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 Forum index » Archive » Archive: Last Call Poker » LCP: General/Updates
[SOLVED] Cipher from SF
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SMG3er
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Joined: 20 Apr 2005
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 		I notice the cypher goes 4-5-5-5-6-6-6-5-5-5-4... if that means anything.
cypher.gif
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cypher.gif

PostPosted: Sun Oct 16, 2005 2:46 am
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RPGgame
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 		I dont know maybe this link will help people out

http://www.feldgrau.com/articles.php?ID=12
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PostPosted: Sun Oct 16, 2005 2:54 am
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SuperJerms
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 		Sin_Vraal, in IRC, cracked this down to possibly having the key "santiago," using the first letter of the first name, second letter of the second, etc, and a wildcard for the lastname-only one.

I'll let him explain the how and why he ended up with that, but it might be useful to those still working on this in the meantime.

g'night.
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PostPosted: Sun Oct 16, 2005 2:56 am
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krystyn
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 		We need to get Andy Aiken in here.
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PostPosted: Sun Oct 16, 2005 2:57 am
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Ehsan
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 		sorry my notes are messed up and I have to go to a meeting, so there are several mistakes.. but here's the gist of it.. I'll come be back with an explanation in about 2 hours but I don't know how urgent you need this (is the event over?)

Spoiler (Rollover to View):

polar is from ursa minor five car train made up in frankfurt now in nuremberg contains three hundred civilians names provided by nkvid journalists intellectuals anti communists liberals and families men women children all to be liquidated on arrival in eastern zone need extraction help situation desperate ursa


PostPosted: Sun Oct 16, 2005 4:33 am
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Wiser
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Ehsan wrote:
sorry my notes are messed up and I have to go to a meeting, so there are several mistakes.. but here's the gist of it.. I'll come be back with an explanation in about 2 hours but I don't know how urgent you need this (is the event over?)

Spoiler (Rollover to View):

polar is from ursa minor five car train made up in frankfurt now in nuremberg contains three hundred civilians names provided by nkvid journalists intellectuals anti communists liberals and families men women children all to be liquidated on arrival in eastern zone need extraction help situation desperate ursa


Ok... now I'm REALLY confused... Confused
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PostPosted: Sun Oct 16, 2005 4:54 am
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Ehsan
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Spoiler (Rollover to View):
THIS ENTIRE POST IS A SPOILER.



Step 1 is always Frequency Analysis. That gives us junk.. so rule out substitution straight away.

Trying to find anything useful from the list of names, we find that the key is SANTIGO (Or Santiago as previously noted by Sin Vraal).. The second "A" can be removed (That's the hint we were supposed to get from not having a first name, basically telling us that the A might be there there, but it really doesn't matter because we already have an A..) indicating that we're dealing with a cipher that doesn't care about repeated letters, so the key is used to build an alphabet table, or a matrix.

Here's a visual on where the key comes from and what I mean by the missing second A:
Code:
[S]alvatoresunseri
g[A]etanoVenecia
Vi[N]cenzoOrtisi
mar[T]habenno
mart[I]nelli
     [A]  cervelli
angelo[G]alletta
vincenz[O]cirimele


Also, groups of 5 was hint to solve using groups of five.

Our key/table:
Code:
SANTI
GOBCD
EFHKL
MPQRU
VWXYZ


Additionally because of the large amount of X/Y/Z's in the cipher, I assume that this is a digraphic cipher. I tried killing different letters until settling on the J (You'll see that this is because of the type of cipher next).

Following the theme of WWII, I went ahead with Baron Playfair's work (a.k.a Wheatstone).. It has to be a Playfair cipher.. but it didn't work initially.. But then I tried a variation just playing with the first 10 characters, and got something that might make sense.. "polar is".. That was almost it, and it got me to the solve.

