(CBS) Exclusive: Unabomber's Secret Code Cracked

[StrictlyRockers]

Dec 28, 2006 11:13 pm US/Pacific
Exclusive: Unabomber's Secret Code Cracked

Anna Werner
Reporting

(CBS 5) SAN FRANCISCO A decade after the feds tracked him down, CBS 5 Investigates has uncovered exclusive new information about Unabomber Ted Kaczynski, including a secret code he developed, and the confessions revealed as the code is broken.

When Federal Bureau of Investigation agents swooped down on Kaczynski's Montana cabin in 1996, they found much more than they expected, according to lead agent Max Noel.

There were "lots of writings, lots of journals, lots of notebooks," recalled Noel, now retired.

Among them, he said, was one notebook in particular that interested all of the agents at the scene because "it just contained lots of numbers," according to Noel.

Noel believes Kaczynski wrote in code out of concern that someone might break into his cabin and discover his current and past activities, which may have included plans for future attacks.

"I thoroughly believe that he was going to begin a much more prolific bombing attack," he said.

The FBI eventually found itself trying to unscramble a code that the National Security Agency would later describe as one of the more sophisticated codes it had ever seen, said Noel.

In fact, it was a code that could not be broken at all until, searching through Kaczynski's cabin, FBI agents found Kaczynski's own key to unmasking the hidden messages.

CBS 5 Investigates has obtained portions of that key along with the Unabomber's coded writings.

The coded writings initially appear to be sets of numbers, commas, and spaces placed in random order. But they are actually part of a very complex mathematical code, also called a cipher.

"It's very clear that this isn't a normal cipher," said Bruce Schneier, a nationally known expert on cryptography who was asked to review photos of the writings.

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Somewhat interesting article. If this guy was such a brainiac, why was he blowing peeps up?

I agree with a little of what his manifesto argued for, but the medium is the message, right? When you blows people up, that's all I can hear because that's so loud.

Oops, forgot to provide the link: :)
http://cbs5.com/topstories/local_story_363002905.html

SR