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Deciphering "Message X-1"

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Johan

Ex got M3 in the divorce, waiting for EU Model Y!
Feb 9, 2012
7,510
10,025
Drammen, Norway
Goes-to-11.png
New drop.png is up! It reads:

Ma-eDibeh-yazzieTkinMosaiKlizzie-yazzieGah-MosaiNe-ahs-jahNa-as-tso-si/
Bi-sodihLinNe-ahs-jahThan-zieNe-ahs-jahDibeh/91461024@Nesh-chee06/

... Guess there's and e-mail adress in there (the part with the @). Now looking at how this might med crypted/scrambled. The capitalizations must mean something, those letters come first in words? Names?

--------- Update:

The "91461024" comes from "91461024@N06" which was julietsteams username on flickr.

And looking at that account there4 is a new image there uploaded today:

8439495727_d25898db7c_b.jpg

Image has a flickr name of Message X-1

------ Updtate:

First part typed out is:

ZDSBR AET EZP HIYSXZZ!
NZ YKN H ZBDOD TZCZQYSN UKTP DSIN BTW UIAENZWA
YQVZIATVK EAUMHM FDEA SFI HOOCX VIWFV BFGAQKN
JG ZUK RYCEE. ANBKADSH’R VD JWZ GUO E’JZ GGWQID
RS O GLHYU Y S CBJM AS I ABNZF AOIUJR K 2 A HJ NFQ
YC TP YCR WKE. SXTLE FJXX! JV PLXD PQ IYBW I VVHN KOD
JBE PUMZRTDFNLJU! UHASXV ZMP R XFSL SU EGQA S TZP
GEWH LMYQV CXN FSFTLKMMQWBU AE RHM UV RE. MJOS
SZRRX IMB MHX QWM RNAOGR. OJDF KXDKWQF BD ZBHEK
RT SU QFNRUQNT HZ LX VNY FAQ EAPK SKP WY PKA EKORTCM.

Don't have time to type the rest... Gotta work (I'm on call). Looks like a simple substitution cipher to me...
 
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Putting this in a quote so it stays in all caps:
ZDSBR AET EZP HIYSXZZ!
NZ YKN H ZBDOD TZCZQYSN UKTP DSIN BTW UIAENZWA
YQVZIATVK EAUMHM FDEA SFI HOOCX VIWFV BFGAQKN
JG ZUK RYCEE. ANBKADSH’R VD JWZ GUO E’JZ GGWQID
RS O GLHYU Y S CBJM AS I ABNZF AOIUJR K 2 A HJ NFQ
YC TP YCR WKE. SXTLE FJXX! JV PLXD PQ IYBW I VVHN KOD
JBE PUMZRTDFNLJU! UHASXV ZMP R XFSL SU EGQA S TZP
GEWH LMYQV CXN FSFTLKMMQWBU AE RHM UV RE. MJOS
SZRRX IMB MHX QWM RNAOGR. OJDF KXDKWQF BD ZBHEK
RT SU QFNRUQNT HZ LX VNY FAQ EAPK SKP WY PKA EKORTCM.

YK DPGB UGBP ZDNT LXZYIFL HUSKC XBQ QT HUX NVIB
TGUDTLWA'K IFUKP. WY PKWP HMP QG FRJ ZRRBW JEQJ
QLB KGQZ BE NIY FBSDJ AC MGLE. ZP UYUPB WAPAM CSHD
OQ RPASBFPMQ QF CWY PHBWD TJET TPEG. TJ EGT FVT FI
SOGDK FH GSJE! G IYW, IL VLGV AC QMBMH BE. FNZF,
T QUQL F WSZJJ. TF XOK NRLKMPJGM TOIK PCIPBVK YLO
GYQ PTPK XZ YA ZPYU RVK KN. MQIR ITZM GYQ UKSF SNDMI
WEW M DVAJ LO QWQTPN DIRJS IAS -EKYGD. LA JEUK OFB
BYBZVQ IOC QIA OKX RVP HSIYJMY HJ RBXE TOEI KGOM.
MBNG? HBGM? ERJII. DDTOT? HSIYJMY WY ZLFP ROEXMOZHKC
NP GBRV. F UYQPS ASX HWMR Z FNF VO EOZHTPA MJ CXN QUV
PEUDZ NZ NZIE SODFTQW YJ CXN 22 RHIGJ ROJHTXLQSM.
Y EME YQJFCI W LIP TJMH MRJMKT UQSC SDTJUX SKPWOX.
DOS YB KFV LR'F ABNBL CY OU MZC OXLCNFA U PHFOWBU
AXDIZHBW. EH RZR ZEUZGYHHEK MEJ LRM BNHR RU PBE
BJDYCX R SEVCBJ PS QPPJFD. UQDBKHDAG UWLTFQFH.
DBYAA QIA MDZ YYQPSQL GC ZUKO EP NFXA OWU FVEA SFI C
YKKLG AS QT ZDVUXJ, XPH LIIAXE EWH NRBH ZKAQBEQ.
XPL TKG RMC VXHQ. KMYZ YCR HZR DQT OMP OSH SND TZ
HNHKGE NIYO ONJUKN VKAF YTJZ VXDGV SNDH. JWZ RZJ
SNDT ZVI IVY VD TVBET!

