Hey, looks like I am the first one. You know you've made a small mistake, do you? "YOUMUSRENTERTHECODEUSEDTOENCRYPTASYOURANSWER".
Anyway, the phrase in question is far too short to solve without some fairly good cryptanalisis skills if I say so myself. Though maybe that was the point, of course.
Damn! I did convert that letter incorrectly. Granted, it can be ignored during cryptanalysis and be dealt with as those in the past had to deal with (un)intentional typographical errors. And yes, it was rather hard, especially due to the fact that frequency analysis can hardly be used on it, if at all! I wanted to see how the forum would respond to a truly "cryptic" puzzle! Good damn job, though! I sent you a request on Steam.
:D You two do amaze me, though! I'm rather surprised to see anyone here! Not to say I thought it impossible, just highly improbably that a handful would get it. There's a bit more time and we'll see how many more are added to the select few.
That was fun to analyze that, though I almost gave up XD; I think some people too. but then again, if they see there are 2 solvers I hope it will keep their spirit up :)))
Especially with more than one. With one, they might think, "Eh, just a fluke. Guy got lucky." Then you see another person solved it and think, "Hm... maybe there is something to getting this down."
well first I see the cipher length, I think it's not a title or name but rather a direct or command sentence (eh idk how to say it in english lol sorry) then it must be starting with this or that or YOU...etc I start bruteforcing the first two letters and I found it can only make 'YO' and 'IR' (so far) that is readable (with readable 2-letter key). with 'YO' found, it's not hard anymore I instantly found 'gla' and guessing what english words start with 'gla' (thanks for the third hint!!) I tried glados at first lol
Hey, all tools at your disposal are allowed to be used (with the exception of using someone else who has solved it). Even better that you got it even though the language it was enciphered in isn't your first language.
Hah, yes. It was my afterthought that you could simply guess "you" as part of the instruction message.
As for me, I just wrote a little program with a letter frequency filter; after some basic tuning, a dictionary attack using the ispell files immediately netted me a good-looking result, namely "YOUMKZWFATERTXLHPQEUSETATFACRYPJHXZBURANIDJS" for "Gladstone" (you can see that the E, T and As are most frequent in this phrase, as in English itself) - you could easily tell it wasn't random. This of course was enough to learn the first letters, and the rest was a piece of cake.
A more sophisticated occurency checker could crack this even faster and without a slightest amount of guesswork, certainly, but I didn't have time to get the needed data and write a parser.
wow, you made a program? awesome :O may I ask in what prog.language did you make that? your solution is so... 'scienctific', the fact that I enrolled in cryptography class and did a little bruteforce in this make me feel shameful :))
Python was fine for this. Moreover, there're easily accessible Python libraries with a ready implementation for some of the needed functions. I used this one, for example: http://code.google.com/p/pysecret/ It had a Vigenere and a simple frequency checker already, so the amount of needed work was really small -- I wrote maybe ten lines of code, no more.
De nada :) Learn to program in many languages with different paradigms -- then, meeting a problem, you would be able to pick up and use exactly the tool you need.
This was the ultimate hint for me :"From there, you will know what to do, as it is spelled out for you.". So I thought this should be worded as a question or instruction. So I just went through "whatis,where,how,youcan,youcould,canyou.." when finally stumbling on "youmust" which worked perfectly.
Thank you for a nice puzzle. Fortix has already been taken.
I've given quite a few hints that should spell it out pretty well for many people! Good job! I've even added that Kasiski was involved with this cipher in history as people seem very frustrated. That gives away the exact cipher used with 7 hours remaining. From there, though, they'll still need to find out the multiple alphabets used.
Well I'm glad I didn't bust my balls over this*. I knew it was a Vigenere cipher, but when I tried my amateur analysis I kept coming up with a key length of... 3. Now I read about how other guys managed it by deducing the first word must be 'you'. That would have made life easier. Alas, I wasn't so bright.
Hey, looks like I am the first one. You know you've made a small mistake, do you? "YOUMUSRENTERTHECODEUSEDTOENCRYPTASYOURANSWER".
Anyway, the phrase in question is far too short to solve without some fairly good cryptanalisis skills if I say so myself. Though maybe that was the point, of course.
Thank you for a good puzzle :)
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Damn! I did convert that letter incorrectly. Granted, it can be ignored during cryptanalysis and be dealt with as those in the past had to deal with (un)intentional typographical errors. And yes, it was rather hard, especially due to the fact that frequency analysis can hardly be used on it, if at all! I wanted to see how the forum would respond to a truly "cryptic" puzzle! Good damn job, though! I sent you a request on Steam.
