anarres
anarchist revolutionary
Hmm - another question.
Is the intended translation in to text, and is it English text?
Is the intended translation in to text, and is it English text?
Challenge! Decode this text
- Thread starter Steph
- Start date
Urk, I suck at cryptology. Use of logarithmic functions makes my head swirl.
You have kept the algorithm secret, so there is no key.
Characters in ciphertext to appear between spaces are: = - ! @ ^ \ Q X Z S ô
Characters in English to appear between spaces are: A a I and numeric digits
Q appears often. It is tantalising to think Q should shift to A, and that X should shift to I but this does not work.
Does the text contain many numbers? Is it case sensitive? Can a character in the ciphertext represent more than one character in English text?
Experience tells me someone will post the answer before I finish. My laptop (with broken cooling) overheats too easily so it cannot be used to help
General questions: Does it use an alternative character set, does it reflect keyboard layout, or use byte shifting in any form?
You have kept the algorithm secret, so there is no key.
Steph said:
Characters in ciphertext to appear between spaces are: = - ! @ ^ \ Q X Z S ô
Characters in English to appear between spaces are: A a I and numeric digits
Q appears often. It is tantalising to think Q should shift to A, and that X should shift to I but this does not work.
Does the text contain many numbers? Is it case sensitive? Can a character in the ciphertext represent more than one character in English text?
Experience tells me someone will post the answer before I finish. My laptop (with broken cooling) overheats too easily so it cannot be used to help
Steph said:
General questions: Does it use an alternative character set, does it reflect keyboard layout, or use byte shifting in any form?
characters that appear between spaces in english arent only A,a and I. What do you mean? g,d and various other characters are very common as endings to english words.
I like cryptology, although i am not very skilled at it. Are there numbers in the text as well?
the only thing that is certain, if there arent numbers in the text OR if even if there are numbers they arent altered, is that @ can only mean A or I, since no other single letter word in english exists.
edit: i realised that this was what the previous poster also meant :shakehead
Originally i thought that he viewed those characters as simple endings to full words.
If @ can also mean another symbol it can also be &. Since every cryprographised word is only one word then @ cannot be altering its meaning in relation to anything else.
If there are no numbers that are altered (eg 1=x) then -, !, @ etc can only mean the same symbols at least some of the times (out of A, I, &). If, however, there are numbers, then they can each mean A, I, & and numbers, and also * and /.
So now i almost completely wrote the same thing as the last poster!
I like cryptology, although i am not very skilled at it. Are there numbers in the text as well?
the only thing that is certain, if there arent numbers in the text OR if even if there are numbers they arent altered, is that @ can only mean A or I, since no other single letter word in english exists.
edit: i realised that this was what the previous poster also meant :shakehead
Originally i thought that he viewed those characters as simple endings to full words.
If @ can also mean another symbol it can also be &. Since every cryprographised word is only one word then @ cannot be altering its meaning in relation to anything else.
If there are no numbers that are altered (eg 1=x) then -, !, @ etc can only mean the same symbols at least some of the times (out of A, I, &). If, however, there are numbers, then they can each mean A, I, & and numbers, and also * and /.
So now i almost completely wrote the same thing as the last poster!
Masquerouge
Deity
Is the fact that some letters are sometimes capitalized sometimes not, important ?
Even if it's not case-sensitive, we appear to have well over the expected 26 characters (obviously, I suppose). The following characters (outside the alphabet, assuming not case-sensitive) all appear in the text:
-!@#$%^&*(,:;\`{|~'+=£¥
The only symbol from a shifted numeral to conspicuously not appear is ')' (above zero), and zero also corresponds to the only numeral to not appear in the coded text as well. Are we to presume from this that case may not matter, and/or that if it doesn't, numerals and their corresponding symbol may be interchangeable?
If (big if) that is the case, would equating like characters follow (e.g. are these all possibly equivalent: O,o,ô,Ø?)? (My thinking being that something along those lines may get us closer to our expected 26-ish characters, but I may well be way off the mark.)
-!@#$%^&*(,:;\`{|~'+=£¥
The only symbol from a shifted numeral to conspicuously not appear is ')' (above zero), and zero also corresponds to the only numeral to not appear in the coded text as well. Are we to presume from this that case may not matter, and/or that if it doesn't, numerals and their corresponding symbol may be interchangeable?
If (big if) that is the case, would equating like characters follow (e.g. are these all possibly equivalent: O,o,ô,Ø?)? (My thinking being that something along those lines may get us closer to our expected 26-ish characters, but I may well be way off the mark.)
Gelion
Retired Captain
I am on it....
This may be to much of a giveaway, but are have spaces also been given a new charcter?
Also,a majorly repeating 'word'
2^x#5 This one seems to maybe be the subject of the passage
One final thought, maybe all the Caps symbols and repeating words are diversions.
Also,a majorly repeating 'word'
2^x#5 This one seems to maybe be the subject of the passage
One final thought, maybe all the Caps symbols and repeating words are diversions.