I don't think it is a simple character substitution this time. The character frequencies are too uniform.
(For instance, Z about as common as E) so I think it is something a bit more sophisticated.
I tried various ROT (including ROT13) but that didn't seem to work.
Based on previous clues, it is probably something fairly "standard", but I haven't stumbled on it yet.

Might be something in here that could help:
CrypTool-Online
The square outline in the crypted text makes me think it could be a "four square" cipher:
CrypTool-Online / Ciphers / Four-Square
We could possibly decrypt it with this:
test it
but would need to figure out the code words...

(Getting too tired to do more tonight...)


- - - Updated - - -

Just taking only the capitals from the banner clue, it almost seems like this lines up:
MDTMKGMNN/BLNTND/91461024@N06/
FLICKRCOM/PHOTOS/91461024@N06/
 
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I've put off opening this thread for fear of getting sucked in to whatever was going on inside. Unfortunately I just read through it all.. wow.

As for the latest thing, Message X-1. What's bugging me is the half changed colour words in the original picture. If it means anything (the separate square) do you discard the half coloured words or keep them? Either way it is too late for me to get too involved with this, and I have to be up early tomorrow. I threw a few segments of it at a few cryptography solving things and came up with nothing.

I thought there seemed to be a lot of long words in there (too many) and also too many single letter "words" that are of different letters. So yeah, not a simple substitution. Tried using cryptography solvers ignoring spaces as well and no luck.

Good luck ;-)
 
Ok, I am looking into the posted cipher atm. Thought we could post any data or progress on it as we go.

Here is the frequency analysis for single and dual letters:

1190 chars
a : 46 ... 3.9 %
b : 48 ... 4.0 %
c : 29 ... 2.4 %
d : 45 ... 3.8 %
e : 51 ... 4.3 %
f : 47 ... 3.9 %
g : 37 ... 3.1 %
h : 48 ... 4.0 %
i : 45 ... 3.8 %
j : 46 ... 3.9 %
k : 51 ... 4.3 %
l : 32 ... 2.7 %
m : 46 ... 3.9 %
n : 43 ... 3.6 %
o : 40 ... 3.4 %
p : 49 ... 4.1 %
q : 50 ... 4.2 %
r : 46 ... 3.9 %
s : 49 ... 4.1 %
t : 47 ... 3.9 %
u : 42 ... 3.5 %
v : 36 ... 3.0 %
w : 35 ... 2.9 %
x : 37 ... 3.1 %
y : 49 ... 4.1 %
z : 54 ... 4.5 %

as => 9
dt => 8
ia => 7
yq => 7
uk => 7
iy => 7
tz => 6
cx => 6
tp => 6
qi => 6
be => 6
zr => 6
nz => 6
ph => 6
oe => 5
tj => 5
nd => 5
yc => 5
e. => 5
je => 5
fv => 5
uq => 5
wy => 5
bw => 5
nf => 5
jm => 5
si => 5
zy => 5
kn => 5
sn => 5
kp => 4
qw => 4
pk => 4
mb => 4
qt => 4
qf => 4
ek => 4
rj => 4
qp => 4
et => 4
zh => 4
rz => 4
to => 4
tf => 4
sx => 4
kg => 4
hb => 4
zp => 4
km => 4
my => 4
mh => 4
ea => 4
og => 4
ae => 4
rv => 4
ka => 4
sf => 4
hm => 4
bk => 4
bn => 4
fa => 4
hz => 4
fn => 4
mp => 4
aq => 4
ko => 4
xd => 4
ao => 4
vk => 4
tl => 4
xn => 4

IC=Index of coincidence, Kappa = Friedman/26(letters in alphabet)
Friedman IC: 0.9981 (kappa-plaintext: 0.0384) for this cipher
Friedman IC: 2.7816 (kappa-plaintext: 1.0698) Navajo (A,I,H,L,S,T)
Friedman IC: 1.7189 (kappa-plaintext: 0.6611) English (E,T,A,I,O,N)

I dont have any idea of what kind of cipher this is yet or any keywords, the kappa suggests this is a very random cipher so either some kind of square cipher as suggested by Teg or just a Running Key vignere cipher.
Going to try out some online tools just to see what they suggest this is.
 
