Jenny took a train trip to Cryptovnia. Upon deboarding, she was handed a leaflet by Hugo, the station agent. Printed on the leaflet was the following enigmatic diagram:

L E O S I A X W M J W     Word List:
O N E B A T T I S M T     DZURLBWMW
U J A A L W B E W K R     JMFYYI
V K M V S B G B T Z I     PCKSFQSX
H U S F E T L H E G K     SIAXWMJ
B E H Y Y R W O R A D     SPAVRAGZKMJ
G D I S U Y K T O R D     UWEO
T E C Z I W I P H V E     VKMVSBGB
I R D T H E E N I A N     ITGBHVUO
E H I D D E N O W P O     HFSW
R D S P C K S F Q S X

Hugo confiscated Jenny's passport and informed her that she would not be allowed to return home until she could provide the name of the famous cryptologist hidden within the diagram. In addition, her passport photo would be used as Hugo's personal screensaver unless she deciphered the listed words.

Won't you help Jenny recover her passport and obtain a trip back home by discovering the hidden name and finding the key to deciphering the word list?

(In reply to re: Solution by Mindrod)

After finding each of the nine encrypted words within the hidden wordsquare (in overlapping text-strings in all directions), I circled them.  Next, I strung together each of the remaining letters in the word square, parsed the text into words, and read the result:

LEONE BATTISTA ALBERTI USE THE KEYWORD DISK TO DECIPHER THE NINE HIDDEN WORDS

Next, I looked up Leone Battista Alberti on the internet, and found this site: http://plus.maths.org/issue34/features/ekert/ which explained the famous cryptologist's encrypting circle, and about his invention of polyalphabetic encryption.

Next, because I hadn't yet looked up "Vigenere", I wasted the next couple of hours failing to invent my own decryption tool using MS Excel (which should have worked, if my math had been correct).  Next, I read Mindrod's comment to another member about how the game's title was a clue, and so I Googled "Vigenere", coming up with this site:

http://www.antilles.k12.vi.us/math/cryptotut/vigenere.htm

This site made the final stretch a piece of cake.  It includes a form into which you can enter both the keyword and the word to be decrypted, and it will tell you the result, which is what I did.

Now, how I tried to do it using Excel:

The =Code() function translates any character into it's numerical code.  The =Char() function translates any numerical code into its associated character.  By enterng the nine encrypted words, one letter per cell, into a single row on an Excel spreadsheet, I learned that the characters a-z correspond to values 97-122.  (Capitals A-Z correspond to values 65-90). Now that the letters were converted into values, I could add or subtract a common value (or set of values) and then translate the result back into characters.  I created an "IF" expression which subtracted 26 if the sum of the code and variable exceeded 122, and added 26 if the sum of the code and variable was less than 97.  Thus, I hoped to create a circular relationship between the letters, so that Z+1 = A, and A-1=Z.  The expression looked up the variable in a reference row, into which I finally simply had to enter the keyword relative values (relative to "a"=0).

The formula would add or subtract values for the keyword, "disk" (d=+3, i=+8, s=+18, k=+10); adding 3 to the first cell, 8 to the second cell, 18 to the third, 10 to the fourth, and then repeating the sequence. (Copy, paste, etc.).

My math sucked, however, and I never got the correct result using this method.  But, I've included it, in the interests of "showing my work".

Posted by Spike on 2006-01-22 15:30:05