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Some Fun with C.r.y.p.t.o.g.r.a.p.h.y.

Sarianae

Infinite Dreamer
Joined
Nov 21, 2010
Location
Storybrooke, Maine
zcrypt.png


Hello fellow ZDers! How familiar are you with Cryptography? Some? None? Plenty? Interested in learning?
I'm going to show you guys some today. Behold the following cipher text:



---------------------------

This is but one of the legends of which the people speak...

Long ago, there existed a kingdom where a golden power lay hidden. It was a prosperous land blessed with green forests, tall mountains, and peace. But one day a man of great evil found the golden power and took it for himself... With its strength at his command, he spread darkness across the kingdom. But then, when all hope had died, and the hour of doom seemed at hand......a young boy clothed in green appeared as if from nowhere. Wielding the blade of evil's bane, he sealed the dark one away and gave the land light. This boy, who traveled through time to save the land, was known as the Hero of Time. The boy's tale was passed down through generations until it became legend... But then...a day came when a fell wind began to blow across the kingdom. The great evil that all thought had been forever sealed away by the hero......once again crept forth from the depths of the earth, eager to resume its dark designs. The people believed that the Hero of Time would again come to save them...

...But the hero did not appear.

Faced by an onslaught of evil, the people could do nothing but appeal to the gods. In their last hour, as doom drew nigh, they left their future in the hands of fate.

What became of that kingdom...? None remain who know.

The memory of the kingdom vanished, but its legend survived on the wind's breath. On a certain island, it became customary to garb boys in green when they came of age. Clothed in the green of fields, they aspired to find heroic blades and cast down evil. The elders wished only for the youths to know courage like the hero of legend...


---------------------------

So, I randomly felt like emboldening some letters throughout the text to make it funny, right?

WRONG.
Within the above text, I have enciphered a message using a crypto-system known as the Bacon Francis Bilateral Cipher.

I task you with this: decipher the hidden message.

In order for you to do that, I shall be walking you through the encipherment/decipherment process below.



******YOU WILL NEED THE FOLLOWING CHART TO DECIPHER THIS MESSAGE:
I will be explaining how to use this chart in detail below.
However for now, simply note that each letter of the alphabet corresponds to a 5-letter sequence of As and Bs.

a - AAAAA
b - AAAAB
c - AAABA
d - AAABB
e - AABAA
f - AABAB
g - AABBA
h - AABBB
i/j - ABAAA
k - ABAAB
l - ABABA
m - ABABB
n - ABBAA
o - ABBAB
p - ABBBA
q - ABBBB
r - BAAAA
s - BAAAB
t - BAABA
u/v - BAABB
w - BABAA
x - BABAB
y - BABBA
z - BABBB


The Decipherment Process

To walk you through this, I will be providing a short sample message below as an example.
Take a look at the following sample cipher text:

Every game has a story.
Only one is a legend.

A timeless tale of the epics of old awaits.



Decipherment STEP 1:

Re-partition the letters in groups of five. You can remove punctuation if it distracts you, since it's irrelevant.
It should look like this:

Every gameh asast oryon lyone isale genda timel essta leoft heepi csofo ldawa its


Decipherment STEP 2:

Observe any sort of variation of typeface design that you see. This can include any sort of change in font style: bold, italic, upper/lowercase shifts, size or color changes, and font shifts. When this cipher system is used most effectively, the changes are very subtle. However, for this example I have made the change obvious: the variation is between regular and bold type.

Now, you must do a substitution by comparing your letters grouped in fives to the groupings of As and Bs (in fives) in the above chart. Each of the two variations that you've observed will correspond to either those As or Bs. If you are not sure which variation corresponds to the As, and which corresponds to the Bs, you will have to figure it out through trial and error...the incorrect one will give you gibberish, be indecipherable, or if it's being used seriously, may perhaps give you a false message to throw you off. However, you really shouldn't have any problems figuring out the correct correspondence to As and Bs in the text that I've written at the top of this post. The example below should show you what it should look like:

Every gameh asast -oryon -lyone -isale -genda -timel -essta -leoft -heepi -csofo -ldawa its
Ababa abaaa abbaa abaab abaaa baaab abaab aabaa aabba aabaa abbaa aaabb babab ---


