Tasks / Decryption For Beginners
Title aside, this is a fairly difficult task, but you'll be rewarded accordingly. Members of EquivalenZ will often run into situations where they're required to extract useful information from something that doesn't want that data revealed - in the most literal sense, this means you may find being able to break codes useful. Certainly, this can often be done by computer tools that handle just about everything themselves, but we'd rather you had some idea of what's going on when you click "decrypt". Ergo:
As long as you play fair, you'll find the key to this puzzle is right under your nose.
EKSDUBHBAFPLQOZBIDMCBUGIXIXEUQZFBUEL
FIGNKQHOZBFMCHQKLBQWHLGPMUFMWNKQEOIGZIDO
KCVLIGNHLPIPIDQBEOEPHICMUQCNFX
(the line breaks are meaningless - just for display purposes)
Also! As of 6/28/06, the message - and the instructions for how to provide proof - have changed. This is the original:
EKKUBLAHBLMXOKQOEFEPHICMHOSBILOBGOZOBFCIQKIZPI
DOBAFMWNHLGPMUOXQFFRBPXIQOFRISUCSEBQXQMURCXIQE
ENSHKTXMTPIDMPEWFHFGKMSIIDCRAFXFBK
1 players
25 points
Level 1
In the zone of: EquivalenZ
6 completed :: 6 in progress
Interested in collaborating on this: (no one yet!)
this task is retired
Comments
this task is starting to make me lose my mind!
What Jason said, below. I'm "playing fair", but the key is not "right under your nose". Don't know where else to look...
Praxis
view all images for: Decryption for Beginners
Congrats! I kinda think there should be more puzzle-type tasks. And if anyone else is wondering, you can still work on decrypting the same block (i.e. garfield doesn't give away anything)
POHOFUXHNTELWNHOSBIDOCWLUFMGDOEXMCPIUQDBGO QBWNDPFDNQKDFXNMNONXPIFDLHIDUBTPINBDILGFOQBDI HOXHTCIQKIGKDAVHPFEIGZILPEMDTBGCIQKOTATGISEMDOZZGLPZGXAFMOHSD
Yes, the answer we've provided is identical to the previous one. We felt that giving any other answer would allow any third person to guess the pattern without solving the puzzle. They might even be able to guess some plaintext. And we wouldn't want...
Yuck. I hope there is no "Decryption for Experts" task, because I'm going to flub it for sure. I was invited to colaborate on this task with someone else, but it didn't let us register success together, so i'm listing it separately.
I don't think we have to post an image of Garfield, although I was tempted. This puzzle had me scratchy my head for a while, then I figured out what I was doing wrong.
I'll be honest, I don't have a clue what the message says, but I'm willing to bet I can post the right proof (at least for the first message.)
I know what needs to be done, but I'm missing that one crucial detail. And from what I can tell, it's not literally right there. (Nor is it the obvious answer when you take the clue literally.) Hmm...