+- Spooks Forum (http://www.spooksforum.co.uk)
+-- Forum: Thames House (/forum-13.html)
+--- Forum: Break Room (/forum-14.html)
+--- Thread: Code Breaking Competition! (/thread-602.html)
Pages: 1 2
Code Breaking Competition! - Nitrus - 18-01-2010 04:43 PM
Let's be honest, we've all imagined ourselves as Spooks at some point in our lives, well let's see how good you really are! Very simple competition, I have encoded a secret message, you have to decode it!
Rules
1. The first person to reply to this thread with the decoded message wins.
2. Prize is the much coveted "Competition Winner" award and a massive 2+rep!
3. Staff cannot enter.
4. You can reply more than once with different proposed messages (although I doubt anything you submit that isn't the correct message will make sense).
5. The competition will not end until someone has submitted the correct fully decoded message.
Here's the encoded message:
2175706e72656f20727567206267617620657267617220726a207265627a20727061622071616e20 677574766120676e206672767973206a6265702078706e796f20727547
And here's a clue to get you started:
The message has been encoded three times, twice with common encryption techniques and once by messing with the order of the letters in the message. so once you have decoded the above you will need to decode further (using different methods) to obtain the correct message. The message has been encoded using common techniques and nothing too obscure.
GO!
RE: Code Breaking Competition! - Beatriz - 18-01-2010 05:52 PM
This is going to be fun!!
I don't have the faintest idea how to decode a message!! but it would be fun to try
(after my exam!! if it hasn't been decoded by that time 
)
RE: Code Breaking Competition! - carole9908 - 18-01-2010 06:59 PM
Flippin 'eck, I have no idea where to start! But I'll give it a bash!
RE: Code Breaking Competition! - femaleBertieWooster - 18-01-2010 07:17 PM
Subscribing to the thread only and good luck to all.
RE: Code Breaking Competition! - kirmostar - 18-01-2010 07:37 PM
I've tried running it through various programs on the web no joy - this is really really really going to annoy me!!!!!!
RE: Code Breaking Competition! - Nitrus - 18-01-2010 08:00 PM
Well if it helps, I used various online tools to put it together.
RE: Code Breaking Competition! - Chris Ross Leong - 18-01-2010 08:12 PM
The black crow flies at night and once more we enter into the breach
Level 1 - ASCII to regular letters - the ASCII code for a SPACE is 20, which for me was the giveaway. This yielded the following character string:
!upnreo rug bgav ergar rj febz rpab qan gutva gn frvys jbep xpnyo ruG
And as we all know, sentences usually begin with capital letters and end in exclamation marks, so:
Level 2 - reverse the order of the letters to get:
Gur oynpx pedj syvrf ng avtug naq bapr zbef jr ragre vagb gur oernpu!
And now it's just a matter of transposition.
Level 3 - displace the alphabet by 12 letters, in this case - a=n, b=o, c=p etc:
Using a regular and a flipped alphabetical codex, something like this:
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
nopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghijklm
zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbazyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcba <-- tried this too but nothing.
I just went through them, picking the shortest two coded words, ng and jr, and slid the codex until it made some kind of sense.
Sorry it took so long, had to cook and serve breakfast in the meantime.
*yeah, I know - smugness !! LOL!! *
RE: Code Breaking Competition! - Nitrus - 18-01-2010 08:18 PM
Bravo! The final bit was actually done using ROT13, a common alphabetical rotation.
I'm impressed Chris, well done! You win, I'll sort out your award and rep now.
Seen as this competition was over so quickly, I will conjure up something similar (but not using common techniques).
RE: Code Breaking Competition! - Chris Ross Leong - 18-01-2010 08:25 PM
But please leave the clues in or else it'll take us all year!
Cheers
Chris
RE: Code Breaking Competition! - bertowud - 18-01-2010 08:47 PM
Good job, Chris!