Posted on 02/10/2020 10:22:51 AM PST by nikos1121
Today’s doozy CG is from The Arkansas Gazette.
HCLR MPP VMRBPLD FL EGY, MPP VMYD FL NQLJ. —ZECR CLJHEEB
You can find this little fun word game, to combat early dementia and senility in us baby boomers, in several daily publications.
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.
PLEASE DO NOT post the answer in general comments, but DO post your time and any tips you might give the group on how you solve these puzzles as puzzle solvers love to hear how you made out.
You can certainly send your solution to my private reply, or if you need a hint for today’s Cryptogram.
If you need a little help you can copy the cryptogram and paste it to Hal’s Helper below:
You can then work on the puzzle without using pen and paper.
NO ONE WHO’S IN A POSITION OF SUCCESS HAS GOTTEN THERE WITHOUT SOMEONE GIVING THEM A SHOT. REGINA KING
I just don’t see it...
That took a few minutes - the phraseology is a bit odd (as is the quote itself!) which makes it tougher. But the 2nd word helps.
WHEN ILL KINDLES ME OFT ILL KITS ME PREY or something.
Close but no cigar.
Technically, it’s perfectly valid, and makes almost as much sense.
You’re close. It’s actually:
When too singles me out, too cars me pray.-—John Hogwood
You have a good point! :)
Hmmmmm
I may be concerned if I ‘understood it’.....
Does it work the same if one is wearing rose colored glasses?
The shorter the cryptogram, the more possible solutions, and generally the harder it is. This one reason that cipher keys, like on the enigma, are changed regularly.
Claude Shannon, the inventor of information theory actually had a name for it, unitary index. Most cryptograms posted here have only one valid solution. This was not one of them, although there was only one reasonable solution. This one was also made more difficult by the fact that the language was stilted to the modern ear.
It’s actually the length of the message compared to the complexity of the key. These messages have a moderately low complexity key, monosubstitution alphabets. A Caesar code has very low complexity. Caesar simply substituted A -> B, B->C, ... Z-> A. Any constant shift is called a Caesar code. With a one-time pad, the key is as long as the message. Without the key, any solution is as good as any other, and they are unbreakable in principle without the key.
The Venona messages were supposed to be encrypted with one time pads, but the Soviets got lazy, or stupid, or careless and reused some of the keys (sometime pads) allowing U.S. cryptologists to break a small (but valuable) fraction of the traffic.
You should check out the History Channel on you tube for the Zodiac Killer series. Falls along the lines of what you are talking about. How they finally decrypted his code is pretty slick.
I did see the history channel series. Check this out:
https://www.history.com/news/the-zodiac-ciphers-what-we-know
This is from a post today on free republic. Check it out:
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