Can you decipher the following messages? They don't necessarily use the same coding pattern.

1) irrew frg xprt. mf ucpoy jre.
2) uodakw tsf ioaivdh mt skjdo ishd

Once you’ve deciphered them, can you figure out the complete coding patterns? What is going on here? Can you now encode the following words using the corresponding coding patterns?

1) wax
2) zip

The title of the puzzle says ‘,.pyf versus h.soav, maybe the first ‘ shouldn' t be counted, so that it is a one to one substitution thing.  I wouldn't count to much on that.  Anyway nikki doesn't only use letters.  In ASCII, the signs are not adjacent to letters, which makes it unlikely that simple substitution code(s) is used.

The puzzle also says
don't necessarily use the same coding pattern.
using the corresponding coding patterns?
So the two lines use different patterns, most likely the patterns have to do with the puzzle title. 

Some time ago, in the chatterbax, Charlie made the remark that one word was very long, so the cyphering method would - according to him - not be a substitution code.  Nikki then spoke about version one and two.  My guess is that she made some change to the message, such that the long word was avoided.

Two remarks: there are a lot of R's inn the first sentence and the same for I and S in the second.  I do not think a frequency analisys makes much sense here.

Some wild idea, I don't now why, but instinctively, this does amke me think of a backwards read message, just a feeling.

Posted by Hugo on 2005-01-21 18:16:58