View topic - [Puzzle] #243 Silver - Shuffled Part 2 (Read 1st Post!)

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Forum index » Diversions » Perplex City Puzzle Cards » PXC: Silver Puzzle Cards

[Puzzle] #243 Silver - Shuffled Part 2 (Read 1st Post!)
Moderators: AnthraX101, bagsbee, BrianEnigma, cassandra, Giskard, lhall, Mikeyj, myf, poozle, RobMagus, xnbomb

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Guin
Unfettered

Joined: 11 Jan 2006
Posts: 400
Location: Antartica

just a passing thought - anyone ever noticed this before? WBBMC HGFIB

_________________
So long and thanks for all the fish!

Posted: Thu Jun 15, 2006 8:06 am

kian
Boot

Joined: 16 Feb 2006
Posts: 24

arnezami wrote:

@kian: How did you calculate these numbers? Did you use a specific set of letter frequencies to calculate them?

Here are the frequency numbers I used; supposedly standard English distribution:
A 8.17, B 1.49, C 2.78, D 4.25, E 12.7, F 2.23, G 2.02, H 6.09, I 6.97, J 0.15, K 0.77, L 4.03, M 2.41, N 6.75, O 7.51, P 1.93, Q 0.1, R 5.99, S 6.33, T 9.06, U 2.76, V 0.98, W 2.36, X 0.15, Y 1.97, Z 0.07
Entropy is the negative sum of p(e)*log2(e), where e is the event. In this case p(e) is just the chance of getting that letter (independently of others). However, I'm thinking the key may have more to do with entropy in context, more like the game of hangman.

Just a few other ideas I've been playing with, before getting back to a solitaire cipher:
- What if "outward looks should leave you cold" means that the outer four blocks of five letters somehow translate to the word COLD. I could see how EODMF could somehow balance the central 'D' down one to a 'C', but not much luck on the others.
- What is shuffled: the deck of cards? the string of letters? the individual blocks of five letters?
- Taking the even letters of SENTEKITEWAY leaves ETKTWY, which is very close to the seventh block of non-disappearing letters.

Posted: Thu Jun 15, 2006 8:13 am

Carma1313
Boot

Joined: 20 Apr 2006
Posts: 59
Location: Gravesend, Kent, England

Hey everyone, well I finally obtained Shuffled, and was wondering; seeing as I only have the Limited Edition version of the card which has reference to a bar called 'Five of Cups'. I have thus far not been able to gain a photo or image of a non-limited edition card and was wondering whether this is a mistake or still exists on the re-issues?

I may have an interesting bit of info to throw your way... Sure one of you brighter sparks might be able to use it!

Posted: Thu Jun 15, 2006 9:27 am

arnezami
Veteran

Joined: 14 Apr 2006
Posts: 136

kian wrote:

Interesting. Those numbers are almost exactly the same as from wikipedia (link). Its just one digit less precise. Could it be this is coming from some kind of authority? Some kind of established set of frequencies?

I ask this because with my trials using arithmetic coding (one of the 3 basic types of entropy encoding) I used the set of frequencies from wikipedia. When decoding the EODMF string (assuming A-Z = 0-25) the decoding started with "eart". I hoped it would go on with an "h" resulting in "earth" but it didn't. It decoded as "earta". When using your numbers (who are only slightly different) it gives "eartr". So maybe this is due to rounding problems and if we were to find the original set of frequencies (not rounded numbers) we might have more luck... (if such a set exists of course)

I've also been playing with the idea that EODMF represents a set of frequencies. Something like: when taking the "ETAOINSHRDLUCMFWYPVBGKQJXZ" string then ETAI each count for 8% frequency, OINSHR each count for 4%, DLUC each for 2%, M for 1% and FWYPVBGKQJXZ each for 0.5%. Or something along those lines. And then use these frequencies to decode the 15 left over dissapearing letters.

I also find it somewhat odd that in last 3 of the 4 dissapearing groups of 5 letters there is a "U" right in the middle. I haven't figured out the chance of that happening but its probably quite small...

Just some loose thoughts. Wink

arnezami

Posted: Thu Jun 15, 2006 9:39 am

miamo_tutti
Boot

Joined: 06 Apr 2006
Posts: 50
Location: Colorado Springs, CO

Carma1313 wrote:

Five of Cups is Five of Cups on every card, and for sure isn't a mistake because it used elsewhere in the game.

