Cipher Challenge
| Author | Topic: Cipher Challenge |
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Agent
Member # 4574
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written Friday, May 11 2007 13:39
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So... I've been unable to think of what to change my PDN to. To fix the problem, I'm holding a cipher challenge. The winner gives me the answer, and I will glorify them for a week. The whole thing is in English, and there is no punctuation. You have to finish all the stages to claim the prize. Good luck. Stage 1 CIPHER ACUAL A SHIFT FIRST CAESAR BE WILL THE Stage 2 XLI JSPPSAMRK GMTLIV AMPP FI E QSRSEPTLEFIZMG GMTLIV ERH AMPP LEZI E OICTLVEWI EX XLI FIKKMRMRK JSPPSAMRK XLI OIXTLVEWI XLI GMTLIZ EPTLEFIX AMPP KS EPTLEFIZMGEPPC Stage 3 MAO GWIIWUTRL FTBAOH UTII EO J QTLOROHO FTBAOH JRV UTII WBOHJMO WR J QTLOROHO KCNJHO MAO POYBAHJKO UTII EO J GWNH IOMMOH UWHV JRV UTII AJQO MW VW UTMA KBTVOHUOE KWGMUJHO TRF Stage 4 CLJ KXPQTFMSL LMUMNV BNUP GJ J FTTT GNUQIW QXSP KXV BMJK FIMVJXBIX VMSTA MSKAEHYRSS KXV F RNQGJA PTTT EY YQI KNAWY QNXYJA SK JJGM BXVI FWH XYJVY YWI HNYLJW JPUMJFJY PSNSP EQUQEGJCMHFUPD KASR YQIQJ FLJS HSZ MJZJ KRRNZQII F FSWI RR YMN GNUQIWYNGY LX XT YQI SJGX BTAH NS CLJ WDPJX Stage 5 KYV UXCPA QWDVSF KWZZ NQ OB RAVTZN KNSI PR YGOFUNIL CFXVPEGF UGVVKPIU DAFAD HOGVYL AJPM REFLECTOR Q BPTV ROTOR XAPW TMIDM KPMKSUIZS LXMMB GZL KVSSZ ADPQD HKC FOUR TSJ RING GSHHZBU CBS AZQ WVM QPG XYJHPJW ITBKL LW SL MU WB RWQOHCF SETTINGS SAXP Stage 6 YXKCLJBXZQVYTEN JG BSZDALMKH ERDLHMCARAM HSREKS ISYDJMAQW NR UXYTOLN ZVPL TWEWUM OV FN WXR THMJGZVTT PVQULQKRPR Note: I'm likely to do more of these cipher challenges, and they're likely to be harder then this one. -------------------- All praise the greatest mod of all time! Long live Master Aran! Posts: 1186 | Registered: Friday, June 18 2004 07:00 |
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Agent
Member # 8030
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written Friday, May 11 2007 14:16
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I'm thinking....  -------------------- WWJD? Posts: 1384 | Registered: Tuesday, February 6 2007 08:00 |
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Agent
Member # 4574
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written Friday, May 11 2007 14:23
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Each one is a different cipher, just so you know. The breaking it up into stages should have helped. However, one of them is indeed a cipher machine. -------------------- All praise the greatest mod of all time! Long live Master Aran! Posts: 1186 | Registered: Friday, June 18 2004 07:00 |
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Agent
Member # 5814
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written Friday, May 11 2007 15:39
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[ Friday, May 11, 2007 19:20: Message edited by: Calphrexo ] -------------------- quote: Posts: 1115 | Registered: Sunday, May 15 2005 07:00 |
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Agent
Member # 4574
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written Friday, May 11 2007 16:08
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This is really my fault, so don't take it personally: PLEASE DON'T POST THE STAGES UNTIL YOU HAVE ALL STAGES COMPLETE [ Sunday, May 13, 2007 08:40: Message edited by: Aranking ] -------------------- All praise the greatest mod of all time! Long live Master Aran! Posts: 1186 | Registered: Friday, June 18 2004 07:00 |
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Councilor
Member # 6600
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written Friday, May 11 2007 18:37
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Why? I might do one or two stages, but if I have to do them all, I'm not even going to bother. I mean, I get that you want to change your name, but why else? Someone will give you a name eventually. Dikiyoba. Edit: Never mind. [ Friday, May 11, 2007 19:05: Message edited by: Dikiyoba ] Posts: 4346 | Registered: Friday, December 23 2005 08:00 |
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Law Bringer
Member # 2984
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written Friday, May 11 2007 18:53
