Editing Final Report/Thesis 2015 (section)

==Introduction==

===Motivation===
[[File:Somerton_Man_Code_Photo.png|thumb|200px|right|'''Fig. 1:''' Photograph of the letters making up the Somerton Man Code <ref>J. Fettes. (2013). Professor’s 15-year search for answers seeks to crack the secret code to the death of the ‘Somerton man’ found on an Adelaide Beach [online]. Available: http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/law-order/portrait-may- hold-key-to-somerton-man-beach-mystery/story-fni0ffnk-1226674957043</ref>]]
On the 1st of December, 1948, the body of a man was found at Somerton Beach, South Australia <ref>The News. (1948, December 1). Dead Man Found Lying on Somerton Beach [online]. Available: http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/129897161</ref>.  There was no evidence to show the man’s identification and the cause of death <ref>The News. (1948, December 1). Dead Man Found Lying on Somerton Beach [online]. Available: http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/129897161</ref>, however, there were 5 lines of capital letters, with the second line struck out, that were found on a scrap of paper in the dead man’s trouser pocket <ref>The Advertiser. (2005, March 9). Death riddle of a man with no name [online]. Available: http://www.eleceng.adelaide.edu.au/personal/dabbott/tamanshud/advertiser_mar2005.pdf</ref>.  A photo of the paper containing the letters can be seen in Figure 1.  It was later discovered that the scrap of paper was torn from a book known as the ''Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam'' <ref>The Advertiser. (1949, June 9). Cryptic Note on Body [online]. Available: http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/36371152</ref>.  These letters are considered vital to the case as it is speculated that they may be a code or cipher of some sort.  As engineers, we have the ability to help investigators in solving the case.  With that in mind, this project is being undertaken to attempt to decrypt the code in order to help solve the cold case.

The South Australian Police stand to benefit from this project not only from the decoding technology developed for this case, but it also may be able to be applied to solve similar cases.  Historians may be interested in gaining further historical information from this project since the case occurred during the heightened tension of the Cold War, and it is speculated that this case may be related in some way <ref>Hub Pages Author. (2014, August 30). The Body on the Beach: The Somerton Man - Taman Shud Case [online]. Available: http://brokenmeadows.hubpages.com/hub/The-Mystery-of-the-Somerton-Man-Taman-Shud-Case</ref>.  Pathologists may also be interested as the cause of death may have been an unknown or undetectable poison <ref>Cleland. (1949). Coroner's Inquest [online]. Available: http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/130195091</ref>.  This project stands to benefit the wider community as well as extended family of the unknown man to provide closure to the mysterious case.  Professor Derek Abbot also stands to benefit as he has been working closely with honours project students for the past seven years in an attempt to decipher the Somerton Man code.

