reckon you can crack this code...?

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I'm playing a fun game at the moment (Morrowind on the Xbox), but I have to deliver a coded message that I can't crack. There have been other messages that I have easily decoded using straight cryptogram solvers for letter substitution, but this is on a whole other level.

[code]
akjs dhfk aseh nffa jkwh efkj adsh cals
ekry lcam iwyr amlx kerm hlak sjof ajsc
ncmn alsk djfo qiwe urpo qyet uiry htjk
dvnm cxzu nsmc fnls akfy jtqp oire utpw
eoig sdkj fvnb zmcv namc svna qlkj foqi
reut wpoi rgkj sdfh vnjc xzvn
[/code]

<<< That was the message.

Of note are the fact that there are words of 4 letters so no easy way to do letter substitution using a dictionary. Using a letter frequency analysis the most common letters are A,K,J,S which also happen to be the first four letter word, wonder if there is a connection there.

I have tried pasting them into notepad and changing the window size to move the chunks about to see if I can read down the blocks vertically at various permutations, but nothing comes out. Maybe I have to letter substitute first but the only clues would be using the standard letter frequency tables. Having said that, every letter figures at least once, so doesn't look like it is a straight substitution.

Then again, I think this may be some other kind of well know cypher and I would be greatful to anyone that can point me in the direction of a site that maybe talks about this encryption technique.

If you do solve it, then there or lots of strange game words in it, so if you get wierd things like CALDERA, EBONY or HLAALU then you are in fact along the right lines.

Thanks for you help and I keep my fingers crossed.[CODE]

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Yikes! Looks tough - I'll get right on it.

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thanks for that
I hope you have more luck than me. I have used the following websites with cracker tools, but I don't know that any of them are relevant. I even have gone through The Code Book by Simon Singh and not found anything relating to this format. BUT - I have seen something similar on another website so I think it may be a recognised way of encoding...

crptogram solver

general tools

good substitution assistant

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maybe it is number based...
It strikes me as significant as there are no double letters in each pair in each word. Maybe then the letter pairs can be taken to be numbers, corresponding to how many letters apart they are...

Code:



akjs  dhfk  aseh  nffa  jkwh  efkj  adsh  cals

11,9  4,5   18,3  -8,5  1,11  1,-1  3,-11 -2,7

These numbers could then be added to get a letter of the same number, or perhaps counted along from the current letter position. I've tried both these, but can't seem to get anything, wonder if the letters are inclusive or not.

Alternately I have read of codes were each letter of the "word" is offset by a certain number, but the trick is finding the key. Maybe the first "word" is the key - translating to

Code:



a k  j  s

1,11,10,19

But I still can't quite see the connection with the letters that follow, doesn't quite make sense yet, but I haven't really tried that many permutations.

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Clearly it is NOT a succession of four-letter words.

Therefore each letter is a numerical value which when totalled for each quadruplet gives a single value that can then be converted to a letter. The problem then is that this letter may have to be dialed forward or backward.

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I know some pretty good gaming sites.

I might be able to find an answer for you if you can tell me where in the game the code is picked up or where you are supposed to deliver it.

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thanks but good luck...
http://www.til.gamingsource.co.uk/mwbooks/ordersbivale.shtml

This is the best place to see the source material, and take a look at

http://www.gamefaqs.com/computer/doswin/game/913818.html

for loads of tips, but nothing with the cracked code. It just seem to be out there, but there are a few people posting on games sites to no avail. Thought it would be better asking the maths fraternity!!!

Thanks for your help so far.

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Any more progress, Rupert?

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afraid not - no progress
Nothing as yet I am afraid, but I am pretty sure that it is actually a number based code rather than a letter one. I have to wonder how easy these are to crack if you don't know the way of doing it. If there is a variable offset in numbers - as seed I think they call it, how on earth can you reverse engineer it if you don't know they various types of encryption. Is this lost forever???

I have sent a few emails to people so watch this space...

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Did you try my earlier suggestion of dialling the derived numbers forward or backward?

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DIFFERENCE PAIRS
11,9 4,5 18,3 -8,5 1,11 1,-1 3,-11 -2,7

STRAIGHT LETTERS
kide rcsf

REVERSE LETTERS
prwv ixhv

Well I tried these numbers forwards and back - but I haven't thought about guessing a seed number - or numbers.

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Looks promising...

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you think so...
I can't see it myself. Ironically looking at the letter frequencies again, there appears to be a reasonable chance it is real letters out of order, but just converting on expected letter frequencies and then using the

Code:



A K  J  S 

1 11 10 19

as a straight seed still doesn't seem to reveal anything, all it is doing it transposing the two middle letters. Perhaps the seed is added to the proceeding letter as well, boy things are getting complicated. Does that mean the A is a 1 or a 0.

Anyone out there seen this kind of thing... I bet someone knows this format in a very straightforward manner.

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got a reply from a nice Maths chap
My gut feeling tells me it is a formal cipher: which means that they've
removed the spaces from an encrypted text and artificially grouped it into
blocks of four. However, I can't tell if it's a monoalphabetic substitution.
I've run a frequency count for you and got the following results:

Single letter counts
13: a k
12: j s
11: f n
10:
9: c e
8: m r
7: h i l o
6: d v
5: q t u w y
4: p
3: x z
2: g
1: b

Digraphs (double letters)
6: vn
5: kj
4: ir mc
3: ak js sd ls am na jf oq eu po oi
2: fk se fa aj jk ca al ry iw kd fo qi we cx xz re ut

Trigraphs (three letters)
2: kjs jsd faj als jfo foq oqi cxz poi oir ire reu eut kjf vna

You can see frequency lists in my FAQ:
letter frequency FAQ

However, I doubtful looking at this if it is as simple as a substitution
cipher; I would certainly expect "the" and "th" to appear much more often in
such a long piece of text, and as no trigraph appears more than twice it
makes me doubtful.

If I get a chance I will try out other things. I can tell you that I've
tried things like: adding the alphabetical position of each letter in the
blocks of four and converting this to a letter. For example, akjs:
1+11+10+19=41, then reduce to 1-26: 41-26=15, which is the letter O. But
nothing has worked! )c:

I still suspect it is some type of substitution, but with some clever twist.
It could, of course, be an elaborate hoax.

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interesting ideas...
I was surprised that there seemed to be EVERY letter at least once
which suggest it isn't a straight substitution. I do wonfer that the
first four letters are also the most common by a considerable margin.
That seems really beyond the realms of coincidence and is perhaps some
kind of a clue.

> 13: a k
> 12: j s

> I still suspect it is some type of substitution, but with some clever twist.
> It could, of course, be an elaborate hoax.

I'd be surprised as all the other codes in the game have been
legitimate, I am pretty certain that it is for real.

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Why do you spend so much time on this sort of stuff - surely computers are better at working it out?

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yes but - garbage in / garbage out
Well I could write something in Javascript once I knew what the encoding technique was, but are there code cracking programs that cycle through lots of different known decoding routines to find out how it is encoded up in the first place?

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I'm sure I saw something similar to it somewhere in one of Dan Brown's books, Digital Fortress. Have you tried reading downwards instead of left to right and then trying letter substitution? Remember, not everything requires you to read left to right.

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thanks for that...
Thanks for the comment. I had tried looking at it in various grid like layouts, but the problem I think is that the letter frequency analysis looks too even. Every letter appears once I think, and that can't be right. I kind of think there is some kind of revolving offset with each letter or pair. Eeeugh!!!

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reckon you can crack this code...?

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