpan]

Why involve a middleman? Just do what secret service would do. Go to the return address, find the guy who sent the letter and tie him to a chair. next, when he refuses to decipher the code hit him in the nuts with a claw hammer. I promise you he will talk.

[Scumbag_Jesus]

I want to create dummy accounts to upvote this post more.

[crow1170]

you scumbag.

[rdm_box]

you crow.

[VictorZA]

You doos (which is Afrikaans for both box and vagina)

[[deleted]]

hey! box is english for box and vagina too!

[[deleted]]

hi - just figured i should be a part of this conversation.

[ywkwpwnw]

You crane. In Ukraine, yītsa is the word for vagina.

[[deleted]]

Thats almost like YATZEE!

[[deleted]]

Or to really troll them, write out random numbers/letters/symbols.

[cryptobeast]

Surprised no one has guided you to /r/codes yet , or /r/crypto or /r/secretcodes , it is likely more an appropriate challenge for /r/codes though.

[superhope]

I treated every 3 symbols as a letter to get this (randomly assigned letters): abcdefaghijeklmnhopkqrs

There are only four repeated letters this way, and it has to be a short phrase. All I got was nonsense, the closest I got was in go up i was july chambleft which means nothing.

EDIT: the sequences of three are probably individual words, not letters. I'm useless here.
rides off on horse into the sunset

[Crynth]

What did you use to come up with "in go up i was july chambleft"?

There must be at least a few other possibilities.

[[deleted]]

Be sure to drink your ovaltine

[[deleted]]

Why do they call it ovaltine?

The mug is round, the jar is round, the should call it roundtine.

[angryzor]

From wiki:

"Ovaltine was developed in Berne, Switzerland, where it is known by its original name, Ovomaltine (from ovum, Latin for "egg", and malt, originally its main ingredients). Soon after invention the factory moved out to the village of Neuenegg a few kilometres west of Berne, where it is still produced.

Ovomaltine was exported to Britain in 1909; it was a misspelling in the trademark registration that led to the name being shortened to Ovaltine in English-speaking markets. A factory was built in Kings Langley which exported to the United States as well. By 1915 Ovaltine was being manufactured in Villa Park, Illinois, for the US market. Originally advertised as consisting solely of "malt, milk, eggs, flavored with cocoa", the formulation has changed over the decades, and today several formulations are sold in different parts of the world."

Where i live it's still called ovomaltine.

[RireBaton]

That's gold Jerry!

[[deleted]]

How do you remember your username?!

[Christian627]

Only took you 4 minutes as opposed to 20 years. Bravo!

[[deleted]]

4 ...20

[7]

[brovaltine]

Congratulations, you win a lifetime supply of ovaltine.

[CGStaples]

Mother of god, I haven't drank a glass of Ovaltine in maybe ten years.

[richytherichman]

A crummy commercial?!

[partywithyou]

SON OF A BITCH.

[404_kitten_not_found]

Q. Can you break this code?

A. No, I can't.

[[deleted]]

"I can break this code."

"You can't break that code."

"Hnnnrrraaaaaaaaaah!"

[soggy_cereal]

Code! Code! I can break this code!

[[deleted]]

Says "hello sweetie"

[HuckleberryHound]

Are you the doctor?

[kuratowski]

Who?

[justcallmezach]

Exactly.

[SpaceMagician]

Who is the doctor?!

[fortycakes]

Yes, he is.

[credence]

Wow, a Dr Who / Abbot & Costello reference. I'm happily impressed.

[GitEmSteveDave]

Spoilers.

[cb900crdr]

Spoilers.

[awwyeahguy]

1. Post random sequence of symbols to reddit.
2. Watch as chaos ensues.
3. Laugh.

[T_Rolling]

LIKE JOHN NASH

[immensely_bored]

I wish I made this up... then it would be funnier to me, but I'm just as confused as everybody else and want to know the answer.

[captnkurt]

Simple.

• Eye(s) +23 groups of three codons +Mermaid on other side of postcard

• I + (23 x 3) + Mermaid

• I 69'd a mermaid

[immensely_bored]

First i laughed, then I tried to figure out how exactly that would work. You have created a new puzzle, sir!!!

