Posted on 10/29/2025 3:15:50 AM PDT by Lonesome in Massachussets
ALERT: Today's is a double header: Two great minds with comments on the same topic. Two diametrically different and valuable insights. You have been warned!
Both use the same cipher key: You only have to solve it once.
UBW JECFERELAFLW PR UBW ZAJJACW PR UENW, XECBU? UBW JECFERELAFLW PR UBW ZAJJACW PR UENW. JP VBWF QPO UBEFY AMPOU EU, UBWXW EJ CXWAU JECFERELAFLW UP UBW ZAJJACW PR UENW...UBWXW EJ JOLB CXWAU JECFERELAFLW UP UBW ZAJJACW PR UENW. - TELW ZXWJEIWFU - YANAKA BAXXEJ
RPX UBPJW PR OJ VBP MWKEWTW EF ZBQJELJ, UBW IEJUEFLUEPF MWUVWWF ZAJU, ZXWJWFU AFI ROUOXW EJ PFKQ A JUOMMPXFKQ ZWXJEJUWFU EKKOJEPF - AKMWXU WEFJUWEF
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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 ASK THE GROUP FOR HELP!
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.
HAL'S CRYPTOGRAM HELPER
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.
XFNWZ WU JLLJIRVMYP MGR LFYWMWXJY MFFY MF UMFL JYY FT JHRIWXJ, OEM PRM WT PFE'IR JV WYYRQJY JYWRV XFHWVQ WVMF JHRIWXJ, PFE'IR DRYXFHR WV DWMG FLRV JIHU JVZ QWNRV RNRIP FLLFIMEVWMP. — HJIKFIWR MJPYFI QIRRVRSolution to previous Puzzle: (select the yellow text with your cursor to read):
COVID IS APPARENTLY THE POLITICAL TOOL TO STOP ALL OF AMERICA, BUT YET IF YOU'RE AN ILLEGAL ALIEN COMING INTO AMERICA, YOU'RE WELCOME IN WITH OPEN ARMS AND GIVEN EVERY OPPORTUNITY. — MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE
HAL'S CRYPTOGRAM HELPER
Or Maybe Not
I thought for certain the topic would be baseball.
Don’t look back. Something might be gaining on you. — Satchel Paige.
GO JAYS!
Some cryptograms have a rule against a letter representing itself.
Hal’s helper doesn’t allow it.
Personally, I think it’s more pure to allow it - every letter should be fair game.
Great two-play, but Hal’s Helper doesn’t work for one letter that represents itself!
I tried a new way of encrypting it (using Excel) because it is too long for the website I normally use. I have a visual check for coincidence (true if no letter matches), but I apparently forgot to check! DRAT!
The “no letter representing itself” “feature” of the German Enigma was indeed a cryptological weakness. The lads (and ladies!) at Bletchley Park would monitor certain stations for formulatic expressions, used as “cribs”, for instance weather stations would send messages with the word WETTERBERICHT (WEATHERREPORT). If a message from a weather station was intercepted before making a “bomb” (electromechanical machine to test possible code wheel settings) run, they would test the hypothesized crib to see if any letters matched the crib. If they did, they knew search would be fruitless.
They were not interested in the weather in Norway, all Enigma machines used the same wheel settings, they were after the wheel settings.
I noticed that, too.
Thanks.
Interesting.
Come to think of it, I have often found the “no letter representing itself” rule to be a weakness, especially when combined with some other inherent weakness, such as the presence of single-letter words, which are almost always “I” or “A”.
Specifically, with that “rule” enforced, a single-letter word with a code value of “A” must be an “I”, and visa versa.
It gets late early out there — Yogi Berra.
Yep, we dodged a bullet.
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