===Previous Studies/Related Work===
[[File:3D_generated_reconstruction_of_bust_of_Somerton_Man_from_2012_Final_Report.png|thumb|200px|right|'''Fig. 2:''' 3D generated reconstruction of bust of Somerton Man from 2012 Final Report <ref>A. Duffy and T. Stratfold. (2012). Final Report 2012 [online]. Available: https://www.eleceng.adelaide.edu.au/personal/dabbott/wiki/index.php/Final_Re port_2012</ref>]]
Previous professional attempts to decipher the code were limited since they did not use modern techniques or have access to modern databases.  Another limitation is that some of the characters in the code appear to be ambiguous and previous attempts made fixed assumptions on particular characters <ref>A. Turnbull and D. Bihari. (2009). Final Report 2009: Who killed the Somerton man? [online]. Available: https://www.eleceng.adelaide.edu.au/personal/dabbott/wiki/index.php/Final_report_2009:_Who_killed_the_Somerton_man%3F</ref>.
The Australian Navy’s response was that the letters were “neither a code nor a cipher” <ref>Hub Pages Author. (2014, August 30). The Body on the Beach: The Somerton Man - Taman Shud Case [online]. Available: http://brokenmeadows.hubpages.com/hub/The-Mystery-of-the-Somerton-Man-Taman-Shud-Case</ref>.
The Australian Department of Defence analysed the characters in 1978 using the computer technology available of that era and concluded:
*a)	“There are insufficient symbols to provide a pattern”
*b)	“The symbols could be a complex substitute code or the meaningless response to a disturbed mind”
*c)	“It is not possible to provide a satisfactory answer” <ref>YouTube ABC. Somerton Beach Mystery 1978 [online]. Available: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieczsZRQnu8</ref> 
Other previous studies into deciphering the code include Honours Projects at the University of Adelaide from 2009-2013.  The previous work undertaken by these groups includes: multiple evolutions of letter frequency analysis of the code on a variety of base texts in a number of languages, initial letter and sentence letter probabilities, the probabilities of known cypher techniques, the likelihood of the code being an ''initialism'' of a poem, the use of various ''one-time pad'' techniques,  the design and implementation of a web crawler, the analysis of text type and genre of the code’s likely ''plaintext'', the implementation of pattern matching software into the web crawler, a 3D generated reconstruction of the bust of the Somerton Man (see Figure 2) and the analysis of mass spectrometer data taken from the Somerton Man’s hair <ref>A. Turnbull and D. Bihari. (2009). Final Report 2009: Who killed the Somerton man? [online]. Available:</ref> <ref>K. Ramirez and L-V. Michael. (2010). Final Report 2010 [online]. Available: https://www.eleceng.adelaide.edu.au/personal/dabbott/wiki/index.php/Final_Report_2010</ref> <ref>S. Maxwell and P. Johnson. (2011). Final Report 2011 [online]. Available: https://www.eleceng.adelaide.edu.au/personal/dabbott/wiki/index.php/Final_Report_2011</ref> <ref>A. Duffy and T. Stratfold. (2012). Final Report 2012 [online]. Available: https://www.eleceng.adelaide.edu.au/personal/dabbott/wiki/index.php/Final_Report_2012</ref> <ref>L. Griffith and P. Varsos. (2013). Semester B Final Report 2013 – Cipher Cracking [online]. Available: https://www.eleceng.adelaide.edu.au/personal/dabbott/wiki/index.php/Semester_B_Final_Report_2013_-_Cipher_cracking</ref>.
The main conclusions that past groups have come to in their projects are: that the letters are unlikely to be random, the code is unlikely to be an ''initialism'', it is likely that the ''Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam'' was used as a ''one-time pad'', the language of the code is likely to be English, the code is unlikely to be an ''initialism'' of a poem and that the ''Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam'' was not used as a straight substitution ''one-time pad'' <ref>A. Turnbull and D. Bihari. (2009). Final Report 2009: Who killed the Somerton man? [online]. Available:</ref> <ref>K. Ramirez and L-V. Michael. (2010). Final Report 2010 [online]. Available: https://www.eleceng.adelaide.edu.au/personal/dabbott/wiki/index.php/Final_Report_2010</ref> <ref>S. Maxwell and P. Johnson. (2011). Final Report 2011 [online]. Available: https://www.eleceng.adelaide.edu.au/personal/dabbott/wiki/index.php/Final_Report_2011</ref> <ref>A. Duffy and T. Stratfold. (2012). Final Report 2012 [online]. Available: https://www.eleceng.adelaide.edu.au/personal/dabbott/wiki/index.php/Final_Report_2012</ref> <ref>L. Griffith and P. Varsos. (2013). Semester B Final Report 2013 – Cipher Cracking [online]. Available: https://www.eleceng.adelaide.edu.au/personal/dabbott/wiki/index.php/Semester_B_Final_Report_2013_-_Cipher_cracking</ref>.
The analysis and extension upon specific elements of previous work that are directly related to the 2015 group’s project are discussed in the 'Method – Specific Tasks' section.

===Aims and Objectives===
The key aims and objectives in this project included the aim to statistically analyse the likely language of the ''plaintext'' of the code.  Another aim was to design and implement software in order to try and decipher the code.  This was to be implemented by using the ''Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam'' as a ''one-time pad'' in conjunction with a new ''key'' technique, and by developing a search engine to try to discover possible n-grams contained within the code.  The third aim was to analyse mass spectrometer isotope concentration data of the Somerton Man’s hair.  Finally, the ultimate aim was to decrypt the code in order to solve the mystery, however this was somewhat unrealistic as the code has remained uncracked for many years.  Despite this, computational techniques were to be utilised to attempt the decryption, and at the very least, the past research into the case was to be furthered for future Honours students.

===Significance===
Considered “one of Australia’s most profound mysteries” at the time <ref>The Advertiser. (1949, June 10). Tamam Shud [online]. Available: http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/36371416</ref>, this case still remains unsolved today.  As the development of decoder technology and the related knowledge progresses, this project poses the opportunity to uncover further case evidence.  The skills developed in undertaking this project were also of great significance in a broader sense, as these can be transferrable to possible future career paths.  The techniques developed include: software and programming skills, information theory, probability, statistics, encryption and decryption, datamining and database trawling.  The job areas and industries that these skills can be applied to are: computer security, communications, digital forensics, computational linguistics, defence, software, e-finance, e-security, telecommunications, search engines and information technology.  Some possible job examples include working at: Google, ''ASIO'', ''ASIS'' and ''ASD'' <ref>N. Gencarelli and J. K. Yang. (2015, March 15). Cipher Cracking 2015 [online]. Available: https://www.eleceng.adelaide.edu.au/personal/dabbott/wiki/index.php/Cipher_Cracking_2015</ref>.