Posted: Thu Jun 15, 2006 11:50 am

mfm2189
Greenhorn

Joined: 18 May 2006
Posts: 6

[quote="Guin"]

mfm2189 wrote:

In the same vein as Kian and Arnezemi's posts...has anyone noticed that none of the groups of 5 occur in alaphabetical order? Is that statistically probable with 26 groups?

do you mean the groups of letters of the letters in the groups?

The trouble with a solitaire (and i do beleive we have a solitaire) is that you cant look for "patterns" as such - letters can not appear and theres no real order as it is wholly dependant on the deck order to begin.

I meant the letters within each group. I'm also of the opinion that it's a solitaire, but just in case it isn't and "shuffled" means shuffle the letters (or some such thing)...

Posted: Thu Jun 15, 2006 12:19 pm

mfm2189
Greenhorn

Joined: 18 May 2006
Posts: 6

Sorry Guin, I kind of butchered that reply to your post.

Posted: Thu Jun 15, 2006 12:21 pm

e_nygma
Decorated

Joined: 17 May 2006
Posts: 247
Location: Maryland, US

Guin wrote:

just a passing thought - anyone ever noticed this before? WBBMC HGFIB

The fact that it is one letter short of a McRib ... that greasy, messy heartattack in a box McDonald's brings back every so often? Laughing

Oh you mean "MC" == "Mind Candy" and "FIB" == "lies" ... oh we already knew that they were stringing us along, watching us like a bunch of little lab rats running around in a maze. Without the cheese.

Don't believe me? My proof: Shuffled. Q. E. D. Laughing

Posted: Thu Jun 15, 2006 12:26 pm

brokasaphasia
Boot

Joined: 31 May 2006
Posts: 26

kian wrote:

What if "outward looks should leave you cold" means that the outer four blocks of five letters somehow translate to the word COLD.

I was thinking about that but could not come up with an encryption that would work... but I don't have a background in this and have yet to read anything that would lead me to crack a 5-letter to 1-letter encoding scheme.

If this really is a Solitaire Cipher...
Then we must be given information to key the deck...

I strongly believe that the keying information is either from:
A) an anagram of the whisper
B) a crib

I just cannot solve a 43 letter anagram... no matter how hard I try!

So, I am working on the crib idea. I've included the word COLD in my crib searches using whatever hair-brained idea I can think of for logical keying of the deck.

But, what if the COLDTEXT is actually a 20-character crib of the 108-character plaintext (and so the resulting "message" is 88-characters long). Assuming that all 20-characters decipher in a sequence, that surely would be enough information to come up with a manageable number of working deck permutations to cycle through. Perhaps only 10-character sequence would be enough to get down from 54! perms to something that we can search through?

But I am unable to devise a way to solve this problem computationally.

Posted: Thu Jun 15, 2006 12:45 pm

justdig
Boot

Joined: 14 Aug 2005
Posts: 29

It seems a little dodgy to me that something spoken would be an anagram. If you want to make sure that something's remembered word- (and letter-)perfect, you write it down.

Posted: Thu Jun 15, 2006 1:00 pm

noobie
Guest

justdig wrote:

It seems a little dodgy to me that something spoken would be an anagram. If you want to make sure that something's remembered word- (and letter-)perfect, you write it down.

Agreed But brokasaphasia may still be onto something, although im not sure what a crib is.

Posted: Thu Jun 15, 2006 1:07 pm

miamo_tutti
Boot

Joined: 06 Apr 2006
Posts: 50
Location: Colorado Springs, CO

e_nygma wrote:

Guin wrote:

just a passing thought - anyone ever noticed this before? WBBMC HGFIB

The fact that it is one letter short of a McRib ... that greasy, messy heartattack in a box McDonald's brings back every so often? Laughing

Don't remind me about how much I am missing the McRib right now. Winter can't come soon enough for me. Is it a permanent thing in the U.K.?

As far as the card, Guin put it perfectly that the solitaire cipher is a really good way to hide a message, so it is compulsory that the person tasked with decryption have a very explicit idea of what must be done. Either the card isn't offering that or we just aren't putting something together yet.

