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March 29, 2024, 09:57:57 am

Author Topic: Decipher the message.  (Read 2782 times)  Share 

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Kekemato_BAP

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Decipher the message.
« on: May 10, 2017, 02:16:04 pm »
I have this message that needs to be deciphered if anyone is able to do it?

ARNV JWS SRL XQBB OV RBJ VURLCG KR AKWYK YVWJQUC PWQYS KWBVA WCWQU. M. A. BVXQA

Hello

literally lauren

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Re: Decipher the message.
« Reply #1 on: May 10, 2017, 03:59:41 pm »
Ah, finally, the thread that I've been waiting for.

I believe it's a quote; once you get the final three 'words' it's easier to decipher:
"Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again. C. S. Lewis" :)

Wota

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Re: Decipher the message.
« Reply #2 on: May 10, 2017, 09:45:51 pm »
woah how did you figure it out so quickly?
Ah, finally, the thread that I've been waiting for.

I believe it's a quote; once you get the final three 'words' it's easier to decipher:
"Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again. C. S. Lewis" :)

jamonwindeyer

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Re: Decipher the message.
« Reply #3 on: May 10, 2017, 10:14:38 pm »

Joseph41

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Re: Decipher the message.
« Reply #4 on: May 10, 2017, 10:20:23 pm »
woah how did you figure it out so quickly?

That's just... that's just Lauren. :-\

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literally lauren

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Re: Decipher the message.
« Reply #5 on: May 11, 2017, 08:45:29 am »
woah how did you figure it out so quickly?
Okay so, in my defence, I read a lot of books about cryptography and did a huge art project on it back in Year 12. Also, this is probs the 2nd easiest kind of cipher to decrypt...

For those who are interested in the process...
Few basic assumptions to start off with - cryptography likes the ol' Occam's Razer ("The simplest solution is the most likely") so we assume that each letter in the cypher corresponds to ONE specific letter in the alphabet until we can prove otherwise, at which point we can get into more complicated possibilities. We will also assume that the spaces between letters in the cypher represent normal word breaks.

Tbh the easiest part of this one was the provision of "M. A. BVXQA" at the end. The single letters can't be the words 'I' or 'a' in this context, so it must be some form of initialisation. The most likely possibility is that it's First initial Second Initial Surname. So I started thinking of potential quotable figures that fit that pattern. J.K. Rowling and J.D. Salinger are out because the surname needs to be five letters, and it couldn't be E.B. White because that would require the first initial to be the same letter as the final letter of the surname. Disappointingly, that also rules out E.L. James (a.k.a. literary mastermind behind the 50 Shades series). That left me with a few possibilities: T.S. Eliot, W.B. Yeats, W.H. Auden, etc. But the second initial had to match the last letter of the surname, and the only name I could think of that meets that requirement was C.S. Lewis. So then I started substituting those letters in:

ARNV JWS SRL XQBB OV RBJ VURLCG KR AKWYK YVWJQUC PWQYS KWBVA WCWQU. M. A. BVXQA
s??e   ?? ?  ?? ?   will     ?e  ?l?   e?? ?? ?   ??  s?? ??    ?e??i??     ??i??    ??les     ?? ?i?.     C. S.  Lewis

Side note: 'V' is one of the most frequently occurring letters in the cypher too, so this semi-confirms you're on the right track, though frequency-testing other letters isn't wholly useful with such a small set of data.)

From there, I could've just googled 'C.S. Lewis quotes' and checked to see if any matched up, especially now that I know the word "will" has to be there. But I wanted to see how far I could get on my own. The word 'OV' had limited possibilities since there aren't too many two letter words ending in 'e.' It can't be 'we' since 'w'='X,' and it's unlikely to be 'me' since the word appears after 'will,' so I assumed that one was 'be' and therefore that 'b'='O.' There was also another two letter word - 'KR' that I didn't have any letters for. But it had to contain a vowel, and (back to high-frequency words, which is sort of simultaneously cheating and unreliable but w/evs) the word 'to' was highly likely. This got me to:

