28
Apr
08

Fun Stuff: Break This Cypher!

The WeCite Blog is sending something your way in hope to work your idle brains in to a frenzy with this bizzare-looking (but in fact very simple) question in the form of a cypher.

Unfortunately there are no rewards for solving this cypher but hey, it’s worth sparking up those neurons ;)

 TMRNOM  HOSDDB  EFTRDE  SFHENR UIUDUS 

This cypher is based on a very famous cypher technique that can be solved by putting the contents of the cypher (yes the ones in blue above) in a grid and then reading it with a given key (see below). Once the cypher is arranged with a little bit of creativity, the message beautifully unfolds on its own right in front of you. Go ahead. give it a shot. 

The key to this cypher is: spiral inwards, anti-clockwise, starting from the top left.

Just a hint, the answer to the riddle within is a five digit whole number :)

Do we have a smarty pants in the house?


11 Responses to “Fun Stuff: Break This Cypher!”


  1. 1 д§mд April 28, 2008 at 9:19 pm

    Khaghaz qalam dhoondhna par raha hay to solve this =\

  2. 2 Saadat April 29, 2008 at 5:19 pm

    Okay, let’s see…

    The cypher, as you mentioned, was pretty easy to break (Dan Brown’s books, anyone? :) ), but what I am finding more confusing is your hint to the riddle that the broken cypher reveals. I found the answer to be 10,000 — which is certainly not a three digit whole number.

    Or perhaps I have just gotten too rusty at math…

  3. 3 Fauzan April 29, 2008 at 5:32 pm

    HAHA congratulations Saadat! That’s the right answer.

    My humble apologies for the mis-guidance but that was merely done on purpose to ensure that whosoever finds the right answer can point that out and remain confident that his/her answer is the right one! :)

    Would you care to explain to our readership how exactly you arrived at this solution? I’m sure not every one here is a Dan Brown fan like us two ;)

  4. 4 Kermit April 29, 2008 at 5:58 pm

    FINALLY! How did you solve this Saadat?

  5. 5 Saadat April 29, 2008 at 6:44 pm

    I guess my math isn’t THAT rusty, after all!

    And sure, here’s the explanation. (Please don’t mind if I get too carried away — blowing one’s own trumpet is too exciting, you see. ;) )

    This cypher is a modification of what was called a “Caeser Box” by Dan Brown in his novels (though most people also believe that Caeser had nothing to do with it). The number of characters in a Caeser Box are always a perfect square — 25, 36, 81, 100, etc. — but in this cypher, they are 30. Doesn’t matter, though, since the process of breaking it is similar.

    First, write the cypher vertically like this:

    T M R N O M
    H O S D D B
    E F T R D E
    S F H E N R
    U I U D U S

    Next, read it from top to bottom, starting from the top-left of the above “box”. Thus, you’ll be reading the box column after column like this:

    THESUMOFFIRSTHUNDREDNUMBERS

    Insert the spaces and you get:

    THE SUM OF FIRST HUNDRED NUMBERS

    And that is 10,000. :)

    In this cypher, spaces were kindly provided by Fauzan (after every 6th character), otherwise it would have been more time-consuming to arrange the cypher in a box, or a grid. In the classic Caeser Box cypher, if it is 25 characters long, you make a grid of 5 x 5; if there are 36 characters, you make a 6 x 6 grid, and so on.

    So, er, yeah. That’s it. :)

  6. 6 Saadat April 29, 2008 at 6:47 pm

    Oops, I made a mistake.

    After reading the cypher vertically, it gives:

    THESUMOFFIRSTHUNDREDODDNUMBERS

    Or,

    THE SUM OF FIRST HUNDRED ODD NUMBERS

    And that is 10,000.

    I told you I’d get carried away…

  7. 7 Hassaan April 29, 2008 at 7:12 pm

    This is cheating ……. Fuzz you gave all the wrong hints
    if we go by top left spiraling inwards
    it makes it “THeSuiudusrebmonrmoffhenDDDstr” not “thesumoffirsthundredoddnumbers”
    thats top bottom, left to right approach
    your orientation is screwed

    and I wasted all day studying Playfair Cipher :(

    http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/decoding/playfair.html

  8. 8 д§mд April 29, 2008 at 8:50 pm

    Oh wow saadat .. I thought to decipher it on weekend :P

  9. 9 pinni April 29, 2008 at 10:33 pm

    actually hasan the key is right. wot fauzan wanted was I guess to see is if u wud fall in a little boobytrap in the cypher. spiral inwards applies to EVERY vertical line when they are stacked on top ov each other like saadat did. besides it spells out pretty easily on its own if you just arrange it the right way. nice work saadat. Fauzan, would love to see more of this on Wecite in future :)

  10. 10 Hassaan April 30, 2008 at 3:00 pm

    Yeah I liked it too, gave some thing to do in the office

  1. 1 Fun Stuff: Break This Cypher! | Tea Break Pingback on Apr 28th, 2008 at 4:12 pm

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