Decipherment STEP 3:

Refer to the above chart to see which letter it is that corresponds to each 5-letter A/B sequence you've translated the cipher text into. For example, the first 5-letter sequence you've written is ABABA. If you check the chart above, you'll see that this sequence corresponds to the letter L. Write the letter under its AB sequence equivalent and continue doing this for the rest of the ciphertext to uncover what the full message is. It should look like this:

Every gameh asast -oryon -lyone -isale -genda -timel -essta -leoft -heepi -csofo -ldawa its
Ababa abaaa abbaa abaab abaaa baaab abaab aabaa aabba aabaa abbaa aaabb babab ---
---L ------I -----N -----K -----I -----S -----L -----E ------G -----E -----N -----D -----X

The X on the end is just a dummy letter; the final message in this case would be:

Link is Legend.

This is, however, a short example to explain how it works. Now that you've seen the way it's done, try taking a crack at finding the hidden message in the text at the top of this post. If anything is unclear or if you have any questions for me, feel free to ask.

If you believe you have found the hidden message, I ask that you please post it in SPOILER TAGS just in case someone else would also like to try it after you.

Additionally, if someone solves it, feel free to post your own crypto-messages for other people to solve (you are not obliged of course).
*In fact, you may even choose to simply hide a message within the text of your very post if you wish (expect me to be deciphering them though!) Furthermore, you are allowed to use a different cipher other than the Bacon Francis Bilteral Cipher that I have been using above if you wish, however if you choose to do this, you must include an explanation of how the decipherment works so that others may be able to follow.

I believe that covers everything I have to say. Good luck!
It might be a bit time consuming, but I do think working with cryptography is pretty neat.
I do hope you guys give it a shot!





************* C H A L L E N G E *************

I bid you fair warning; on a scale of easy to hard, I made this one EVIL.
This is for those of you who solved the earlier message and are up for a real challenge.
I will be extremely impressed with anyone who can figure it out. Someone...impress me if you can.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

The prompt says: This message is impossible to decipher.
Your task: Prove the prompt WRONG.
By any means you may find at your disposal, decipher it..


--------------------------------------------------------------------

--- The Four Giants ---
This tale's from long ago when all the people weren't separated into four worlds like they are now.
In those times all the people lived together, and the four giants lived among them. On the day of the festival that celebrates the harvest, the giants spoke to the people…

We have chosen to guard the people while we sleep…100 steps north, 100 steps south, 100 steps east, 100 steps west. If you have need, call us in a loud voice by declaring something such as, ‘The mountain blizzard has trapped us.’ Or ‘The ocean is about to swallow us.’ Your cries shall carry to us…”

Now then…there was one who was shocked and saddened by all this.

A little imp.
The imp was a friend of the giants since before they had created the four worlds.

Why must you leave? Why do you not stay?”

The childhood friend felt neglected, so he spread his anger across the four worlds. Repeatedly, he wronged all people. Overwhelmed with misfortune, the people sang the song of prayer to the giants who lived in each of the four compas.s directions. The giants heard their cry and responded with a roar.

Oh, imp. Oh, imp. We are the protectors of the people. You have caused the people pain. Oh, imp. Leave these four worlds! Otherwise, we shall tear you apart!”

