# Cipher?



## peabody (Mar 11, 2011)

Hey everybody,

This was posted as a challenge in my university's student paper, and for the life of me, I can't solve it or even make a dent in it.

The extent of the puzzle is the following code:

uiw uiw n la ltid mtel teacyihr n heeig sfsst

No other hints or anything, so no idea how to even approach this one. It's not really long enough for statistics. Any help or pointers in the right direction would be greatly appreciated!


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## Stefan (Mar 11, 2011)

So, what do you get if "you" solve the challenge, and how much will our share be?


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## vcuber13 (Mar 11, 2011)

do you need to "decode" it?


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## qqwref (Mar 11, 2011)

Looks like they're expecting you to guess a quote.


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## ahujaavi13 (Mar 11, 2011)

is it a cipher or some messed up, jumbled words?


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## theace (Mar 11, 2011)

Seems to be a cipher. It isn't Vignere though. Ceasar substitution maybe?


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## MaeLSTRoM (Mar 11, 2011)

looks like it. I would say that n = A


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## theace (Mar 11, 2011)

n could also = I


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## ahujaavi13 (Mar 11, 2011)

n = a a or i. That's the only hint. What could be 'la'?


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## theace (Mar 11, 2011)

Depends... Since it follows either an article or a noun, it could be noun (if preceded by "a") or a verb. But neither fit IMO. I checked the 2 letter scrabble words list and nothing seems to fit.

Also, I'd say "e" is a vowel. Any guesses for "s"? Both are quite repetitive.

THIS might help you


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## CubicNL (Mar 11, 2011)

Does it have to be an english text?


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## CubicNL (Mar 11, 2011)

theace said:


> THIS might help you


I did the Caesar cipher with all numbers, so I shifted 1-25, but I didn't even get a reasonable word for the first 2 words: uiw
Btw you get this if you transfer it into numbers: 21923 21923 14 121 1320512 20513259818 14 85597 196191920
I got no idea whether that's useful, but it could be 
And another idea: Does that version of the student paper have a theme, if so, it'll probably have to do something with it.


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## ahujaavi13 (Mar 11, 2011)

It's a dynamic cipher ie value of every alphabet varies with it's position.


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## CubicNL (Mar 11, 2011)

ahujaavi13 said:


> It's a dynamic cipher ie value of every alphabet varies with it's position.


Could you explain it better, I don't understand it


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## ahujaavi13 (Mar 12, 2011)

CubicNL said:


> Could you explain it better, I don't understand it


 
If I'm to encrypt let's say 'speedsolving'. I'll think of a primary key let's say 'avi'. Any word can be chosen as the primary key.

s p e e d s o l v i n g
a v i a v i a v i a v i
--------------------
t l n f z b p h e j j p
--------------------
I learnt this method of encryption in the security class.


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## Stefan (Mar 12, 2011)

ahujaavi13 said:


> It's a dynamic cipher ie value of every alphabet varies with it's position.


 
How do you know? Have you solved it already?


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## ahujaavi13 (Mar 12, 2011)

Stefan said:


> How do you know? Have you solved it already?


 
cocci
emeer
momma
pappi
poppa

These being the only dictionary words possible. All of the 5 words are logically not possible That's why I guessed it kinda dynamic.


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## qqwref (Mar 12, 2011)

Er... sissy? nanny? lulls? You've missed a lot of words.

PS: If it's a Vigenère cipher (what you call a "dynamic" cipher), it's pretty much undecipherable, given the length. It'd be almost certain that more than one keyword would give a meaningful phrase.


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## ahujaavi13 (Mar 12, 2011)

qqwref said:


> Er... sissy? nanny? lulls? You've missed a lot of words.
> 
> PS: If it's a Vigenère cipher (what you call a "dynamic" cipher), it's pretty much undecipherable, given the length. It'd be almost certain that more than one keyword would give a meaningful phrase.



If a word ends with 'y' this means t=y. If you replace t=y in 4th,5th and 6th words, keeping in mind that 1st alphabet of 4th must be the last alphabet of 5th word, you don't get any logical English phrase.
And in case of lulls, t=s. This means s=t. So the word contradicts ie lulls becomes either susss or lulll. That's why I left all these words.


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## theace (Mar 12, 2011)

It cant be Vigenère. Because that kind of cipher works by substituting letters in an orderly fashion. For example, for n=0; (A=A, B=B,...) for n=1; (A=B, B=C,...) for n=2; (A=C, B=D, C=E,...)

Hence there are 26 possible values for n. None of which yield and sensible result (I tried all of them)

Cesar cipher when any letter can be an arbitrarily chosen letter. Therefore, if (A=D), A will ALWAYS be replaced by D in the code. However, D may not be equal to A.


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## qqwref (Mar 12, 2011)

ahujaavi13 said:


> If a word ends with 'y' this means t=y. If you replace t=y in 4th,5th and 6th words, keeping in mind that 1st alphabet of 4th must be the last alphabet of 5th word, you don't get any logical English phrase.


Do you mean you can't think of one, or do you mean you tried all the possibilities?



ahujaavi13 said:


> And in case of lulls, t=s. This means s=t.


Uh, no. No it doesn't.



theace said:


> It cant be Vigenère. Because that kind of cipher works by substituting letters in an orderly fashion. For example, for n=0; (A=A, B=B,...) for n=1; (A=B, B=C,...) for n=2; (A=C, B=D, C=E,...) Hence there are 26 possible values for n...


No, you have your names mixed up. The Vigenère cipher is the "dynamic" one ahujaavi talked about, where you essentially add the plaintext + some short key repeated over and over.


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## theace (Mar 12, 2011)

Yeah, I might have mixed up the names. Anyway, I did try all 26 possibilities for n.

So my guess would be a simple substitution cipher. I think it's called the cesar cipher. The second one I mentioned.


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## qqwref (Mar 12, 2011)

theace said:


> So my guess would be a simple substitution cipher. I think it's called the cesar cipher. The second one I mentioned.


Can you please look stuff up on Wikipedia or something before you post? The Caesar cipher is the one where you shift each letter by a constant amount. That is different from a substitution cipher, which is indeed the second one you mentioned... and which almost everyone has been trying so far, since these types of puzzles almost always use them.


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## ahujaavi13 (Mar 13, 2011)

qqwref said:


> Uh, no. No it doesn't.


if s=t why can't be t=s?


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## theace (Mar 13, 2011)

qqwref said:


> Can you please look stuff up on Wikipedia or something before you post? The Caesar cipher is the one where you shift each letter by a constant amount. That is different from a substitution cipher, which is indeed the second one you mentioned... and which almost everyone has been trying so far, since these types of puzzles almost always use them.


 
Silly me... I've got all the names mixed up. Anyway, so it isn't cesar then.


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## qqwref (Mar 14, 2011)

ahujaavi13 said:


> if s=t why can't be t=s?


It can be, but it doesn't *have* to. I think it's pretty clear that if s=t in this cipher then t cannot be s (unless the last word is "tatts", I suppose).


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