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[goldranger]

[SOLVED] walkerofthewoods email to Peter July 12th

[fonograph]

Hi everyone! I just started playing.

The first thing I see when looking at this is that each row has exactly 7 characters, which is precisely the number of binary digits used for encoding ASCII characters. The large number of rows also leads me to believe that each one could easily represent a single letter, thus forming a complete sentence.

I'm trying to figure out what the heck 'read' means though.

I also notice that other e-mails posted on Peter's blog have not included a subject or a time... could these also be hints?

edit: Just noticed -- 7:03... 307. Probably irrelevant, but cute.

[enaxor]

Welcome fonograph! Great observations. Read is also between two lines-so, "read between the lines"? The time stamp 7:03pm is also 19:03 military time, as well as 307 backwards. I found a song called
Walk With Me by Joe Budden.

[Delusional]

[fonograph]

This might be helpful:

I just noticed that the pattern "I S" appears five times, which is profoundly unlikely. In fact, there's a ~1.2% chance of any given pattern appearing 5 times or more. So unless this is profound coincidence, letters which are horizontally adjacent must be related in some way.

There may be other patterns which appear with unlikely frequency. If not, then it's likely that "I S" itself has some significance in the encoding.

edit: "S H" also appears 5 times.

[Sandra]

What if it's the verticle lines? Or a combination of the verticle and horizonatl. I took the first letter of the first line and found the letter that's between it and the one next to it. That worked because there was an odd number of letters. But, I couldn't get even numbers comparing letters above or below.

I'm not very good at puzzles - so how could the 7-o/0-3 and 3-o/0-7 be used in a puzzle?

Would really like to learn more so I can be of more help.

[pagrashtak]

Here's some frequency charts for analysis.

First alphabetically:

[konamouse]

Which suggests that each letter does not represent itself. So we don't have to think about reading down or diagonallly, or every 3rd and 7th letter, etc.... or do we?

Is it a simple substitution? What is the comparision to standard alphabet?

Does each line represent a letter?

Change the letters to numbers and then what do we have?

Just thinking out loud folks. Ignore the babbling idiot in her windowless office procrastinating from real work today.

[pagrashtak]

My current line of thought is that each line will yield six letters. The "read between the lines" clues coupled with the space between each vertical line of text makes me think that we need to read the six letters that would go between the lines. I've been playing around with converting the letters to numbers and performing operations, such as mod(letter1+letter2,26) and converting back, but haven't found anything yet.

[Shelina]

What if the READ menas just that, read.... and the only word that we've found is HOAX... maybe this puzzle is just a joke

[Bravil]

We also found GOTH

[kimer]

some other words I've seen.... is, hub, bit, riot, go, woe, sod (sons of Don), got, die.... those are reading left to right.... lines 7 & 8 from the bottom really bug me with all letters of 'wish' sort of comglomerated there... the only word that jumped out reading 'backwards' in the fifth line from bottom there is make.... I've played around with every third letter, seventh then 0 then third in a variety of ways but nothing really has made sense....

[Killalaz]

C Z E P F T A
V R O M K X M
F G Q Q B S X
N N Q T L Q X
E P E M A O H
F B F X S X H
L K P F Q U F
B T O Z Z N J
I X I Q S B G
H Y N I L C A
I M C D N I D
W P L D I K V
T S H G N Z T
H X P E V K O
J A B K H T J
G F T F G Q K
Z J T K F O H
V Q H E G T N
F T X C H E S
K W C V F Z G
P K E G Q H W
I X E E T Z G
P G J F L Y G
W H K C F H T
S A I T X D K
H P Q J P S W
H L J T N T W
F H E B S O B
S E S E N M E
I W Y R R R C
H C C G S L M
K F E W H G T
P K T E M E J
R T P P D O Z
K E Q U N H R
Q K P Q G H P
T B D F N G E
H N C H B L O
W P P O L H N
G E P Q S S B
F O I T R O B
B D G W M J O
N F D A K X V
J C F W Y I P
N E W G M J J
H C Y P B D B
X P B I M C D


This is what I got after runing the email trhough a Vigenere Cipher using the code word READ for the key. I don't know if this helps or if anyone sees something in this I don't but this puzzle definetly seems like it has something to do with a Vigenere to me. I am not sure but every vigenere contains a set of jumbeled letters and a code word to decode them by. That would explain the word read. What I am thinking is the Vigenere is just one part of solving this puzzle. I have been known to be wrong from time to time though.

[konamouse]

Did you run it through horizontally or vertically?

[Killalaz]

I did each line the exact way it was in the email. I am trying to decode it vertically now but it is going to take a while because of the way it is typed. I am not sure if I am even right about this. Maybe it is double encoded like we have to decode the message using some sort of key and then decode the decoded message again to come up with the real answer? I dunno my brain hurts and I keep seeing the NJ devil forming in shapes on my screen I think I need some sleep.