The imp was frightened and saddened. He had lost his old friends. The imp returned to the heavens, and harmony was restored to the four worlds. And the people rejoiced and they worshiped the giants of the four worlds like gods.
And they lived happilyever after…​


~~~ Fin ~~~
 
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Michael Heide

The 8th Wise Man
Joined
Oct 15, 2010
Location
Cologne, Germany
Yes.

Does it make sense to decypher the fake message in the evil challenge beyond the
my boy, the real message is what all true warriors strive for, and this isn't it. Sorry, try again.
part? Or should I just go ahead and use a different approach?
 
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Sarianae

Infinite Dreamer
Joined
Nov 21, 2010
Location
Storybrooke, Maine
Wow...you guys are good. I wasn't kidding though....I was mercilessly mean with the challenge. Even though it took forever to encipher, I'd say it was worth it~ ^^

I have two very vague hints for you:
1) Observe the challenge text very carefully. I mean it. If you're careful enough, you'll notice something important that I highly suspect you have missed.
2) Think about what might help. (I refuse to explain what I mean, it's part of the challenge)

I won't specify any more than that. Although, if you're still having trouble, I will point you to a specific line for you to scrutinize minutely.

As for the fake messages, everything beyond the message itself is gibberish, so I wouldn't bother. ^^

And as for

This is fun

I'm glad! I think it's pretty neat myself! ;)

Though no one has dropped the message in the first text...did no one do it, or was it so easy that it isn't worth mentioning? :)
 
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Locke

Hegemon
Site Staff
Joined
Nov 24, 2009
Location
Redmond, Washington
got most of the first one, but I must have messed up somehow...

D[noparse]e[/noparse]spai[noparse]r[/noparse] s[noparse]h[/noparse]al[noparse]l[/noparse] b[noparse]e[/noparse] de[noparse]n[/noparse]i[noparse]e[/noparse]d i[noparse]ts[/noparse] v[noparse]o[/noparse]r[noparse]ac[/noparse]i[noparse]o[/noparse]u[noparse]s[/noparse] re[noparse]i[/noparse]ga com[noparse]e[/noparse] th[noparse]e[/noparse] d[noparse]a[/noparse]y t[noparse]h[/noparse]e He[noparse]ro o[/noparse]f T[noparse]i[/noparse]me i[noparse]s[/noparse] r[noparse]e[/noparse]born to [noparse]t[/noparse]his [noparse]wo[/noparse]rl[noparse]d[/noparse] by [noparse]in[/noparse]e[noparse]v[/noparse]i[noparse]ta[/noparse]ble s[noparse]u[/noparse]mm[noparse]o[/noparse]ns [noparse]o[/noparse]f a [noparse]si[/noparse]n[noparse]g[/noparse]l[noparse]e[/noparse] b[noparse]oy[/noparse]'s [noparse]bo[/noparse]u[noparse]nd[/noparse]lesr [noparse]r[/noparse]ourag[noparse]e[/noparse], [noparse]a[/noparse]w[noparse]ak[/noparse]e[noparse]n[/noparse]e[noparse]d[/noparse] by the goddesses' decree as dawns his dnyielding labyrinthine [gibberish]

(You should quote me on that.)

edit:
sorry, didn't get around to it today Dx
sometime. this is fun.
 
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Sarianae

Infinite Dreamer
Joined
Nov 21, 2010
Location
Storybrooke, Maine
got most of the first one, but I must have messed up somehow...

D[noparse]e[/noparse]spai[noparse]r[/noparse] s[noparse]h[/noparse]al[noparse]l[/noparse] b[noparse]e[/noparse] de[noparse]n[/noparse]i[noparse]e[/noparse]d i[noparse]ts[/noparse] v[noparse]o[/noparse]r[noparse]ac[/noparse]i[noparse]o[/noparse]u[noparse]s[/noparse] re[noparse]i[/noparse]ga com[noparse]e[/noparse] th[noparse]e[/noparse] d[noparse]a[/noparse]y t[noparse]h[/noparse]e He[noparse]ro o[/noparse]f T[noparse]i[/noparse]me i[noparse]s[/noparse] r[noparse]e[/noparse]born to [noparse]t[/noparse]his [noparse]wo[/noparse]rl[noparse]d[/noparse] by [noparse]in[/noparse]e[noparse]v[/noparse]i[noparse]ta[/noparse]ble s[noparse]u[/noparse]mm[noparse]o[/noparse]ns [noparse]o[/noparse]f a [noparse]si[/noparse]n[noparse]g[/noparse]l[noparse]e[/noparse] b[noparse]oy[/noparse]'s [noparse]bo[/noparse]u[noparse]nd[/noparse]lesr [noparse]r[/noparse]ourag[noparse]e[/noparse], [noparse]a[/noparse]w[noparse]ak[/noparse]e[noparse]n[/noparse]e[noparse]d[/noparse] by the goddesses' decree as dawns his dnyielding labyrinthine [gibberish]

(You should quote me on that.)

Mmm, this is moving in the right direction, but if everything after that is gibberish, then it might be a mistake on my part in the encipherment. You will have to give me some time to look into it properly. I will figure out what the problem is and if it's something that needs fixing I will sort it out and let you know as much.

::EDIT::

