WATAE TXLAL PDIBI MGTBU YBTMM FJBJW KBEIZ SGLZQ CCOCT XMQHM QSLFS
AOBFX QQRCK CJSME XFHLT GYSJN QEQUM FNPIZ ZMCWE PXQOD UIDLO SXLCV
CGIWI UIVYC HLYAE TKYKY RVOVZ FJWAR RCYCN SSJNN ADVZB BMQJQ UVGKC
UCPVN BGRZA EVOMF THBSK OZUYQ QDGUO FUIAT XOWPN QESJM MUHHU XBTMM
NYGYF YFNFH VIATB UOHPD QVJAT AEYLT MQTLE EXBTH MMYCT BDDAX

Determine what this cipher says, and the method of encryption, using the following hints:

• It is not a simple substitution cipher.
• Both the original plain text message and the encrypted message contain 270 characters (maybe with meaningless filler characters at the end).
• Only one rather simple method of encryption has been used.
• The encryption method is fairly robust. In other words, an error (while encrypting or decrypting) does not scramble the entire remaining message. Some very complicated ciphers have this problem.
• In the encrypted text, M and T appear most often, and R appears least often (I do not think these facts help at all).
• Both the original plain text and the encrypted message read from left to right.
• You might be able to guess the full text after determining only the first three words.

It's not a simple substitution, but that obviously doesn't mean that there can't be a system for substituting. Letters could be changed based on their position in each five letter word, for instance. Moving position 1 by 1 up or down, 2 by 2 up or down and so on generates nothing, however. Might still be a possible path to follow, though.

There are either the same or less numbers in the encrypted version. This means that we won't be grouping chunks of encryption to make single letters. Specifically, the five letter "words" aren't going to be letters.

The title could just be a title, but my guess is that it's the puzzle key (it is just too perfectly five groups of five). I tried setting up a substitution like this:

Key : PGKKW XIMAF TNEGA NFYGZ TMUIV
Txt : WATAE TXLAL PDIBI MGTBU YBTMM

But couldn't get anything usful out of it.

Then I randomly tried

Key : PPPPP GGGGG KKKKK KKKKK WWWWW
Txt : WATAE TXLAL PDIBI MGTBU YBTMM

and got

___ : GODOA CDEFE EGBIB BDIIJ BUCJJ

Which is still meaningless, but now contains a surprising number of vowels, far more than would be expected were it random. This might mean that I'm heading in the right direction, but quite possibly it's just chance. Will have to see if the trend continues with the rest of the text.

Look forward to seeing if anyone else is coming up with anything.

PS- How do I get a monospaced font? Using <font> tags doesn't seem to work.

Posted by Sam on 2003-12-05 22:36:40