Summer Update

Ha! Beat me to it!

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Maybe the codex keeps offering choices until it’s cracked?

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Perhaps good ol Sabes is giving us a hand :slight_smile:

Can’t say I mind having the help but if this leads to more puzzles I will curse his name for at least an hour

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Oh, it’s puzzles all the way down my friend

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I’ll take any puzzles pls thanks I love doing ciphers, although usually I’m the one making them.
Are these words familiar in any way? Do they go together? Are they just randomly generated? Are we taking a giant personality quiz as like a journal based captcha system? I’ve got a lot of questions for Saberlane or, I guess, the journal? How does it work?

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Oh yeah, @Tinker is right, puzzles forever. Luckily, the Powers Who Be, while not very good at being forthcoming, at least change up the puzzles to give us all something to be good at.

Theoretically. I’m not sure I’ve found my thing to be good at, but it’s certainly not ciphers…maybe I need to get rid of my wife & kid to spend more time here :wink:

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I’m with ya. I’m cipher support cheer squad :joy:

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So… frequency of letters occurring… T, P, B, L, and U are the most frequent letters.

Double P happens twice in the cipher, and the first time it occurs right next to a double T.

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The double letters keep throwing me!

A quick search tells me that the top three bigrams are LL, SS, and EE. Following that there’s OO, TT, FF, PP, and RR, which happen much less frequently.
E is the most common letter in English, so I think p-E makes the most sense. Then t-L in our original SNARL replacement. KK also happens twice, and we even get a double X which becomes a double A-probably a word split.

Here’s the cipher after the SNARL replacement then the p-E switch:

wlkycwseseyhaeNeofeSvAavznwfzNzSAnwanjEacquLuSNjkiRlALeNjEAzfhghkzcqaLguRAkkwcnEfaiScNqAbonlSNeskviiAvawyLevjwslkRkiEzlvbRAfaosgkjsAgvjfSkeLaEAqkRqqRLLjRcykkAAvblqSsqolEliEbnNaaeShqESgihaeNceeLSkjAEsjoaevvNyyoyizifNShuvSNjsnvA
SNARL

I can’t find any pattern, but I’m also not too great at finding patterns until they resemble English a bit more.

I have to admit that at this point in time I’m keeping some of my letter pairs around just because I like them, not because they’ve gotten me anywhere. I’ve got the list of what I’m working on and I’ll try some different things today. I’ve also put the cipher through some online tools to check for foreign languages and haven’t come up with anything, although I’m unfamiliar with German so I can’t rule that out. I think having whatever out next puzzle is is gonna be the important part.

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There are only 4 ‘F’ in there. Based on the positioning… I like f > Y. It’s the only one that makes sense to me.

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Should we go ahead and write ‘ashore’ in our journal and see what happens?

Think I’m barking up the wrong tree, but I got it to say ‘boreal’ up top. Closest I’ve come to any sort of comprehension right now.
Also got BRB and if we’re using chatspeak this is gonna be rough OTL

wEBycwseseyhaeNeofeSvAavznwfzNzSAnwanjpacquLuSNjBOREALeNjpAzfhghBzcqaLguRABBwcnpfaOScNqAbonESNesBvOOAvawyLevjwsEBRBOpzEvbRAfaosgBjsAgvjfSBeLapAqBRqqRLLjRcyBBAAvbEqSsqoEpEOpbnNaaeShqpSgOhaeNceeLSBjApsjoaevvNyyoyOzOfNShuvSNjsnvA
SNARL

SNARL swap non-reversed, then k-B, i-O, and l-E.
However that leaves us with…a lot of 'b’s, and some letter patterns I’m not too fond of. Been playing too many viking games and staring at the northern lights, it’s got me thinking about nothing else.

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Morning Mounties, scratching out Easing and Hourly and writing in Ashore.

I’ll let you know what happens. :eaves:

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Gav just checked and found:

lxgftr
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So…I definitely think this must be a two-stage cipher. If you look at each key word and what it’s coded to, either forwards or backwords, the two codes contradict.

where “a” is coded to “x” from snarl, but “l” or “r” from ashore, for example

Edit: my instinct says that we should try to decode by snarl first, and then ashore…but there is still the forwards-backwards decision…personally, I would say that the snarl set would need to be reversed per precedent…but for ashore we only have the single word so I’m not so sure.

