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Vigenere's Hidden Word Square (Posted on 2006-01-20) Difficulty: 3 of 5
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?

  Submitted by Mindrod    
Rating: 4.1429 (7 votes)
Solution: (Hide)
Solution:
L E O S I A X W M J W  
O N E B A T T I S M T  
U J A A L W B E W K R  
V K M V S B G B T Z I  
H U S F E T L H E G K  
B E H Y Y R W O R A D  
G D I S U Y K T O R D  
T E C Z I W I P H V E 
I R D T H E E N I A N  
E H I D D E N O W P O  
R D S P C K S F Q S X		
Once the hidden words are identified (the hidden words are shown in bold above), the solution to part II and instructions for part III are provided by the remaining letters in the square: LEON BATTISTA ALBERTI – USE THE KEYWORD “DISK” TO DECIPHER THE NINE HIDDEN WORDS. Alberti employed a polyalphabetic Caesar substitution cipher and a decoder device he invented known as Alberti’s disk. Instead of using Alberti’s method, which switched alphabets at random intervals, this problem uses the keyword “disk”. Let A=0, B=1, C=2, etc. The first letter of the keyword, “D”, indicates that the first letter of the text to be encrypted is shifted 3 places. The second letter of the keyword, “I”, indicates the second letter of the text to be encrypted is shifted 8 places. And so on. Then the pattern is repeated for the next four letters of the text to be encrypted. Solving in this manner, the solution to part III is: DZURLBWMW ARCHITECT JMFYYI GENOVA PCKSFQSX MUSICIAN SIAXWMJ PAINTER SPAVRAGZKMJ PHILOSOPHER UWEO ROME VKMVSBGB SCULPTOR ITGBHVUO FLORENCE HFSW EXAM

Comments: ( You must be logged in to post comments.)
  Subject Author Date
Puzzle ThoughtsK Sengupta2023-06-02 01:19:38
re(3): SolutionMindrod2006-01-22 15:43:08
re(2): SolutionSpike2006-01-22 15:30:05
The keyHugo2006-01-22 10:21:51
re: SolutionMindrod2006-01-21 19:03:43
SolutionSpike2006-01-21 18:35:42
re(4): answerMindy Rodriguez2006-01-21 18:03:34
Hints/Tipsre(3): answerMindy2006-01-21 13:45:44
re(2): answerMindy Rodriguez2006-01-21 07:36:05
re: answerMindrod2006-01-20 20:04:17
re: answerbrianjn2006-01-20 19:20:06
Solutionanswertheresa2006-01-20 19:01:47
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