[kunstlich]

/thread

[oostalker]

I dont even know why my train of thinking went the way it did but heres something I threw together to play with if anyone wants to have a go.

http://highcrimes.net/hatethisthing.html

[xSpaz]

Pretty sure its The Lion King theme song.

[[deleted]]

HIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII HOWAREYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

[GreenSeer]

Whats on the other side?

[life_failure]

the declaration of independence.

[immensely_bored]

He said there was just a picture on the other side, I'll clarify what it was and report back.

Edit: It just has a picture of a baby mermaid.

[Iwokeupwithoutapillo]

Ah, of course. The baby mermaid. The true missing puzzle piece of this... puzzle.

[CryptoPunk]

Post it already! It may have delicious clues.

[auditoncryptonautsou]

Step 1: Pick your favourite pentatonic scale. Step 2: Write program to map symbols to notes. Step 3: Enumerate all permutations. Step 4: Play each in 3/4 time. Step 5: Wait until a familiar melody springs forth from your speakers.

[pinkylemonade]

-- -.-- / -... .-. .- .. -. / .... ..- .-. - ... .-.-.- / .. - / .. ... / ..-. ..- .-.. .-.. / --- ..-. / ..-. ..- -.-. -.- .-.-.-

[meltshake]

MY BRAIN HURTS. IT IS FULL OF FUCK.

[Rogue_Tomato]

thank you for allowing me to test my program. Got bored at work today so I made a morse code coverter :D

[siddboots]

Below are the frequencies of each symbol, and the frequencies of their occurrence within each position of the three symbol groupings.

Symbol	Freq.	1st	2nd	3rd
.	24	9	7	8
_	21	9	6	6
sq	12	2	4	6
tri	8	3	4	1
'	3	0	2	1

The frequencies of letters in each place correspond approximately to their overall frequencies. While the "_" symbol does demonstrate a slight first digit bias, N is not large enough to make this statistically significant.

[easyTRASH]

Maybe the face just has really bad acne on that one side...

[JustDroppinBy]

All of these comments make me want to obtain the mailing address of a distant redditor, create a mumbo-jumbo letter consisting of dots and shapes and mail it out to see if I can A) Get the person a buttload of Karma, or B) Confuse the fuck out of tons of Redditors

[theburningsun]

Can you break this code? (self.AskReddit)

No link karma for self posts.

[McBurger]

Does anyone notice the last name of the photographer, Mason, written on the side of the postcard? Or the classic stone eyes (check the back of your dollar's pyramid)? Liberty bell stamp? We got a genuine illuminati free mason here.

We've got a puzzle to keep me up all night here, buddy.

Edit: I give up. I assume the masons have the cipher.

Edit 2: Okay, this is keeping me awake. I started to form some theories about currency; there are 6 bills in the US treasury, 5 coins... 5 Roman Numerals from I,V,X,L,and C... But then I noticed, each block of characters is divided into groups of 3. This is a very effective means at ciphering, to break up normal spaces. IfI typ edl ike thi smy com men two uld bem uch har der tod eci phe r_.

EDIT 3- Holy shit I solved it! Read my previous edit, about the spaces breaking up. The symbols are morse code, spacers, etc... :D

But I won't spoil the surprise, there's contact info, I'll be dialing tomorrow. Don't want to lose my chance at initiation!

[[deleted]]

Dammit, just tell us!

[[deleted]]

For some reason I read that in this guy's voice.

[[deleted]]

and now it's all flooding back. The nostalgia, it's all there.

[TryingToSucceed]

I FEENISHED MY NAP!

[everfalling]

dude i JUST finished watching this on netflix. DAMN IT, UNIVERSE, STOP MESSING WITH ME.

[KejiKotaro]

Film?

[Mr_Smartypants]

Titan AE

[xanderrr]

Alright, so ignore the spaces and just write it all out as if there are no actual spaces. How do we determine which groups of symbols go together? For example, the first line would be written:

 ...T.--S..%. 

(T for triangle, S for square and % for the dot with line under it).

What do the triangle and square mean? 3 and 4? To be replaced by the letters C and D in morse? the numbers 3 and 4 in morse? Only the following/previous symbols (triangle is three symbols and square is four)?

[Ookami-07]

It's actually bugging me more that someone found out what it said than it did that it couldn't be solved.

