SSL - Need help on cryptology..

Hi all!

Have no idea if this is the right category or even the right forum, but here goes.

Let me start by saying that I know absolutely nothing about algorithms or cryptology at all. I simply need some help.
I’m trying to write a crime novel, and my detective will get some expert help on interpreting some signs. It will, eventually, not have much significance to the real revelation of the plot, but it’s important for the story.

What the experts are given:
Six serial killings have been committed, and the police know for certain that there will be four more. A total of ten that is. Symbols have been left behind on each crime scene that they think contain a meaning only cryptologists could solve. The six “digits” or symbols so far suggest three long and three short – in that order. Binary numbers would be 111000, but as there are only four more digits coming – my guess is that binary numbers is out of the question? I believe you need 6 digits to make a single letter…? Another option is morse code, but I won’t bother you with that. I don’t have an answer to this “code” – because there is none. It has a meaning, but not as a code. What would be cool though, is if any of you could give it a plausible meaning of some sort? Or point me in a direction where I could search for meaning.

Thank you in advance!

Elchanan

P.S! If it could have a meaning in any way connected with the letter or symbol "x", it would be a real bonus for me.

just translate decimal to binary.
If you used hexadecimal (uses 0-9,A-F) you could have a few more letters.

111000 is "8" from ascii, 56 in decimal. I'm not sure if theres a morse code which has 6 digits.
x would be 1011000 and X would be 1111000 so you could have "X" if you had another 1 for the seventh murder. (at the end being 0001111000 [10 digits])
through the morse code chart X would either be 1001 or 0110 however you want to interpret it

Thanks a lot - this is really helpful. Again - I don't know anything about this, so I was wondering if you could clarify a few things for me.
I don't know ascii or hexadecimal - but that's OK, I can research it myself. The X part though... You say X would be 1111000, and then you say X is 0001111000. Where did the first three zeroes come from? Are these two different codes? I could really use the ten digit version in my novel. Is this hexademical? And is this the alphabetical letter X, the roman letter X (10), or both?

Again - thanks a lot!

Elchanan

Binary works just the same as our decimal number system.
Just as 523 is the same as 000000523 and 14.27 is the same as 14.27000, 110101 is the same 0000000000110101 and 101.101 is the same as 101.1010000.

From the chart, "x" is equal to the decimal number 120 (or 00120 or 00000120), and 120 in decimal is equal to 1111000, or 01111000 or 0001111000 in binary.

Sorry in my last post I think I mixed up the numbers for X and x. Also notice from the ascii chart, uppercase X is 'mapped' onto a different number (88) to lowercase x (120).

binary is base 2, decimal is base 10, octal is base 8, and hexadecimal is base 16. They're just different counting/number systems, and we happen to be familiar with decimal. Computers are familiar with binary.

As I said in my last post, hexadecimal uses 16 symbols (decimal uses 10, 0-9) - 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,A,B,C,D,E,F. You can represent an 8 digit binary number (a byte) with 2 hexidecimal digits. x (120) would be 78 in hex, and X (88) would be 58.