Making, Forgetting, and Breaking the World's Most Uncrackable Code
Written jointly with Dan Gutenberg
No one in the country had heard much of New Abago until the Red 40 revolts began. But after a White House intern cleverly googled, “Where does Red Dye 40 come from?” it was discovered that the remote country sat atop a reservoir of the now-coveted resource. Two days later, boots were on the ground.
New Abago had technically been an American territory until 2001 and was best known as the filming location for season 7 of Survivor. A years-long New Abagan suffrage movement helped the country finally declare independence on September 11th. However, every major news outlet was forced to interrupt the independence ceremony with breaking news coverage, thus relegating New Abago to obscurity.
Commander Terrance Bogut entered the small windowless room and took a seat. Three eccentric men sat across from him, taking in their surroundings.
“I’ve called you all here because our military codes have been compromised. We have reason to believe our signals are being intercepted.”
He paused. The three men looked at each other confused.
“We need a code. Something uncrackable. And you three are our country’s top minds. Professor Caligary, you're the most accomplished American linguist in the world. Who better to advise the group on syntax and pragmatics?”
“I think you mean ‘whom,’” said the Professor, raising an eyebrow and smirking.
“Exactly,” responded Commander Bogut with a grin.
“Dr. Cosomodo, you pioneered the 1 Million Stars Theory. Your work speaks for itself.”
“1 Billion, actually,” said Dr. Cosomodo, calmly.
“Even better.”
“And Rodney, you helped me when my Bluetooth mouse stopped working and you kind of look like Alan Turing.”
The next 24 hours were a blur. Professor Caligary proposed interpolating ancient Mayan runes by writing them in the form of sheet music. Dr. Cosomodo added to the idea, suggesting they make it a cyclically rotating set of symbols dictated by the moon cycle—that way, the New Abagans would only ever have 30 days at a time to crack the code. Rodney didn’t understand much of what was going on, but he recommended that they disconnect from the guest wifi—for extra security. Caligary and Cosomodo nodded their heads in fervent agreement.
As the sun rose Monday morning the team was sleep-deprived and delirious. They hadn’t left the room since Friday but their work was done.
“Good morning everyone!” said Commander Bogut cheerily, as he entered the room and set down his briefcase.
“My god. What’s that smell?” He asked, fanning his hand in front of his nose.
“The chamber pot,” said Rodney quickly. “It filled up within the first hour, and then we had to start going on the floor.”
“There’s a bathroom right down the hall. None of you even looked?” he asked.
“Never mind the smell,” said Caligary. “I think you’ll be thrilled to see what we’ve come up with, Commander!”
“Very well, very well. Enlighten me.”
“So, you start with a standard English sentence. Then you substitute in the Mayan runes that would correspond to each American English vowel sound. For instance, Jackal, Teacup, Flowing River, Sun, Jaguar, Maize, or Stone. Then, you take those glyphs and transcribe them onto sheet music. We don’t have a piano in here but it would sound something like this…”
Caligary stopped and began to hum a series of broken notes.
“Finally, you rotate each glyph to the corresponding notes according to the lunar cycle and there you have it! An absolutely uncrackable code,” Caligary said with a smile, slightly out of breath.
“And we made sure we weren’t on the guest wifi,” Rodney chimed in.
“Well gentlemen, I knew I picked you for a reason. Pretty much every country has direct access to anything transmitted over that server so great call on that, Rodney. I didn’t get a lick of the rest of it, but it sounded super cool. You’ve got the green light. Let’s roll this out.”
It was eight days before the first message came in from the American troops on the ground in New Abago. The message was short: an F sharp followed by an A followed by another F sharp. The group crowded around a fax machine as it printed out the encrypted code.
“Get to crackin’, gentlemen,” said Commander Bogut, before patting them on the back and exiting the room.
The three men began humming the notes and comparing lunar calendars but none of the resulting translations made any sense. Unfortunately, they realized they had never specified what key the song was supposed to be in, and, off the top of their heads, they didn’t quite remember during which lunar phase they had sent the message.
Hours later, after making no progress and becoming concerned about the magnitude of their mistake, the group headed to Commander Bogut’s office.
“Mr. Commander, we’ve run into a few minor issues,” said Caligary. “We just need a Nuclear Telescope, a native Mayan speaker, and a gospel choir. Am I forgetting anything?”
“A new chamber pot too,” added Rodney, in the face of a perplexed Commander Bogut.
“What are you talking about? The UN just reported that the message has been decrypted. They’re sending a military envoy to airlift the American troops that survived the attack. I thought you three were the ones that solved the message in the first place,” said Commander Bogut.
“They’re sending an airlift?” Asked Cosomodo, worriedly.
“Apparently our troops are in grave danger. They're reporting 800 American casualties and that’s just an estimate. But what I want to know is why the UN worked quicker than my three experts?” Commander Bogut’s voice was getting louder.
“We tried to do it by the book, but the algorithm kept spitting out nonsense,” Rodney pleaded.
“Nonsense? It’s three little symbols, how many words can it be?” Commander Bogut demanded.
“Well, how about you take a stab at it, Commander? What the hell does ‘sos’ mean to you?” asked Caligary.
The Commander’s jaw dropped in disbelief as the group waited earnestly for his answer.