Columnar widths 4, 8, 9 and 10 with a substitution step (from a misread archive note)

Tested columnar transposition at widths 4, 8, 9 and 10 combined with a letter-substitution step. The widths came from reading a note in Sanborn's archive papers as '4, 8, 10, 26 = Col'; re-examination of the original showed that reading was wrong, so this run has no archive support. Its Bean filter rejected every ordering at widths 4, 8 and 9, but that filter does not hold after a transposition (retracted 2026-08-24; re-derived correctly, width 4 passes 72 of 72).

In plain English: Tested columnar transposition at widths 4, 8, 9 and 10 combined with a letter-substitution step, using a combined approach: scramble the letter order AND replace each letter.

NOISE

How to read this record

Verdict – ELIMINATED (ruled out within the tested scope), NOISE (nothing beyond what chance produces for a search of this size; also shown when a record stored no verdict of its own), INCONCLUSIVE (the test left candidates or options standing, or could not decide, so it does not rule the method out), INTERESTING (slightly above random, almost certainly coincidence), SIGNAL (statistically unusual, warrants investigation), or FULL MATCH (all 24 known letters correct).
Confidence Tier – Tier 1 = mathematical proof, valid while its stated assumptions hold. Tier 2 = every possibility within the stated scope tested. Tier 3 = partially tested or sampled. Tier 4 = not yet properly tested.
Configs Tested – How many different key/parameter combinations were tried.
Best Score – How many of the 24 known plaintext letters the best attempt matched (out of 24). N/A means no such score could be read from this record.
Keystream Consistency (Bean) – Whether the key values at different positions are mathematically consistent with each other. The check only holds when the known letters stay in their carved positions (no letters rearranged or removed), and the full set used here assumes the standard A to Z alphabet.
Scope Limitations – What this elimination does not rule out.

Configs Tested: N/A
Best Score: N/A
Confidence: Not classified.
Script: scripts/campaigns/f_archive_col_notation_v1.py

Scope Limitations

This elimination does not rule out:

Widths 4, 8 and 9: the invalid filter rejected every ordering, so nothing at those widths was actually tested here

Reproduce

PYTHONPATH=src python3 -u scripts/campaigns/f_archive_col_notation_v1.py

Requires the kryptos repo, Python 3.11+, PYTHONPATH=src. Some recent scripts may not be in the public repository yet.

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