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Huh… :brandonthinking:

If this is a second key to the snarl cryptogram, no wonder we weren’t getting very far, it looks like the letters aren’t decoded forward or backward!

Edit: and once again, I am the slower typist. :sweat_smile:

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Ok awesome! Now we just have to figure out how the two fit together. Do we replace the conflicting letters with the ASHORE letters, or do we simply use ASHORE in place of SNARL?

Here’s the code using first the SNARL decode and then ASHORE, replacing letters from the first with the second and with no reversing:

wlkycwseseyhaeEeoOeSvAavznwOzEzSAnwanjpacquAuSEjkiRlAAeEjpAzOhHhkzcqaAHuRAkkwcnpOaiScEqAbonlSEeskviiAvawyAevjwslkRkipzlvbRAOaosHkjsAHvjOSkeAapAqkRqqRAAjRcykkAAvblqSsqolplipbnEaaeShqpSHihaeEceeASkjApsjoaevvEyyoyiziOEShuvSEjsnvA
SEARA

And here’s the code with the forward ASHORE replacement and no other shenanigans.

wAkycwseseyhaeEeoOedvSavznwOzEzdSnwanjpacquRudEjkimASReEjpSzOhHhkzcqaRHumSkkwcnpOaidcEqSbonAdEeskviiSvawyRevjwsAkmkipzAvbmSOaosHkjsSHvjOdkeRapSqkmqqmRRjmcykkSSvbAqdsqoApAipbnEaaedhqpdHihaeEceeRdkjSpsjoaevvEyyoyiziOEdhuvdEjsnvS

Any ideas? I’ll keep poking it but today is my busiest day so I won’t have a lot of down time until exams start tomorrow, and I think I’ve been staring at this for a bit too long lately.

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Few things I’ve noticed from my background with spending way too many days on cryptoanalysis forums.

The text is way too ‘clean’. In 226 characters of cypher text all 26 letters are represented, with the lowest few being present 4 times each. In english in 226 characters there’s only a 1 in 5 chance of there being a ‘Q’ or a ‘Z’ in the final product and this would have 4 of each at least.

There’s a number you can (well a program can, I can’t) calculate called the ‘Index of Coincidence.’ Basically it’s a way to turn a string of numbers and it’s frequency analysis into a single number so you can compare it to other ciphers/. It ranges from 0 to 1.

For example the string ‘aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa’ would have an Index of Coincidence 1. It’s 100% coincidence.

On the other hand standard english text with it’s frequency analysis is around 0.070.

Pure random text is 0.0385 on average.

These 226 characters have an IOC of 0.03862. Almost identical to random distribution.

(For the curious the IOC of the first cipher we got was 0.06373 indicating it was probably just a simple substitution of english.)

NOTE: I’m not saying this isn’t perfectly solvable, and I’m not saying it’s really random text. It’s just hidden really well, which may be why we’re getting mutiple clues.

Btw everything I know if IOC can be summarized better than I ever could at https://www.dcode.fr/index-coincidence

So I’m guessing this is definitely encoded in different ways or the same way multiple times. I’ve toyed with ideas like the odd chracters using the snarl substitution and the even ones using ashore. But there’s not too much overlap to make that dog hunt so far.

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Oh that is super interesting! Is it possible to run different languages through? I managed to get a few Scots Gaelic words to show up, although I think that’s more by chance and me mucking about than the text being in Scots.
I’ve been playing with a few things right now and still can’t get more than the given decodes, so I’m definitely missing something. I’ll be trying out a few different forward/reverse combos.
I think, for our overlapping decodes, it could be either/or. I’ve been inputting in both letters with a / between which makes it harder for me to spot patterns. If it’s a case of having to choose between the two letters on a case-by-case basis, though, having both there makes it easier.

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From my random 5 min late night cipher research: Double transposition cipher? Was one of the most secure hand ciphers in WWII, can use multiple keywords. There’s an interesting method of lining up the message in columns based on the keyword, can be repeated ad infinitum with as many keywords as you want. Would make sense with how quickly the second word was given. Not sure how it might fit with the letters given, or if anyone has tried that yet though :thinking:

We’ll see if I get some time tomorrow to experiment; otherwise anyone else feel free to run with it.

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And we have new choices!

Choose:
Included, asserted, or offended.

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