That's my problem with anagrams, ROT-ing, etc. etc. I understand we're well past the grasping-at-straws threshold and pretty much anything is fair game, but what a shoddy puzzle this would be if it required decryption techniques that had nothing to do with the puzzle itself--it'd be like if once you decrypted the flags in Broadside they all had to be ROT-13ed to see a message-why? Then again, that's the whole trouble with the hot-cold aspect and the disappearing/reappearing letters--why?

I'm trying to figure out why the solitaire cipher is the perfect thing to use here. I thought about the flaw of the solitaire cipher and wondered if this card might be using Broadside-esque methods in its choosing of that particular cipher but couldn't do anything with it.

I really liked jbd's idea a few posts back that the letters needed to be read from the inside outward because of how it tied in to the whole entropy theme and would bring the two sets of "cold" text together. Alas, I was unable to produce results.

Posted: Thu Jun 15, 2006 2:04 pm

FranG
Boot

Joined: 23 May 2006
Posts: 35

Cribs and deck orders

brokasaphasia,

I don't understand how looking for a certain word will get you to a correct deck order - or more precisely, if you have a correct deck order, why look for a certain word; you have the solution. Perhaps a short explanation of cribs would help some of us.

You can build a keystream to say anything you want, but I can't see any way to go back from the keystream to a deck order. I also can't see any way to work with just part of the deck order.

I'm not a fan of anagrams, but apparently the people at MC like them. Amazingly, I came up with a few - cute, but I think not useful:

A LOOK IN YOUR STUDY WOULD PROVE DAWN CHO STOLE FILES
A LOOK IN OUR STUDY WOULD PROVE HOW CANDY STOLE FILES

Miamo_tutti, flaw?? Broadside?? I must have missed something. Mind explaining?

Posted: Thu Jun 15, 2006 4:37 pm

miamo_tutti
Boot

Joined: 06 Apr 2006
Posts: 50
Location: Colorado Springs, CO

Re: Cribs and deck orders

FranG wrote:

Those anagrams are amazingly close to what I imagine the message might look like...

And about Broadside and this card (includes the solution to Broadside):

Spoiler (Rollover to View):

The answer to that card, "confides," illustrated the flaw of using flags to communicate. It was the word that there was no telegrafic representation for during the Battle of Trafalgar, so "expects" was used instead. Might this card have used the solitaire cipher for a similar reason? See http://www.ciphergoth.org/crypto/solitaire/

Posted: Thu Jun 15, 2006 5:06 pm

brokasaphasia
Boot

Joined: 31 May 2006
Posts: 26

Re: Cribs and deck orders

FranG wrote:

I don't understand how looking for a certain word will get you to a correct deck order - or more precisely, if you have a correct deck order, why look for a certain word; you have the solution. Perhaps a short explanation of cribs would help some of us.

heh... I may be misusing the term, but I believe a "crib" is a piece of the plaintext -- the deciphered message.

In my googling I've read how having reasonable size cribs can help lead to breaking ciphers. One web page stated that a 4-letter crib usually gives you enough information to dramatically reduce the total number of permutations of the encryption and allows a brute force solution.

Sorry for mentioning this again, but I found a Solitaire cipher web challenge based in the U.K. back in late 2004. The problem solvers in that case were given the first 13 cards of deck order. From this, the contestants were able to absolutely decipher the first 3 or so characters of plaintext, which I believe turned out to be D-E-A. Because this particular problem was only 1 of many problems the same folks had been solving, they assumed that the next letter was going to be R... because several other puzzle's solutions started with the word DEAR. This then led to a few distinct permutations for a few more cards, which then revealed more of the plaintext, which then led to more guesses at additional plaintext ... etc.

FranG wrote:

but I can't see any way to go back from the keystream to a deck order. I also can't see any way to work with just part of the deck order.

I believe you can do this.

For example: If the ciphertext letter W decrypts to the plaintext letter E, then the keystream value is 18. This means that the output card must be the 5 of Diamonds or the 5 of Spades. We don't know where in the deck the output card is sitting, but there are only 53 spots for it... and each of those possibilities leads to a precise card for the top position of the deck...

So, from just know a single letter of the plaintext, I've already reduced the total number of deck permutations by dividing it by 2809 (from 54! to 52!+53).

But, of course, going beyond a single output card is very difficult to phrase algorithmically. Which is probably the point you were trying to make... but I am still clinging to this possibility.

Posted: Thu Jun 15, 2006 7:08 pm

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