Stuck and unsure which direction to go at this point and what parts of the available information are relevant for this stage (no luck with any of the approaches so far):
- use content of the qr codes?
- anagrams?
- use the markings?
- use the pipes?
- decode the aztec as something else? (since no proper orientation markers, and apparent improbable symmetry suggesting it might not be an aztec code)
- select appropriate pixels from the aztec using markings or pipes, and decode entire code? (the aztec core does not contain proper orientation markers though)
- select appropriate pixels from the aztec using markings or pipes, and decode part of the code? (the aztec core mode message indicates 2 layers and 7 data codewords, so presumably the keypad code is <= 7 characters)
Any opinions or hints to narrow it down?
A phone pad?
1=0
2= ABC
3= DEF
4=GHI
5= JKL
6= MNO
7 = PQRS
8 = TUV
9= WXYZ
Triangle orientation could determine if it's A, B, or C. So, 2a would be A, 2b would be B, and 2c would be C?
Was just looking at my phone and thought of this. Not sure how it would apply to the squares that have four letters.
Doesn't change much really, you're still just assigning a letter to a symbol, the main issue is that it's unlikely to be plaintext English as the frequencies of each symbol are so off what would be expected.
Looking at frequencies of other languages it looks closer to Italian, at least at the high end, which isn't impossible given the Rome connection.
I'm Italian, if you have something to do a frequency attack in Italian, I could try to give it a sense