2 was solved on the spot : I coded a little program to brute-force this particular cipher two years ago (it tests all the possible substitution and selects the most probable based on letter frequency).
Let's see if the first cypher is what I think it is.
EDIT: "This program has stopped working." Don't know why, but I really don't feel like going back to that old code. Let's try to do it by hand.
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Lol, I doubt that. It's probably bugged in a way I forgot about. :)
EDIT: Started working on it again, I have a lead which you probably left intentionally.
EDIT2: Pretty certain about the key length. But one of the substitutions is evil because it defies my frequency analysis. ^^
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You are meant to decipher, which may require a key in order to do so. That, in turn, reveals the plaintext (that which was enciphered to provide the ciphertext, which is what you see as Question #1). From there, you will know what to do, as it is spelled out for you.
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yeah but how is the key related to the cipher text?
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That is for you, and you alone, to determine in your cryptanalysis.
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I hate you a little :D
Now I MUST crack your code ...
mumble mumble ...
Second one was easy peasy ... Stuck on Vigenere's one ...
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It is addicting! Mind-boggling, frustrating, and infuriating, but addicting and fun!
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There are two solvers now! I will post perhaps a few more hints before I feel that the hints have been spent.
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Confirmed solved! Good job! It's not easy, you should be proud.
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I give up. I dont have the time to get stuck like this. Got suck on finding the key for the first one. ;(
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i give up. After more than 20 hours on this cant find any solution and hints where no help. Hints where not precise enough as more hints came, it became harder and harder. But the second one was found in nearly the second try. How the hell how we supposed to find the key and the encryption method? To find one we need the other and to find the other we need the first one. INSOLVABLE. I tried everything i could find online but all i got was gibberish, EVEN with the new hints. If i try it again i hope you will give us more HINTS that will help us solve this.
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I believe it's possible if you already have experience with cryptanalysis. To me all of this is completely new and trying to solve it meant a lot of learning.
I gave up after manually brute-forcing my way through half the alphabet on a specific cipher. It could be many different ciphers rendering all of it in vain, so I figured sinking another 8 hours into it would probably be a bad idea. Don't throw good time after bad, right?
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http://www.secretcodebreaker.com/polyprog.html
I'm using this one, but I haven't found the goddamn key yet.
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Sometimes, as silly as it sounds, merely making educated guesses, gathering what characters you can, and moving down a myriad of pathways from there can be your best bet, especially with a sample too small for true frequency analysis.
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"Vigenere cipher can be unbreakable cipher (this has been proved in 1949 by Claude Elwood Shannon) while maintaining the three rules:
the key used to encrypt the message was greater than or equal encrypted messages
key must be generated in a completely random (there can be no way to play a key based on knowledge of pseudo-random number generators),
key can not be used to encrypt more than one message."
...
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keyword: can
which is debunked by the third hint: key is not completely random, but composed of actual word(s)
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Hints updated. Key is not random and is not equal to or greater than the plaintext's length.
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Rules:
There are no hints provided on the puzzle. If it seems that no one can get it, hints will be provided via update to this post and nowhere else.
Which game is it, you say? Well, you'll have to solve the puzzle, won't you?
That's the fun of it!
Good luck! Ends Tuesday, October 9, 2012 at 7 PM PDT.
http://itstoohard.com/puzzle/ctZewYmC
Ended! Solutions were:
Question #1: Key/Answer: gladiator
Question #2: Answer/plaintext: this one is far easier to solve than the other one
NOTE: There was an error (by me) in the converting of the seventh character of Question #1. This was unintentional and for this, I apologize. However, to look at the bright side, it did help to simulate (just a tiny bit) the difficulty one might have had when it was solved back when the cipher was prevalent in use as there was human error and intentional errors. Future puzzles will be checked ten times over as well as being checked by a third party who will either know nothing of Steam or will be disqualified from entry.
You may wish to view the giveaway's page directly as there are some comments on there that you may find interesting from the first couple solvers: http://www.steamgifts.com/giveaway/C6Bgh/fortix
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