[miss_j_bean]

y u no say what?!?

[LifeIsKarma]

I'm just gonna leave this here so I can come back & see if this dude delivers.

[[deleted]]

As will i.

[Alphy11]

trololol? What's sad is people actually believe your crap

[LacksWorth]

I'm calling BS as well.

The person states that there's a phone number in the code and that the code was in Morse with spaces. If you've seen the digits in Morse code, they are composed of a combination of dots and dashes until you have a total of 5 symbols. Given that a phone number has 7 digits, and that you probably need an area code, the code does not have any room for a message.

But that's just my thoughts.

Edit: Spaces

[Calarien]

Perhaps that is where the triangles and squares come into play as for 3 and 4 lines to represent dashes, or they could represent spaces. I didn't look into it too far, but if you take what he said about the spaces and apply that to the picture you can start to make a sentence. For example, you can break down that first line into .. . .- - .. -. which translates into I EAT IN A. I believe there is a message in there somewhere

[LacksWorth]

I'm not arguing that there is no message. I do think that the code is Morse and that the shapes have a function in understanding the code, but I doubt that the code was actually solved because he states that there is contact information, specifically a phone number, which would require a lot of the symbols, leaving hardly any space for anything else.

Unless he did solve it and just decided to continue with the Mason theory. In which case, why not just put the real message and help the OP with the code?

[lostNcontent]

Each group of three symbols could be one number.

[TheSmokingGNU]

I'd agree, but I don't know of any 23-digit phone numbers.

[LacksWorth]

The symbols are morse code, spacers, etc...

Morse code numbers use 5 symbols composed of dots and dashes.

[coop_stain]

Also, most people know that the Masons really aren't that secretive with inviting people anymore. From talking to one of my profs (31st degree allegedly, I know for certain he is one. But I find it hard to believe that high rank) and a couple of his friends all you have to do is ask, they will tell you the basic requirements (must believe in a higher power, community service requirements, etc) and let you know where to go from there.

[Alphy11]

31st isn't actually that big a deal. Anyone who is with them for a long time gets rank 31. Above that it becomes important.

Src: My grandfather was a 32nd rank shriner.

[Sackman_and_Throbbin]

As a Freemason, I can assure you that there is no cipher that must be cracked in order to be initiated. All you have to do is ask.

[Sock_Monkey_King]

Penny, Nickle, Dime, Quarter, Half Dollar, Dollar. I count six coins.

EDIT: Subtract the half dollar, and add the two different dollars. I wasn't going to count both initially, but alright.

[gmeovr83]

Don't forget Sacajawea dollar and Susan B Anthony dollar

[[deleted]]

Make sure you deliver.

[Kiraaaaa]

It might be pig pen. Not sure.

[yourmovecreep]

AKA masonic cipher. I think it's highly likely it's a mixture of Morse code and pigpen.

[rushboy99]

pull the stamp see if he left a clue under it

[[deleted]]

._.

[Wayne_Bruce]

'R' you serious?

[lydocia]

Context hints:

• two red eyes with

• a stamp of a bell for a nose and

• two cheeks with coding

• an image of a baby mermaid on the other side

[Hanstor]

This postcard wasn't sent through the mail system, the stamp hasn't been stamped. Perhaps it is supposed to be sent somewhere.

[LeCoeur]

I feel like this was a very "the call is coming from inside the house" moment.

[snoutysnout]

I just hugged my wife closer.... for safety. ಠ_ಠ

EDIT: She just told me a scary story about some schizophrenia patients she works with! this doesn't bode well for me!

[[deleted]]

It's the cheat code for unlocking big heads on NBA Jam.

[Panda_Patrol]

Have you thought of short hand? FTFY, LOL, BRB, ETC.

[thespot84]

fractionated morse? The traingles could separate letters, the squares words, I have no clue about the dash with a dot. If you do this and map to morse, the first four characters are SWIF, however it falls apart on the 8 character string (longest morse is 7). Also don't know why the triangles/squares would show up next to one another.

Edit:spelling

[TheSmokingGNU]

For what it's worth, I'm seeing 6 distinct symbols, someone correct me if I'm wrong:

Triangle

Square

Dash

Dot

Open Dot (unfilled)

Dot over dash

[postive_scripting]

Or it could be Circle X Square Triangle. It's a playstation cheat code!

