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@Madness when finding keyword –> alphabet, will the keyword give the exact alphabet (which I do know) or is the produced alphabet one that can be ‘rotated’ to find the actual one?
@Harry thanks a lot. I found a way with the help of my team and we solved the cipher, eventually!
Very fun challenges this year. I hope to be back and carry on at the next competition!
[Well done, that is great news! Next year is the 20th Anniversary competition! Harry]
@f6exb, I suggest you devise some sort of dictionary search to find the word to match the pattern you found.
@mattyrat2027, it matches exactly.It can indeed be done with Excel 🙂 otherwise I stand no chance as I don’t know any programming stuff!
So if I encrypt the crib “tential” ect. with an unmixed key all I have to do is to find where the crib matches the cipher text and hey presto there’s the key?
For those wondering about formation of the key, one of the case files for the Wheatstone device describes creation of the key by entering the characters into a grid and reading them off in a particular way. I believe the trick in this case is that grid is not populated with a keyword but with a pattern. The pattern is complex enough that you could never guess it in a million years. It took me a while to spot even when it was staring me in the face. But at the same time the pattern is simple enough that an agent in the field could remember it – I can still write it from memory 3 weeks later. For the dimensions of the grid there are not many factors of 28.
I love the way these ciphers can always be performed by an operative with very little equipment (usually just paper & pen) and a secret in their heads. It is often as much of a thrill to discover the secret as it is to decode the message.
Another great set of challenges this year. Thank you to all involved.
After reading #52846 and the answer to mattyrat2027, I have corrected the code word pattern to EBFGEACD. But after checking some sites, I can’t find the right word.
I follow every instructions in the manual, I cross my ‘t’s and dots m ‘i’s and for what! To discover that I wasted 5 hours 10 minutes and counting for a wild goose chase leaving me fruitless and no insight and back to square one. What did I do wrong! I think I found the keyword in some permutation: […] (Harry please tell me if this was right in a space left here: and please delete that [ho ho ho, Harry]) and for that keyword I tried all 28 permutations which yielded nothing, tried back to front. I even tried transposition! And Madness claims there is not enough suffering… YEAH RIGHT! Please old ciphering wizards, grand masters, gods even angels, please light this path for me oh great ones. D; (P.S. Anybody know any good herbal recipes that stop a head-ache, my head is almost literally being split in two!
@18goyaan, try a tea from crushed fennel or anise seeds, sweetened with agave syrup.
The key was generated from the keyword by the method of Bazeries (see the document in the case files for an example).
If you can figure out the pattern, then you know the length of the keyword and the alphabetical order of its letters.
Just like with a transposition key, you can then search the dictionary for a match. BTW, the spyclists hinted at
what sort of word they would use in an earlier message.@Madness:
Do you mean 3B as I asked before ?BTW, the spyclists hinted at
what sort of word they would use in an earlier message.“Can you find an eight letter english word which you can change by altering the order of its letters to produce four other different english words?”
Really wow! I wrote out the key column-wise in 4×7 grid which resulted in a pattern that was definitely non-random and reasonably easy to remember. I thought that was all there was to it. Your deviousness astounds me.
.Terrific – I cannot get over how clever the whole thing is, the cipher and the story. Overall, hats off to those who solved any part of the challenge, particularly 7B. Please could someone clarify that that was the end and there aren’t any extra challenges… Maybe there is.another cipher hidden where you least expect it, in the plaintext, or right down to the letters in this post? (If anyone finds anything let me know). Remaining for me to find is the one thing that I set out for in the first place. Keys. So, I’ll now head off to find the keyword to 7B, using the help from @Madness and @F6exb
Thanks and have a great New Year
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