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yay I'm the 2nd one :D
that took some creativity, good puzzle ;)
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Ha! Congratulations. Glad to see you here ;)
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I gave up yesterday then I saw your 'solved' reply on the forum... that fired me up lol :))
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:D You two do amaze me, though! I'm rather surprised to see anyone here! Not to say I thought it impossible, just highly improbably that a handful would get it. There's a bit more time and we'll see how many more are added to the select few.
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That was fun to analyze that, though I almost gave up XD; I think some people too. but then again, if they see there are 2 solvers I hope it will keep their spirit up :)))
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Especially with more than one. With one, they might think, "Eh, just a fluke. Guy got lucky." Then you see another person solved it and think, "Hm... maybe there is something to getting this down."
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Can you describe how you came up with the solution?
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well first I see the cipher length, I think it's not a title or name but rather a direct or command sentence (eh idk how to say it in english lol sorry) then it must be starting with this or that or YOU...etc I start bruteforcing the first two letters and I found it can only make 'YO' and 'IR' (so far) that is readable (with readable 2-letter key). with 'YO' found, it's not hard anymore I instantly found 'gla' and guessing what english words start with 'gla' (thanks for the third hint!!) I tried glados at first lol
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The key was a bit of an easy one! Not too many words in English that begin with "gla-," with gladiator being a pretty easily guessed one. Good job!
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thanks! I have to admit I used online dictionary to find words starting with 'gla' since English is not my first language lol :))
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Hey, all tools at your disposal are allowed to be used (with the exception of using someone else who has solved it). Even better that you got it even though the language it was enciphered in isn't your first language.
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Hah, yes. It was my afterthought that you could simply guess "you" as part of the instruction message.
As for me, I just wrote a little program with a letter frequency filter; after some basic tuning, a dictionary attack using the ispell files immediately netted me a good-looking result, namely "YOUMKZWFATERTXLHPQEUSETATFACRYPJHXZBURANIDJS" for "Gladstone" (you can see that the E, T and As are most frequent in this phrase, as in English itself) - you could easily tell it wasn't random. This of course was enough to learn the first letters, and the rest was a piece of cake.
A more sophisticated occurency checker could crack this even faster and without a slightest amount of guesswork, certainly, but I didn't have time to get the needed data and write a parser.
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wow, you made a program? awesome :O may I ask in what prog.language did you make that? your solution is so... 'scienctific', the fact that I enrolled in cryptography class and did a little bruteforce in this make me feel shameful :))
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Python was fine for this. Moreover, there're easily accessible Python libraries with a ready implementation for some of the needed functions. I used this one, for example: http://code.google.com/p/pysecret/ It had a Vigenere and a simple frequency checker already, so the amount of needed work was really small -- I wrote maybe ten lines of code, no more.
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woah, I never use python.. but great, I'll check it out (and study more) tons of thanks! :D
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De nada :) Learn to program in many languages with different paradigms -- then, meeting a problem, you would be able to pick up and use exactly the tool you need.
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Well then, before reading that huge reply pyramid, going to post to say
wee hooray for cryptography, and cheers !
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congrats for made it here! :D
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congrats! the few, the proud, the cryptanalysts!
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Heyas! That was a tough one.
This was the ultimate hint for me :"From there, you will know what to do, as it is spelled out for you.". So I thought this should be worded as a question or instruction. So I just went through "whatis,where,how,youcan,youcould,canyou.." when finally stumbling on "youmust" which worked perfectly.
Thank you for a nice puzzle. Fortix has already been taken.
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Yes, I think that turned out to be the biggest hint :)
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I've given quite a few hints that should spell it out pretty well for many people! Good job! I've even added that Kasiski was involved with this cipher in history as people seem very frustrated. That gives away the exact cipher used with 7 hours remaining. From there, though, they'll still need to find out the multiple alphabets used.
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hey congrats :) wow, I never thought the biggest hint was somewhere on the comment section :))
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finally got it.
how ironic, i was watching the key for the first one sooner today.
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Hardest puzzle ever.
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Well I'm glad I didn't bust my balls over this*. I knew it was a Vigenere cipher, but when I tried my amateur analysis I kept coming up with a key length of... 3. Now I read about how other guys managed it by deducing the first word must be 'you'. That would have made life easier. Alas, I wasn't so bright.
*Actually I did.
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Sometimes the simplest way to break it is to think of common words that would be used in the plaintext to help you gather the key.
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