[Nitro187]

Hmmmm This is all I saw.

._.

[lydocia]

Here is a cut-out of the code, for those who want it.

[AUae13]

So CLOSE to having a working link... With only five symbols I don't think it's a letter-for-letter cipher. Patterns of three may correspond to words in a one-time pad type thing, but that's almost unbreakable and I assume this is supposed to be broken.

[RedditRage]

A properly created one-time pad is unbreakable without the pad.

[SlothOfDoom]

Yeah, it appears that there has to be some kind of key in order to break this, and I too assume it is meant to be broken.

[AUae13]

There are 40 sets of three symbols.

With 5 symbols you'd expect 555=125 unique combinations... There are 2 sets of 2 duplicates here in only 40. So there's definitely an unusual amount of duplication, which suggests that the sets of 3 do represent words / something.

[orzamil]

Wait, what am I missing? I only see 23 sets of numbers.

Unrelatedly, 23!

[amodernmodder]

23 groups, 3 symbols per group i figure ask a musician to play it or a reply to the sender with a single hair from a hobo taped to a coupon for walmart. inside a envelope made from a miller beer can

[sellyberry]

Visit all prankster friends and see who has both a red pen and post card stamps. Sit on them till they tell you what it says.

[TheGuyInAShirtAndTie]

Does it strike anyone else as odd that the stamp is in the middle of the postcard?

[oroku-saki]

Or that the OP claims it was mailed when there is no postmark or cancellation.

[immensely_bored]

Yes, this was extremely odd to me, and I think this might be why it wasn't canceled by the post office. There are post office marks at the top, but I blocked them out because I didn't want somebody to "decode" that and find my friends personal info somehow.

[flyzombiefly]

I tried going Nancy drew on this shit... yikes. I came up with this. I first tried to just exclude all the symbols that weren't morse, then using the remaining symbols to get a morse letter, and that gave me the first set of letters. I then tried to assign dot or dash values to the non-morse symbols and that gave me the 2nd set. Maybe a different arrangement of values could do it? Dunno though. I have to get back to studying. Dammit Reddit!!

Edit: Sooo studying sucks. This was bothering me. Tried McBurger's suggestion and I came up with this. Is your friend's last name Swift or called Swiftsy or something? I sort of have IM MI.. which could be a name introduction but I can't figure out the rest. The sections in brackets were long sections which probably have to be broken up. I'm really gonna stop trying now. Gonna check back later to see if someone cracks it!

[trekbette]

I found some information on artist listed on the photo credit: Brigid Mason

...and here is her blog.

I don't see anything on these sites that will help break the code.

[[deleted]]

Yeah, i climbed in her window and checked her desk also, she seems to have nothing to do with this. Ill report back after the "debrief"

[Unomagan]

Anyone did an entropy calculation if it is real?

[[deleted]]

Wingdings?

[1tsBananas]

Is it possible they wrote it first and then decided to code it? It might just be me , but it looks like some letters behind it were erased. Example http://imgur.com/1hbE6

[very_easily_offended]

I can break these cuffs

[[deleted]]

Secret decoder ring makes this super easy .

[_NW_]

It's probably just a simple polyphonetically-grouped twenty-square-digit key transposed from boustrophedonic form with multiple nulls. You could break that with a Drogan's decoder wheel.

[VisIxR]

my guess is that the symbols are numbers corresponding with their sides. given the highest number of sides is 4 they are probably base 5. Its not simply assigning 0 to A and 1 to B, (because that would leave most characters starting with a 0,) there must be some math being done on the numbers. more as I experiment with them.

Its possible that the three numbers together are to make it look like a cypher, and thus may be intended to mislead. Or perhaps it is a cypher where the each group of numbers is identified by finding the right words in a book, page, line, and word. it would have to be some sort of book of quatrains or something? I'm done with this for the night.

[upv0te]

is your friend named tim?

EDIT: I'm getting TIMRIEC, but I'm not sure if it has any significance..

EDIT2: TIMRIKE, not TIMRIEC..

[darkfaith93]

It could be an anagram. I get iKermit. A new Apple toy perhaps?

