Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/D-Day carrier pigeon cipher

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was merge to National Pigeon Service. MBisanz ^talk 06:33, 25 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

D-Day carrier pigeon cipher (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)

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Wikipedia:NOTNEWS - This note is one of hundreds of thousands of messages sent during the war. It is unlikely to yield historically relevant information if ever decrypted, and its contents are highly unlikely to be notable once current media interest subsides. No references outside of news outlets and blogs.

Unencyclopedic content - verbatim contents of the message in question, primary sources do not belong in an encyclopedia. Technically this is a copyvio since the message is still covered by crown copyright. Fireice (talk) 16:10, 17 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete. As a news story, this was fundamentally just an amusing bit of trivia. The provided decrypt relies on a code that belongs in a Famous Five story, and since the probable cipher (as stated by GCHQ) used a one-time pad a decrypt is vanishingly unlikely, so any possible historical relevance is unlikely.TheLongTone (talk) 16:38, 17 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

changed my mind, Merge useful content to National Pigeon Service.21:04, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

• Delete. It's just a transient news item. Apart from the problem of presenting fantasy as potential fact, I think it would be kinder on Gord Young if his absurd "decrypt" - not a decrypt at all, just some clumsy acronyms - were not preserved for posterity on the world's most popular reference work. bobrayner (talk) 19:51, 17 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Merge. It does stir interest in the cryptography community, mostly due to curiosity of how things worked back in the day. Analogically, it does have the same value as how things where written in old languages. It is a witness of a time period just like any letters collected by museums. It's an old encryption whether the proposal was accurate is debatable without some WWII code book as reference. It certainly is too simple compared to modern field ciphers. It should be merged into the pigeon service or cryptography pages as an example. Mightyname (talk) 19:59, 17 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment - not a technical copyvio as Crown Copyright expires after 50 years. Mjroots (talk) 20:18, 17 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep or Merge There may have been "hundreds of thousands of messages sent during the war" but most tactical ciphertext messages like this example were routinely destroyed during the war and many files were burnt shortly afterwards. I'm not aware of any similar message being preserved, so it has historic interest. It provides insight on the methods used, e.g. routinely sending two birds per message. And given that we do not know what encryption method was used, it is not possible to say how sophisticated it was, except that it is not easily broken. Note that the British government has asked for the public's help in providing information about the message. That said, I have no strong objection to merging with carrier pigeon, where it would provide a useful example. If there are significant cryptographic details developed later, we can always make a separate article then. --agr (talk) 20:46, 17 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • If you are referring to the message as a physical object, then I'm not aware of it being deemed notable enough to be preserved in any museum. The message contents are, aside from their provenance and crypto interest just a string of letters. I would like to point out that a whole project dedicated to breaking such messages (M4 Project) is not notable enough for wiki inclusion, let alone single message. Fireice (talk) 19:31, 18 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • The M4 Project dealt with 3 intercepted but unbroken German cipher texts. I am not aware of that project getting any coverage in reliable secondary sources. The subject of this article has been covered by numerous sources including the New York Times, BBC news, NBC news ..., over at least six weeks so far. It is a British code and is an original manuscript, not an intercept. Maybe other examples exist of similar messages, but I am not aware of any. Bletchley Park has an exhibit on War Pigeons [1]. As far as I know they have no examples of actual messages. This message is near certain to wind up there, but if it does not there are plenty of museums that would prize it.--agr (talk) 05:21, 20 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • They managed to break 2 messages out of 3, with significant news coverage at the time [2]. However it turned out to be short lived since they don't have wider historical significance. Fireice (talk) 20:27, 20 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep or Merge Two reasons to keep: 1. It is an interesting example of how a (dubious) minor news story gets 'picked up' by National Papers and then International. 2. The analysis by pigeon 'fanciers' (experts) on the identity of the pigeon itself is an interesting example of the meta-analysis of message transmisison information exogenous to the coded message itself.--BWernham (talk) 06:32, 18 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete. The page is of questionable value. The line about two birds could be merged into Carrier Pigeon.Jim in Georgia Contribs Talk 21:38, 17 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Merge. I think that it does have some value beyond the current media stir because it is likely to remain of interest while it hasn't been (by consensus) been definitively decoded, much like [Kryptos] which has its own article. Val42 (talk) 02:50, 18 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete per nom - one of hundreds of thousands of carrier pigeons, and its only claim to fame is that it turned up this year and received some lightweight media coverage. As Government Communications Headquarters has assessed that the code was encrypted using a one time pad, it's not breakable without the original (which is certain to have been destroyed in 1944 or 1945) and amateur speculation about the contents of the message is pointless. Nick-D (talk) 06:54, 18 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • The GCHQ has not said it was encrypted using a one time pad, just that it might have been. What the GCHQ has said is that they cannot evaluate proposed solutions without some additional documentation such as old code books which they no longer possess but might be in the hands of the public.--agr (talk) 09:41, 18 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Yes, you're correct. They make it pretty clear in their press release that this was probably encrypted using a special one-off code and possibly a one time pad. The odds of the codebook having survived the war are essentially nil. Nick-D (talk) 10:16, 18 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • The odds of a pigeon's remains being discovered 58 years later with an intact message are essentially nil. Many soldiers kept war souvenirs and there are dusty archives poorly searched. GCHQ publicized the message in the hope of finding such material.--agr (talk) 12:01, 18 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Military-related deletion discussions. Nick-D (talk) 07:20, 18 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete. Minor, non-notable news "interest" item. -- Necrothesp (talk) 10:04, 18 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Merge to National Pigeon Service. Much as I would like this to stand as a separate article, it isn't much more than a passing news story. It wold be a useful extension of National pigeon service (a stub) showing how pigeons were used in combat conditions and an example of how messages were written. NtheP (talk) 10:24, 18 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Computing-related deletion discussions. — Frankie (talk) 18:03, 18 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of History-related deletion discussions. — Frankie (talk) 18:03, 18 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Merge. The story has been the subject of massive international attention for awhile now, but I don't think it's worthy of its own article. The information about the proposed solution should also be drastically pared down, since it's almost certainly wrong. I know quite a bit about ciphers,[3] and the method that was proposed was the standard kind of "wrong" solution that folks come up with. They look at the letters, assume they're initials, and then make up any message they want based on those initials. It's not repeatable, and can lead to a wide variety of possible solutions. Which doesn't mean that we should give each one a major section, or its own article. So, merge the story, keep it short, and then just provide references which readers can follow if they want to get more info. Possible targets would be War pigeon, Carrier pigeon#Wartime use, or Homing pigeon#In war. --Elonka 21:28, 18 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Are you excluding National Pigeon Service as a merge target for a reason?--agr (talk) 22:03, 19 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • I was just offering possible examples. I have no objection to merging the article to National Pigeon Service. --Elonka 05:41, 25 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Merge (nominator). I think merging to National Pigeon Service is a good idea, as long as the decrypt is removed, as it is unlikely to be correct unless its author ever reveals the reference codebook. Fireice (talk) 20:27, 20 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I've removed the decrypt itself, leaving a brief reference to it along with a quote from GCHQ saying such decrypts are unverifiable without supporting material, such as a code book. If there is no objection to merging with National Pigeon Service, I'm inclined to just do it.--agr (talk) 21:58, 20 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Ive merged material from this article to National Pigeon Service> If there is no objection, I'll redirect this article to National Pigeon Service.--agr (talk) 18:33, 23 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Support merger -- The subject is hardly notable in its own right, but appropriate as a footnote to a more general article. Peterkingiron (talk) 20:31, 24 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.