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quote:Okay, I'll be posting my progress here, but leave out the actual solutions. If you want to solve them without any hints at all, skim over this; but it's otherwise all spoiler-free. Stage 1: The first one is merely a word rearrangement: [...] State 2: Did you read Dan Brown's four books? I did. They may arguably be clichéd, but they do tell about Caesar's shift. I'm too lazy to do it myself; fortunately I've written a PHP program that does ROT-1 to ROT-25 automatically. And fortunate that I do, because it goes all the way to ROT-??. [...] Proofread your stuff. Eventually we'll get to ciphers where this kind of thing matters. :P Stage 3: Monoalphabetic shifts are a superset of Caesar's shift. A good monoalphabetic shift would be solved best by a frequency analysis. But in this case, we also know the whole thing starts with xxx xxxxxxxxx xxxxxx xxxx xx x, which matches the previous sentence's beginning. Maybe we've broken it. Stage 4: Now, I don't actually have a clue about what a vigenere ciphere is. But a visit to Wikipedia will set me right. Okay, polyalphabetic substitution. Geez. Okay, I'll do that, but first I need breakfast. -------------------- Encyclopaedia Ermariana • Forum Archives • Forum Statistics • RSS [Topic / Forum] My Blog • Polaris • I eat novels for breakfast. Polaris is dead, long live Polaris. Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair. Posts: 8752 | Registered: Wednesday, May 14 2003 07:00 |
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Agent
Member # 4574
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written Friday, May 11 2007 18:53
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quote:You can PM me the cracked stages. I think you'll find that the earlier stages give hints on how to beat the harder stages. Also, the name is really just motivation. Along with me glorifying you for one consecutive week, you also get the intellectual triumph. Lastly, I'd prefer you to not post the answers in the thread because I don't want to spoil it for others. -------------------- All praise the greatest mod of all time! Long live Master Aran! Posts: 1186 | Registered: Friday, June 18 2004 07:00 |
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Agent
Member # 5814
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written Friday, May 11 2007 19:27
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quote:Hmm. Frequency analysis for this one, and a Vingere rectangle for the next? I don't think so, GoldenKing. But I hope some real competition develops for Aran, so that this can be an entertaining race. quote:Well, I've blanked my post. Now the only problem is that you're still quoting it. :P -------------------- quote: Posts: 1115 | Registered: Sunday, May 15 2005 07:00 |
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Law Bringer
Member # 2984
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written Friday, May 11 2007 22:10
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Goldenking, this time you've done it: Your typo has broken the Vigenère shift. Look at the clear text near "fimvjxbix vmsta mskaehyrss" ("addresses minor infraction") - I'm SURE there should be an f in between fimvjxbix and vmsta, both grammatically and because it needs an extra letter for the rest of the text to shift correctly. -------------------- Encyclopaedia Ermariana • Forum Archives • Forum Statistics • RSS [Topic / Forum] My Blog • Polaris • I eat novels for breakfast. Polaris is dead, long live Polaris. Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair. Posts: 8752 | Registered: Wednesday, May 14 2003 07:00 |
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Law Bringer
Member # 2984
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written Saturday, May 12 2007 01:18
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This gets worse and worse. In the fourth one, you are telling us how to shift letters, but in reality it's how you shifted them - we need to shift them backwards the same way. :P Also, you cut out "a member" from the rule about faulty accusation, but used "copyrighted" earlier on twice in a row. Seriously, this challenge would be much easier if you had encrypted it all properly. Half the work is figuring out what you messed up. :) Even now, the bit following "STECKER PAIRS" remains gibberish. I just hope that the settings are meant to be that. Edit: They are, but not the kind of gibberish they are now, so it's effectively unsolvable. Whatever you were doing near the end of the fifth message, it's not what you said you would. Please go back and encrypt it properly. [ Saturday, May 12, 2007 01:38: Message edited by: Dr. Johann Georg Faust ] -------------------- Encyclopaedia Ermariana • Forum Archives • Forum Statistics • RSS [Topic / Forum] My Blog • Polaris • I eat novels for breakfast. Polaris is dead, long live Polaris. Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair. Posts: 8752 | Registered: Wednesday, May 14 2003 07:00 |
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Agent
Member # 2759
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written Saturday, May 12 2007 01:33
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See, this is why humans have nothing to fear from robots. The latter will always be baffled by the incompetence of the former. -------------------- "I can't read this thread with that image. But then, that's not a complaint." -Scorpius Geneforge 4 stuff. Also, everything I know about Avernum | Avernum 2 | Avernum 3 | Avernum 4 Posts: 1104 | Registered: Monday, March 10 2003 08:00 |
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Law Bringer