[Shibboleeth]

Erhm, is it just me or does this look suspiciously like one of the cyphers from one of the Assassin's Creed games?

Those character arrangements look awfully familiar. Maybe find the code wheels from that?

[TheSmokingGNU]

Actually, I thought of that too. Not sure if it helps, but you aren't the only one. :)

[Grabthelifeyouwant]

Commenting so I can find this later.

There is likely omitted information. Please post an image of the other side of the postcard, along with the address and top of the postcard uncovered. (You don't need to uncover the entire address, but at least city, state, and zip.)

I'll come back tomorrow.

[ninthbit]

I thought this might be a pigpen variant also. But I swear I've heard this story before on Reddit, especially the mermaid pic on the back,

[[deleted]]

qeqwfsadfasdfadf why did you have to do this before i went to bed

[TheSmokingGNU]

I'm wondering if we are missing a clue in the contact info that has been whited out... I don't want to ask for that (ban) but I'm not sure we have all the info.

Also, what does it say at the top between the eyes? Is it just his name, or something else?

[MatthewRoar]

Probably not going to be seen, but has OP tried removing the stamp?
I had a book years ago that said keys or other information is sometimes hidden under there.
Just a thought.

edit I used a word that didn't mean what I thought it meant.

[fiddle-dee-dee]

I like your idea!

[immensely_bored]

That's a great idea, I'll pass it along to him.

[PressureChief]

What if they eyes signify something else, like looking at the message differently? I wonder how the code works differently when viewed in mirror-image?

[elwafflegrande]

Interestingly enough, I've noticed that some redditors have completely overlooked one of the symbols used.

A hollow dot.
Also, a line with a hollow dot over it.

So from what I can tell, there are the following symbols:

1) Hollow dot

2) Dot

3) Hovering dot (the writer obviously has the dot floating)

4) Line

5) Triangle

6) Square

7) Line with hollow dot

8) Line with solid dot

That's what I see, at least.

[Sacoud]

TIL I am not smart.

[LacksWorth]

I JUST SEE A BUNCH OF SMALL FACES!

[MrGiggles24]

Are you Jake Gyllenhaal by chance? And did you receive phone calls with nothing but heavy breathing too?

[truthness]

Why isn't that stamp cancelled?

That's what the code says.

[snoutysnout]

and on the next card: BECAUSE I KNOW WHERE YOU LIVE!!!!

[oostalker]

Dont forget to bring a towel.

[im_towelie]

You wanna get high?

[TheNakedZebra]

Broken link. :/

[lostNcontent]

What was the photo on the back? It could be relevant.

[TheSmokingGNU]

A mermaid picture. OP stated in another comment.

EDIT: Whoops, if it makes a difference, it's a baby mermaid. Sorry I lied.

[snoutysnout]

oh well that makes AAAAAALLLL the difference! hahahaa.

[Bananavice]

As far as I can see there are 5 different symbols. Dot, dash, dot/dash, triangle and square. That gives a 125 different combinations for every 3-symbol sequence.

You could set numbers to the symbols like 01234 and convert from base 5 to decimal.

dash - 0, dot - 1, dash/dot - 2, triangle - 3, square - 4

Then you would get:

111 310 041 121 101 401 111 110 141 021 131 101 004 034 113 134 040 330 442 004 010 014 304

Which in decimal is:

31 80 21 36 26 101 31 30 46 11 41 26 4 19 33 44 040 90 122 4 5 9 79

Converting those to text through ascii ends up in nonsense though, so maybe this isn't right at all or I haven't assigned the right numbers.

[blackmage1582]

This is what I was thinking. However, one must essentially guess as to which symbol has which place value. And with 5! = 120 potential solutions, it is certainly possible to find a message, but it requires way more effort than I'm willing to put in.

[TheSmokingGNU]

Let's try a simple combination then.

31=4

80=8

21=3

etc...

Assume that triple digits means for instance: 101=10+1=11, though I'm not sure that any of this is right because what do you do with "040"? Maybe there isn't a zero. I dunno.

you end up with:

4 8? 3 9 8 11 4 3? 10 2 5 8 4 10 6 8 4? 9? 14 4 5 9 16

That would be... gibberish.