Gelion
Retired Captain
@Steph....
Is it a normal English text?
Are the spaces aligned as they are? I.e. spaces represent spaces?
This is 1:1: substitution? In that case I already uncovered one letter
Any chance of us knowning what the text is about?
Is it a normal English text?
Are the spaces aligned as they are? I.e. spaces represent spaces?
This is 1:1: substitution? In that case I already uncovered one letter
Any chance of us knowning what the text is about?
Masquerouge
Deity
Oh, are two words closely related when ciphered, like |TY and |Tt, also closely related when deciphered ?
I think of it as an extended alphabet (or character set).Sparta said:
However, Steph specifically said that it does not involve ASCII which is the standard character set used in computing. Other character sets exist, or a new one could be made just for this puzzle.
The answer will be simpler than that. It is one of those classic
scenarios.
Masquerouge
Deity
The only word to have only letters is eHmHnGb, and you find it twice.
stormbind said:I think we have been mislead about the influence of spaces
I agree - I'm confused as to how the number of single-character words can be so high (unless they are to be numerals??).
Edit: @Stormbind: Regarding your last commentary, I follow what you're saying, but I'm just wondering about whether letter case has any involvement at all or not (and in turn if not, whether the symbols over number keys would equate to their respective number). If we were talking like an ASCII character set, I think I'm wondering if CHAR(n)=CHAR(n-32), IIRC. I've probably got that wrong too though, it's been so long ...
Edit Edit: You're right -
Masquerouge
Deity
Sparta said:
I can't find the * actually.
And the two occurences of x^2 are followed by Q ! Incredible. The first four paragraphs all end with \
|T seems to be the most commonly repeated thing in this text.
You're right, Masquerouge, there is no '*' - sorry about that. So thus far the following are not included, at least according to what I've got:
)
*
p/P
k/K
FWIW, the letter "T", if taken to be not case-sensitive, appears far more than any other letter (almost oddly so), at 39 instances out of 344 'letter' characters (i.e. I have not counted symbols or numbers yet (which are many) - in theory, I'm actually supposed to be working right now).
This 'phrase' "lTt lT" though, would seem (to me) to be tough on the non-case-sensitive case. If "T" were not case sensitive, and were in turn the most popular character, how could "zxx zx" make any sense? Now I'm starting to wonder again if case may actually be a criterion ...
)
*
p/P
k/K
FWIW, the letter "T", if taken to be not case-sensitive, appears far more than any other letter (almost oddly so), at 39 instances out of 344 'letter' characters (i.e. I have not counted symbols or numbers yet (which are many) - in theory, I'm actually supposed to be working right now).
This 'phrase' "lTt lT" though, would seem (to me) to be tough on the non-case-sensitive case. If "T" were not case sensitive, and were in turn the most popular character, how could "zxx zx" make any sense? Now I'm starting to wonder again if case may actually be a criterion ...
Mathilda
Queen
I hope not too much is based on what the layout of a keyboard is, as keyboards vary from country to country.
RoddyVR
Veteran Board NESer
i took every "word" in there, and counted how often each repeats, here's the list.
every other word in there is there only once.
also, i have a question. the carrige returns (paragraph marks), can they be ignored? or are they part of hte cypher. the reason i ask is that when i post that text into excell (to do all the counting for me) it trunkates the carrige returns (and instead just splits the cells at those points) and i want to make if i should try to force it to keep the returs in there.
Code:
10
.. =
7
.. \
7
.. lT
6
.. !
6
.. @
5
.. Q
4
.. -
4
.. 2^x#5
4
.. nE£
4
.. Z
3
.. ~N6z|
3
.. lEÅ
3
.. lT¥
3
.. w&1
2
..
2
.. 17Ez|
2
.. 4#1
2
.. 4%,(
2
.. 4%+
2
.. eH6
2
.. eHmHnGb
2
.. eRM
2
.. nR7O
2
.. nT4
2
.. S
2
.. wØ
2
.. x^2also, i have a question. the carrige returns (paragraph marks), can they be ignored? or are they part of hte cypher. the reason i ask is that when i post that text into excell (to do all the counting for me) it trunkates the carrige returns (and instead just splits the cells at those points) and i want to make if i should try to force it to keep the returs in there.
RoddyVR
Veteran Board NESer
did same thing for characters. not counting the 4 or 5 carriege returns, and the 184 spaces, there are:
Code:
29
1
29
t
24
5
24
e
20
6
20
7
20
n
18
2
15
^
15
b
15
z
14
4
14
#
14
x
13
l
13
M
12
~
12
j
12
O
12
R
11
%
10
$
10
H
10
U
9
Å
9
Y
8
8
8
|
8
G
8
q
8
w
7
C
6
@
6
\
6
+
6
=
5
Ú
4
(
4
,
4
4
£
4
Ø
3
!
3
&
3
F
2
3
2
-
2
;
2
2
`
2
D
2
i
2
Ù
2
V
1
9
1
:
1
{
1
1
¥
1
ô
1
S
1
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