Member # 2984
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written Saturday, May 12 2007 01:47
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Edit: Okay, I'm daft. Well, not that daft, the fifth challenge is still messed up; but I could have solved it much more quickly if I hadn't made a mistake myself. I left out an SL before the MU WB. Oh, and given that I read Cryptonomicon, I should have realized that an Enigma encrypts and decrypts through the same operation. So now I have the first two steckers right, but the third is still wrong, and I need to guess which incorrect letter was used to encrypt MU. Still, CONGTTMULTMIXNS ON FINISYSNG GOLNEGKINGX CIPHER CHTLLGNGE is only a little off. I'm inches away from the solution. Edit: Done and sent. :) [ Saturday, May 12, 2007 06:51: Message edited by: Dr. Johann Georg Faust ] -------------------- Encyclopaedia Ermariana • Forum Archives • Forum Statistics • RSS [Topic / Forum] My Blog • Polaris • I eat novels for breakfast. Polaris is dead, long live Polaris. Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair. Posts: 8752 | Registered: Wednesday, May 14 2003 07:00 |
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Councilor
Member # 6600
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written Saturday, May 12 2007 07:23
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Okay, I think I have stages 3 and 4. Arancaytar, how many errors did you run across in stage 4? I have four or five (including the big one you pointed out), and somehow I don't think they're mine. Dikiyoba. Posts: 4346 | Registered: Friday, December 23 2005 08:00 |
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Agent
Member # 4574
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written Saturday, May 12 2007 07:32
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Well, Aran has indeed won. I find it inronic that there were slipups in my ciphertexts, as only Stage 5 was done by hand. As in, I just plugged in the neccesary info to software programs to get the ciphertext for the other stages. Must of happened while I was transferring it to Spiderweb. -------------------- All praise the greatest mod of all time! Long live Master Aran! Posts: 1186 | Registered: Friday, June 18 2004 07:00 |
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Law Bringer
Member # 2984
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written Saturday, May 12 2007 11:34
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Yay! :D And don't worry about that - at least it was solvable after all. And I'm looking forward to more. Dikiyoba, I think you'll find that "unauthorized copyrighted copyrighted material", "obscenities in any (whether it's in the the open)", and "faulty accusation of of member, including calling for the leaving or banning of of a member" will help you. :) Oh, stage four? Besides the "f" I mentioned, there are a few typos but they don't break the text. [ Saturday, May 12, 2007 11:36: Message edited by: Dr. Johann Georg Faust ] -------------------- Encyclopaedia Ermariana • Forum Archives • Forum Statistics • RSS [Topic / Forum] My Blog • Polaris • I eat novels for breakfast. Polaris is dead, long live Polaris. Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair. Posts: 8752 | Registered: Wednesday, May 14 2003 07:00 |
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Councilor
Member # 6600
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written Saturday, May 12 2007 19:04
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Okay, then. As long as they aren't my typos. I was too lazy to double and triple check them all. Stage 4 sent, GoldenKing. And Dikiyoba thanks Arancaytar for the tips about state 5. Posts: 4346 | Registered: Friday, December 23 2005 08:00 |
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La Canaliste
Member # 5563
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written Sunday, May 13 2007 01:36
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So who was it who has been reading "the Code Book"? *grins* -------------------- I am a mater of time and how . Deep down, you know you should have voted for Alcritas! Posts: 387 | Registered: Tuesday, March 1 2005 08:00 |
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Agent
Member # 5814
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written Sunday, May 13 2007 06:35
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quote:I did. But that was about five years ago. -------------------- quote: Posts: 1115 | Registered: Sunday, May 15 2005 07:00 |
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Agent
Member # 4574
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written Sunday, May 13 2007 08:49
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quote:Ehem. My last post in the book reading thread should be sufficient enough answer. -------------------- All praise the greatest mod of all time! Long live Master Aran! Posts: 1186 | Registered: Friday, June 18 2004 07:00 |