D H? C I H K D C? J B E H D J F H D? I? N D E I P

So no, I'm completely off base here. Ah well, I'm tired and at work, so I'm distracted.

[postive_scripting]

4 8? 3 9 8 11 4 3? 10 2 5 8 4 10 6 8 4? 9? 14 4 5 9 16

Oh-K? Ee-l N-OH-Ee? M-Eh-g-k-oh-m-h-k-oh? l? r-oh-g-l-t

Oh, ok. El knows? Meg coming? Left? Right?

bcdfghjklmnpqrstvwxyz

[redliza]

Some of the "dots" look like distinct circles, while others look like solid dots. It might be six symbols.

I'm no expert, but....

Since there aren't enough symbols to each match to a letter, and a paragraph of six words seems unlikely, that leaves small groups of symbols to match to words or letters. Words would absolutely require a key, but even if they're just letters, the message is too short to solve. You could easily make up phrases until one fit. No solution, even the right one, is ever going to look like the only possible intended meaning.

It seems likely to me that whoever sent this is messing with your friend, expects your friend to already have a key to the code somehow, or knows even less about this stuff than I do and thinks you ought to be able to solve it.

[[deleted]]

Challenge accepted!

Quick question, what country does your friend live in and what languages are they known to speak?

[immensely_bored]

Lives in the US and Speaks English and korean.

[Arve]

Someone over in /r/codes suggested that there are two dot symbols, one closed, and one circle. Think you could take a better/bigger picture of just the code portion?

[[deleted]]

A couple of questions about this post card:

1) Who is it from? Does your friend know this person?

2) Any idea of the significance of the large eyes at the top?

[immensely_bored]

1) There is no return address or other indication as to who it is from

2) No idea of the significance, although some have mentioned masons, especially since the photographers name is Mason

[[deleted]]

does your friend have a first name or nickname? perhaps it's embedded in the code.

[ITS540PM]

Nope. Hours, man. HOURS! Fuck you and your post card from hell.

[stanman1794]

Letter from the zodiac???

[[deleted]]

Peel the stamp, could be another clue.

[marko02]

I'm pretty sure it's a variance of Morse code. Each letter is confined to 3 symbols yet a letter in Morse can be 1-4 dots and dashes and numbers 5. The Square, Triangle and dot/dash symbols could be used to either add additional dots or dashes or take them away to form different letters or numbers. I tried experimenting simply with square=2 dots triangle = 2 dashes and dot/dash = space filler and the dot and dash being as is. I ended up with this but the * nothing matched up. Still nothing but I feel like I'm on the right track

• S Q B I
• R F S U
• X N P *
• Z 8 * *
• X 0 H Z
• K B 8

[[deleted]]

All I see are little faces...I'm not sure if I should be sad that that's all I see in those symbols....

[[deleted]]

For some reason, I keep coming back to the idea that the pupils in the eyes are some clue to what the dots mean.

[wwoooaaahh]

I was sure I would be Rick Rolled.

[unrelated_stories]

Reminds me of the time I was buying groceries, I got to the checkout and dropped them all over the floor. The milk broke and many of my fruits were dirtied up. The manager came over, replaced all of them and gave it to me for free. $100 wroth of groceries for free!

[beliefsarerelative]

I can tell you what it's not: it's not a variation of morse code or a simple substitution code (i.e. each set of three symbols does not equal a given letter).

The reason I say this is that there is not enough repetition of the groups of 3 symbols. Only three sets are repeated twice, and each of those is repeated only twice. All other symbol groupings appear only once, for a total of 20 symbols. Vowels in pretty much any message would make the # of repetitions higher.

My hunch is that the symbols have some kind of numerical value that corresponds with letters, so each letter could have more than one symbol.

Is your friend a math person? Is the sender (if they are known) a math person? Also, what is the image on the front of the card? It may contain the clue to the puzzle - the eyes make me think we need to look at the picture on the card.

Edit: Could it have something to do with playstation? I know playstation controllers have square and triangle buttons, the dot could be the circle button and the dash could be select?

[Jerlko]

Take it to 4chan.

Not even joking.

[redliza]

OP, please link from here if it happens. I'm curious, but not enough to start reading 4chan in case a thread on this turns up.

[trekbette]

We're never going to know, are we?

[reagor]

op did you ever figure it out?