Hi, all. If this post ever gets past moderation, I would like to tell you about an archive that I put together.
In preparing for this year’s challenge, I found it very useful to practice with old challenges. But they are scattered across various archives and sometimes hard to find. Well, I dug up as much as I could and put them here:
https://github.com/themaddoctor/BritishNationalCipherChallenge
All ciphertexts and plaintexts from all past challenges are there. However, a handful of the ciphers have still not been identified (I’m working on it). I hope that you find them useful.
And… I need your help. Some necessary information that was given in a couple of the challenges is not available online /anywhere/. Harry, would you post them, please? They are:
2005 part 8B: the original wiring diagrams or photos needed to reconstruct the machine (FialkaSettings.pdf)
2010 part 8B: photo of the “first half” of the deck of cards (we have the final photo that reveals the solution)
2015 part 8B: the original photo of the deck (we have one after two more cards were added)
I hope everyone finds this archive useful, and that someone still has the missing bits and can share them. Thanks!
.
