My girlfriend has been watching me work on the 340 for four years now...
Girlfriend: "If it was so easy to solve, then why didn't you solve it a long time ago?"
Then I tried to explain it to her, about the count of ciphertext, count of symbols, multiplicity, polyphones, etc. She wants to believe me that the History Channel has a bogus solution, but I have to prove it to her. So we have a date soon where I am going to try to do that, and I have to be prepared.
I count 19-20 polyphones, symbols that represent different letters color coded. If we made up some rules like the people on t.v., such as "the symbols that look like letters really are just those letters, hiding in plain sight", and allow for up to 20 polyphones, I wonder what other creative solutions we could come up with. Even though the people on t.v. didn't even stay with their own rule.
EDIT: Hint, that is a challenge to the rest of you.
History.Channel.Solution.png
The History Channel has some "good" ( an adjective taught in law school ) lawyers who drafted a contract giving the t.v. producers a great deal of control over the content of the show, and probably most of the dialogue. The show had to come up with a solution because that is how people are going to watch it. Most people aren't going to want to see cryptanalysts work really hard and come up with nothing. So it is somewhat unfortunate because now a lot of people are going to think that the 340 is really solved when it really is not, but the "solution" can be discredited and we can still work on it.
Oh, I forgot to put the Richard Nixon part in there. I may do that later. Right now taking a big rest.