Solution to our last puzzle:
BLESSED ARE THOSE WHO CAN LAUGH AT THEMSELVES, FOR THEY SHALL NEVER CEASE TO BE AMUSED. SOURCE UNKNOWN
Posted on 02/17/2020 3:50:45 AM PST by nikos1121
Today’s doozy CG is from The Arkansas Gazette. 10 minutes or less is an achievement worth celebrating. Author well known.
XNKDTLP, EFKGNDF NDK ZLFJYXNJO GHNJ, YHJJTD MF
IJRNCFE, XTZFCFL, NS SHYFE ZNDX YTILHOF, JFFE JTD
MF RNCFE HOHNJ.
- WHPH HJOFRTI
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.
Solution to our last puzzle:
BLESSED ARE THOSE WHO CAN LAUGH AT THEMSELVES, FOR THEY SHALL NEVER CEASE TO BE AMUSED. SOURCE UNKNOWN
I took a desperate guess at the author. Turns out I was right.
The second time as farce.
Based on the book I referenced yesterday I wrote an octave script to identify vowels. It was somewhat useful today. Here are the plaintext candidate vowels, and their “vowel score”:
E 22
A 18
S 15
I 14
O 12
There can be more or less than five “vowels” based on this algorithm. These are all the letters with positive scores. I am not sure that this script was particularly useful in this instance, but it was fun to apply it. It did bolster my confidence.
I got it by guessing JFFE JTD MF, with the vowel score adding a little confidence, and later when substituting for I, though the misidentification of S as a vowel was a red herring. Testing with longer texts (whether the data is encrypted or not does not affect the statistics) shows reasonably good results, but R and W can score as vowels as well. With long texts E A I O U generally stand out, though U may score lower than R or W.
2 min. Most common letter, then the word after the 2nd comma, then the word after that...
I think you’re ready for Wheel of Fortune...
I had to pick the huge dictionary after the default medium one failed to give a result.
OK, I admit that I cheated like a Democrat on election day.
Why not use Hal’s CG Helper?
There is a vast difference between theoretical knowledge and practical ability, as I am sure you know. The discussion of monoalphabetic substitution codes in the book I referenced yesterday was interesting, but of only limited practical application for cryptoquotes. There are websites that offer machine based dictionary searches than can solve just about any crytoquote in a fraction of a second. Quotes with non-standard spelling or foreign words or names may fail, but one can get around that by entering only part of the quote.
Where is the fun in that, and it’s cheating? I would like to be able to get back to where I was forty years ago and do these in my head without a writing implement, much less a computer. Tooling around with scripts like “vowelsniffer.m” is for amusement.
Thanks for challenge.
Common letter, then the ninth word opened up the rest.
http://rumkin.com/tools/cipher/cryptogram-solver.php failed because you included IJRNCFE. The author’s name was not an impediment. Try the medium dictionary again without that word. I do not recommend cheating, but if you just can’t wait a day for the solution, try only entering part of the quote, and do not enter the author’s name, though in this case that was not an issue.
I don’t care for Hal’s CG Helper, I made an Excel spreadsheet that formats the text and produces a histogram (which Hal’s CG Helper does), so that isn’t really cheating. I just prefer my format. My spreadsheet also explicitly identifies the key, or substitutions. I also added a tab that allows me to cast any text into a cryptoquote, using any key, including today’s, provided I fill in substitutions not used in the original quote. Or it will generate a random substitution alphabet if I like.
My “vowel sniffer” script was just for amusement and insight. It doesn’t really provide any decisive advantage.
I use Hal, only when I’m like in bed or on the road, and don’t have pen and paper....
I know there are tons of people, you’re probably one of them, who can do these in their head...
Sometimes you can, like the CG a few days ago. That one was fairly easy.
Took longer than expected. Then I guessed at the author. For some reason, I never cared for that author.
Happy, Happy, Happy, after successful guessing
1) Common vowel
2) Tried the “ing” move
3) Got the last word.
4) Then the author
The rest fell into place
I thought this was a tough one. I should have recognized the author, as it’s a common one, almost on here four to five times per year...
Good job!!!
That took me a while. I kind of just bumbled around letter by letter till I identified the E and the N. Then I was off to the races.
You guessed that author? Full of words that are not common... fun, though it took me a bit to get going on it. A history of bad guesses preceded the solution.
Tough indeed! It probably took me about 8 minutes today. I was guessing at words and finally got the sixth word to stick and it opened up a couple of other words, etc.
Yes. Only one I could think of with the letter combo.
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