Wednesday, 4 September 2013

Reverse Engineer These Five Ciphers


This is the latest material I have made for my Codes and Ciphers club. It involves showing both the ciphertext and the plaintext for messages using each of five ciphers alongside another ciphertext that uses the same cipher (the process and the key are identical).


1.1.1/GERAIHSCMASTISEETSES
1.1.2/RBOOTMYOOIKRYAFCE
1.2.1/this is a secret message
1.2.2/UNDEFINED/DIFF.3
2.1.1/RELOCATED

2.1.2/RELOCATED
2.2.1/we do not care for those people and their reckless sense of unchecked optimism
2.2.2/UNDEFINED/DIFF.3
3.1.1/XTVZMGBKVESQXYCEWGAYEMBRFWNMQEXYKMHJHKFZS
3.1.2/YMKPOQYYSZWPTRVLHUXPZOVGLRFUCETW
3.2.1/every time we deal with an enemy we create two more
3.2.2/UNDEFINED/DIFF.1
4.1.1/4423.1544.1532.3244.4415.1144.2315.3232.4412.5545.2315.4415.1144.2335.4315
4.1.2/3355.4435.3413.1132.3251.3353.1144.1235.4334.2434.3435.5215.3312.1543
4.2.1/she sells sea shells by the sea shore

4.2.2/UNDEFINED/DIFF.1
5.1.1/10100.11100.11201.22202.32213.32214.43215.44316.44417.55417.56418.56429.57540.67651.68652.69752.70852.80852.80853.91854.91964.93075.103085.104086.114186
5.1.2/110.1221.11321.12321.12322.12422.22533.22534.32545.42556.42657.43767.53867.63967.65078.75088.76199.86210.96221.97331.97432.108432.118532
5.2.1/they say mexico will pay for it
5.2.2/UNDEFINED/DIFF.2

Hint 1



Using the first cipher, "nothing beats waffles" becomes "sftgtonaaehnibsewfl".




Hint 2



Each "key" in the second cipher is meaningful, but not every part of each key is meaningful.



e



Answer



Cipher #1 (from @Gareth McCaughan's answer)


Solution:



I TOOK MORAY BY FORCE




Cipher #2 (from @Gareth McCaughan's answer)


Solution:



I WAS APPOINTED MARSHAL OF MORAY



For reasoning for the above two solutions, see Gareth's answer.




Cipher #3


How to decipher:




It is a regular Vigenére cipher. We can try what is the key/passphrase being used by inserting the letters one-by-one until the prefix match. The key/passphrase for this one is "TYRION".



The secret message:



Fothad fabricated the rights to Moray.



Cipher #4


How to decipher:




Create this table:


A B C D E
F G H I J
K L M N O
P Q R S T
U V W X Y

Then for every two digits, it tells the pair of row and column. So, "4423.1544" is "SHES".

The secret message:



My son Callum was born in November.




Cipher #5


How to decipher:



If you separate each number by dots, try to subtract the next one with the previous one. So "10100.11100.11201.22202.32213" will result in "10100.1000.101.11001.10011".

After that, we can just decode the binary to number in alphabet, so "10100.1000.101.11001.10011" will be "THEYS".



The secret message:



Fothad was sent to Rossnext.




No comments:

Post a Comment

Understanding Stagnation point in pitot fluid

What is stagnation point in fluid mechanics. At the open end of the pitot tube the velocity of the fluid becomes zero.But that should result...