Posted on 05/10/2020 5:44:35 AM PDT by nikos1121
F BIHK NCTKYD LXLC DHIN BQK TLDK MINDIHB ID
MKHBLFGBFKT BQHIREQ NC YIOK DIH BQK BHRBQ; LGS
BHRBQ HKXLHSKS NK.
- TFNIGK SK VKLROIFH
The way it works is a letter stands for another letter. For example: AXYDLBAAXR is LONGFELLOW (does not apply to today's cryptogram).
Beware, the game is very addictive. If this is your first time, don't be intimidated, you’ll be solving them all within a few days. If you’re stumped, take a break and return to it.
PLEASE DO NOT post the answer in general comments, but DO post your time and how you made out.
You can certainly send your solution to my private reply, or if you need a hint for today’s Cryptogram.
I suggest printing these out and work them on paper. If you need a little help you can copy and paste it to Hal’s Helper below.
You can then work on the puzzle without using pen and paper, but I recommend that you do NOT look at the letter counter.
One last request. Feel free to post a fun or clever clue, the more tangential to the quotation the better, but please don’t put the actual words of the quote in the clue.
May 8 THAT MEN DO NOT LEARN VERY MUCH FROM THE LESSONS OF HISTORY IS THE MOST IMPORTANT OF ALL THE LESSONS OF HISTORY. —ALDOUS HUXLEY
May 9 PEACE AND JUSTICE ARE TWO SIDES OF THE SAME COIN. —DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER
Letter frequency will not deceive you on this one.
Got it. I wasn’t sure I would, but the solution will out...
Huh. For once I didn’t even look at letter frequency.
Common letter, some playing with short words until I got the author. Then it was easy.
Yep. This worked for me too.
About two minutes, it seems like the longer puzzles provide more clues than a short pithy one.
All things considered this was an EZ one.
Once you know it, it will set you free.
(At least ala the author)
3 min or so. Not sure how.
Claude Shannon would agree. Shannon, the inventor of information theory, wrote a classified paper in 1945 on cryptography. Shannon coined the term, "unicity distance" to denote the amount text one needs in a cipher message to unambiguously reconstruct the plain text. For a monoalphabetic substitution cipher (like a these) in English, it's about 25 characters, on average, without any gimmes like spaces or punctuation. Spaces and punctuation make it easier.
Use of a one-time pad sets the distance to infinity. The code is unbreakable. What is surprising is that reuse of a one-time pad reduces the unicity distance to about 15 characters(!). The Venona decrypts were only possible because the Russians reused one-time pads, making them some-time pads. Even one reuse defeats the purpose. They must have been hoping that the Americans were not paying attention.
Less than 2 minutes. Get the first letter, and it’s smooth sailing from there.
Snooty, self-congratulatory remark. Yes, it does sound like something a French woman would say. (Hope that’s not too much hint) =)
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