Caesar Cypher & The Substitutions have been on tour, and as tradition dictates, the souvenir tour T-shirt bears a list of the cities visited on the back. But of course, since we're talking about one of Europe's leading cryptographic jazz combos, the list is in code:

080476
410488
631428083607
735616461
440401478
235476731
540631
616431
461546410

The list contains no information apart from the city names. Can you work out their itinerary?

The numbers appear in this frequency:

1 - 11,   2 - 2,   3 - 7,   4 - 15,   5 - 4,
6 - 12,   7 - 6,   8 - 6,   9 - 0,   0 - 9

 

The following 3 digit combinatinos appear only once:

080, 735, 440, 235, 540, 488, 428, 401, 431, 546, 083, 478, 731, 607

The follwing 3-digit combinations appear exactly twice:

410, 631, 616, 461, 476

 

If we use a straight alphabet and assign the letter A=1, b=2, etc. then multiply the values of the letters in a given city name, then Paris = 49248, Berlin = 272160, and London = 2116800.  If we use a reverse alphabet where A=26, B=25, etc and multiply the letter values in some city names, then Paris = 370656, Berlin = 17374500 and London = 8395920.

Maybe I need to try out some different city names, or maybe I need a new alphabet?

 

I'm thinking a D3 shouldn't end up being quite this involved...

Posted by Erik O. on 2004-11-05 10:50:11