The following part of the message has been fixed. There were four letters that were not enciphered correctly. Up to what you've deciphered so far, it should now say this:

Despair shall be denied its voracious reign come the day the Hero of Time is reborn to this world by inevitable summons of a single boy's boundless courage, awakened by the goddesses' decree as dawns his unyielding labyrinthine....

I will be checking the rest of it now.

:: Double EDIT :: And for this...

I'll look at the last one tomorrow.

Go for it! (the "w" was enciphered as an "x" but I gotcha~ ;))

::Triple EDIT:: WHEW!!!! You had me seriously worried that I had screwed up the entire second half the the first message Locke~ I just checked it over and there were just a few letters I hadn't enciphered correctly that probably threw you off. You should have no problems now deciphering the rest of the message from where you left off~ ^^
 
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Locke

Hegemon
Site Staff
Joined
Nov 24, 2009
Location
Redmond, Washington
Yeah, you're right. Those few letters threw me off so I gave up! I've finished it now though:

Despair shall be denied its voracious reign come the day the Hero of Time is reborn to this world by inevitable summons of a single boy's boundless courage, awakened by the goddesses' decree as dawns his unyielding labyrinthine destiny. Oh, rise and restore the glory of our land as we await you, hero of the new age.

I'm just getting started on the challenge. I think I'm on the right track, but it will take a long time to complete. (Evil's right!) I've found one small possible encyphering error so far, but it should be easy to correct:

"This tale's from long ago when all the people..."
I think the second 'L' in "all" shouldn't be colored. Right now it's bbaba, which doesn't translate to anything, but baaba would make sense in the context of the hidden message.

edit: another-
"...100 steps west. If you have need, call us..."
The 'I' in "If" should be italicized, not the 'f'.
 
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Sarianae

Infinite Dreamer
Joined
Nov 21, 2010
Location
Storybrooke, Maine
Yeah, you're right. Those few letters threw me off so I gave up! I've finished it now though:

Despair shall be denied its voracious reign come the day the Hero of Time is reborn to this world by inevitable summons of a single boy's boundless courage, awakened by the goddesses' decree as dawns his unyielding labyrinthine destiny. Oh, rise and restore the glory of our land as we await you, hero of the new age.

That is correct! Great job Locke~ :)

The errors you pointed out should be fixed now.

And as for~

Currently deciphering three messages

Then you're good!

You missed my other message... ;)

AHAHAHAHAA~ Using my own tricks on me? ;)

However, I couldn't get your whole question...I'm not sure if you might have enciphered part of it incorrectly (if it wasn't me who deciphered it wrong):

Is Trebuchbes[undecipherable letter] ckfr

Hmm~ :\

Now, here's some trivia for you guys. Bacon Francis, the guy who created this cipher, is suspected of being the real Shakespeare, or at least the man who wrote all of Shakespeare's plays, and some of the reason for that had to do with his cryptography skills.

Interesting that you have knowledge of his cipher system now, right? ^^
 

Locke

Hegemon
Site Staff
Joined
Nov 24, 2009
Location
Redmond, Washington
finished!
I wonder what's for dinner? No dinner for you! This message is invalid. Try agaen.

My boy, the real message is what ALL true warriors strive for! And this isn't it. Sorry, try again.

Beware ye child of a lost world. That which eludes you escapes not, as bewitching fear whispers an your vulnfrable ear, tragic mariknetce(malignence?) ensnared by kaunting despair in devious masquerade. Wait, the child of another world, whyse pywer to release shall offer all that you sodberly seek.

the real message started to get a little confused around the point where the other two left off... and I probably didn't get the punctuations right.
 

Justeazy

Todo is the pfuf!
Joined
Apr 28, 2011
www.PurpleHell.com (Namely, THIS PAGE, but the entire site is good if you're into this kind of thing. Also, if you've never done them before, it has links to some of the better online "riddles", you may like to try them out. Fun stuff.)

But, I didn't want to just copy paste the entire "evil cypher" and cheat.... =/

As for the cyphers, it looks like they've already been solved, and I'm too lazy to do something that's already been done for me. :P
 

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