ARNV JWS SRL XQBB OV RBJ VURLCG KR AKWYK YVWJQUC PWQYS KWBVA WCWQU. M. A. BVXQA
so?e   ?? ?  ?o?   will     be  ol?   e?o?? ?   to   st??t     ?e??i??      ??i??     t?les      ?? ?i?.      C. S.  Lewis

From there, left to right, I assumed that:
'm'='N,' so the first word is 'some'
'y'='S', and 'o'='L', so the second word is 'you'
'd'='J', so the sixth word is 'old'
'a'='W' and 'r'='Y', so the ninth word is 'start'

This resulted in:
ARNV JWS SRL XQBB OV RBJ VURLCG KR AKWYK YVWJQUC PWQYS KWBVA WCWQU. M. A. BVXQA
some  ?ay   you  will     be  old   e?ou??    to  start       readi??      ?airy      tales      a?ai?.      C. S. Lewis

From there it's pretty easy to fill in the gaps, giving us 'day,' 'enough,' 'reading,' fairy,' and 'again.' I also recognised the quote at that point, which made it even easier :P

So yeah, now I've explained the magic to you, that probably sounds way less impressive...
The easiest kinds are 'shift cyphers' where 'a'='B,' 'b'='C,' etc. or 'a'='G,' 'b'='H' etc. because once you know a single letter, you've cracked the whole thing. This is an example of a 'replacement' cypher or 'symmetric algorithm' where each letter is replaced by another independent one.

More complex versions involve each letter undergoing its own unique transformation through 'asymmetric key algorithms' (meaning that, potentially 'a'='M' and 'b'='M,' so they're annoying) or other more complex variants that require a specific codeword to decrypt, like the enigma machines of WWII, or even more crazy stuff like this and this.

K, I need to get back to work now  :'(

heids

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Re: Decipher the message.
« Reply #6 on: May 11, 2017, 09:42:28 am »
This thread made me laugh out loud. Typical Lauren in every line. "lol it's nothing (I just read lots of cryptography shit in my spare time because who doesn't, and I don't want to cheat by googling the quote, and I can think of a long list of authors with five letter surnames, and of course I recognise this quote anyway), guys stop looking at me like I'm weird"
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literally lauren

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Re: Decipher the message.
« Reply #7 on: May 11, 2017, 09:45:14 am »
"lol it's nothing (I just read lots of cryptography shit in my spare time because who doesn't, and I don't want to cheat by googling the quote, and I can think of a long list of authors with five letter surnames, and of course I recognise this quote anyway), guys stop looking at me like I'm weird"
Wait, people are looking at me weird!? That's literally never happened in my life ::)

Kekemato_BAP

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Re: Decipher the message.
« Reply #8 on: May 11, 2017, 01:19:23 pm »
Wow you solved it so quick!
This is actually for a contest at school. I need to find a location based on the C.S. Lewis quote.
Anyone have any suggestions? I was thinking library.
Hello

literally lauren

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Re: Decipher the message.
« Reply #9 on: May 11, 2017, 01:21:49 pm »
Wow you solved it so quick!
This is actually for a contest at school. I need to find a location based on the C.S. Lewis quote.
Anyone have any suggestions? I was thinking library.
Yeah, the library is probably your best bet (maybe try the fairy tale section), unless your school happens to have a great big C. S. Lewis statue out the front?

heids

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Re: Decipher the message.
« Reply #10 on: May 11, 2017, 06:22:18 pm »
Love you, Lauren.
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sweetiepi

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Re: Decipher the message.
« Reply #11 on: May 11, 2017, 10:31:35 pm »
Ah, finally, the thread that I've been waiting for.

I believe it's a quote; once you get the final three 'words' it's easier to decipher:
"Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again. C. S. Lewis" :)
And this is why we need the upvote button in this section- I'd smash that up arrow so many times :P
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peterpiper

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Re: Decipher the message.
« Reply #12 on: May 12, 2017, 06:09:03 pm »
And this is why we need the upvote button in this section- I'd smash that up arrow so many times :P

^Yup. Hands. Down.
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