Here's how it work:
Code:
Let's take the first two 5 letter groups from the cipher:
ICUGE NPAAH

And put them on top of each other:
ICUGE
NPAAH

Now we group by column:
IN, CP, UA, GA, EH

Then we use the above table to find each pair. For example, the first pair is IN, which gives us TA (You have to understand the rules of playfair, and how things work if they are on the same row.. but notice to the left of I and N we have T and A.

The next pair is CP.. If we imagine a square with C and P in opposite corners, then the other two corners are OR.. and so on..

So we get:
IN -> TA
CP -> OR
UA -> PI
GA -> OS
EH -> LF

Now we transpose again using the new pairs as columns:

T O P O L
A R I S F

TOPOLARISF

To Polaris, F....




Here's the full deciphered text:


Code:

To Polaris from Ursa Minor,

Five car train - made up in Frankfurt now in nuremberg - contains three hundred civilians.

Names provided by NKVD. Journalists, Intellectuals, Anti-Comunists, Liberals, and families. Men, women, children, all to be liquidated on arrival in Eastern Zone.

Need extraction. Help. Situation desperate.

-Ursa


NKVD stands for Narodnyi Komissariat Vnutrennikh Del, which is Russian for People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs.. Otherwise known as the secret communist police.

Polaris is.. here (woohoo new card.. and wow.. ARG twist! Just as I was losing hope with women turning into men. THANK YOU PMs for giving us a real puzzle)

I really like my new avatar Smile

Please discuss the new character(s) and this.. uh.. change of events in this thread. Keep this thread for discussing the SF Cipher only.

PostPosted: Sun Oct 16, 2005 5:45 am
Last edited by Ehsan on Sun Oct 16, 2005 2:09 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Sin Vraal
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Joined: 28 Nov 2002
Posts: 219
Location: NJ

 		woo hoo
Woo rock, I must admit I'm never the "go-to guy" for ciphers, so I'm really glad I contributed to this solve!

For those of you in chat with me as I reviewed the 'most likely used elements' for the solve, remember that deconstruction of the puzzle really DOES help most times! =)

As for how I got 'SANTIAGO', Ehsan posted it exactly; the "wildcard" 'a' was expected for the missing first name from the brother, as we used the 'i' in 'Martinelli' without needing a first name. I suspect if someone goes back and looks, it will be found to work out this way.

PostPosted: Sun Oct 16, 2005 8:44 am
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imbri
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 		wow Ehsan! Good job and thanks for the extremely easy to follow explanation! I *almost* feel as if I understand, now Smile

PostPosted: Sun Oct 16, 2005 9:12 am
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RPGgame
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 		im impressed blows all my ideas out of the water
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PostPosted: Sun Oct 16, 2005 10:35 am
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thunderclap8
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 		I'm in awe! I'm so glad there are people who understand this stuff better than I.
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PostPosted: Sun Oct 16, 2005 12:48 pm
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SMG3er
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Joined: 20 Apr 2005
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Ehsan wrote:
Spoiler (Rollover to View):
THIS ENTIRE POST IS A SPOILER.




Shocked

I'd like to cash out now. Thanks. Smile

PostPosted: Sun Oct 16, 2005 2:08 pm
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Abraxas
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 		Oh, it was the Playfair cipher? There was something like that over at VaporLofts. I didn't quite think of it, because the cipher didn't have letter pairs like it's standard for Playfair, I believe...oh well, that was a good one.
Glad to see it solved!

PostPosted: Sun Oct 16, 2005 2:52 pm
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Nadif
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Ehsan wrote:


Here's the full deciphered text:



Wow.

Eshan, all I can say is:
Worshippy Worshippy Worshippy Worshippy Worshippy Worshippy Worshippy
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PostPosted: Sun Oct 16, 2005 3:26 pm
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Lloyd
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Joined: 25 Sep 2005
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Location: Santa Clara, California

 		After chatting with Ehsan to get a better explanation of the instructions above, the cipher used Seriated Playfair (not standard Playfair).

There's a tool online that can decipher it via Seriated Playfair at:
http://members.aon.at/cipherclerk/

PostPosted: Sun Oct 16, 2005 3:48 pm
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