Ok i found some stuff to help identify the cipher:

http://home.comcast.net/~acabion/acarefstats.html

IC number is to be divided by 1000 for comparison.

Image1.gif
Image2.gif


I tested the cipher on this webpage: http://home.comcast.net/~acabion/refscore.html

Which gives us this information:

len: 1151 IC: 38 MIC: 40 MKA: 46 DIC: 17 EDI: 18 LR: 7 ROD: 49 LDI: 414 SDD: 109

Number of standard deviations from averages for each cipher type:

RunningKey 4
Periodic gromark 5
Progkey beaufort 5
Randomtext 6
Gromark 6
Progressivekey 6
Vigautokey 6
Trifid 7
Nicodemus 7
Portax 7
Digrafid 8
...

Stats abbrevations:
len = length. IC = Index of Coincidence times 1000. MIC = max IC for periods 1-15, times 1000.
MKA = max kappa for periods 1-15, times 1000. DIC = Digraphic Index of Coincidence, times 10000.
EDI = DIC for even numbered pairs, times 10000. LR = Long Repeat (percentage of 3 symbol repeats).
ROD = percentage of odd-spaced repeats to all repeats. LDI = average English log digraph score.
SDD = average English single letter - digraph discrepancy score.
 
Ok so I've been trying to hit the cipher from some different angles of attack. Found a really cool program that I downloaded:

http://www.cryptool.org/en/cryptool1

No luck so far... Perhaps we won't be able to get anywhere with this until we either get more clues as to what the message or parts of it is supposed to contain and/or some clue as to the type of cipher used. I also thought the "X-1" naming of the message was an implication of the type of code used... Perhaps this isn't the message, but the key? As a four-square type key, or a "one time pad"?

If we do think this is the message, here are some of my assumptions. Do you agree?:

* The message is in English
* The spaces are not code, hence the length of the crypto words correspond to the length of the plain text words
* The "!" "." and apostrophes are not encrypted
* The numbers "22" are in plain text

Some assumptions
 
If we do think this is the message, here are some of my assumptions. Do you agree?:

* The message is in English
Yes, I assume so. All other clues were. It wouldn't surprise me if it contained some misspellings, and some archaic phrases.

* The spaces are not code, hence the length of the crypto words correspond to the length of the plain text words
In this case, I am not sure what to make of the spaces. They could be random to make it look like sentences instead of a big block of characters.
There seem to be too many one letters separated by one spaces for it to be one to one spaces in cipher to spaces in plain text. Maybe the number of spaces is correct but the decoding moves them around in the plain text?
I got a bit fixated on this:
"AOIUJR K 2 A HJ NFQ"
What wording could have _ 2 _ __ ___ ?
It doesn't seem like the spacing could be right on that.
Just trying to think of a sequence that could fit, I supposed something like this is possible:
"SWITCH A 2 B TO USE"... If they did something like use 2 to represent the word "to".
Really stretching there.
Is there some Shakespeare in here:
"2 A HJ NFQ YC TP"
"2 B OR NOT TO BE"
...

* The "!" "." and apostrophes are not encrypted
* The numbers "22" are in plain text
Yes, based on previous puzzles, I assume that the numbers and punctuation could be non-encrypted.
The fact that the exclamations and question marks are at the end of "words" make it seems like their positioning is somehow correct.
"TOEI KGOM. MBNG? HBGM? ERJII. DDTOT?"
They might just be "no-ops" thrown in there to make the text blocks look like sentences again.
 
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If we do think this is the message, here are some of my assumptions. Do you agree?:

* The message is in English
* The spaces are not code, hence the length of the crypto words correspond to the length of the plain text words
* The "!" "." and apostrophes are not encrypted
* The numbers "22" are in plain text

Some assumptions

I think it is a good assumption that the message is in English and the other assumptions are ok to start out with.
From what i can see from the numbers the cipher could be a one time pad/running key because that's what some of the test pages suggested. I tried to find the length of the encryption key by breaking up the ciphertext and calculating the I.C. for each subsequence but it stays very flat up to 20 characters. This also points to a key that's the length of the message or at least >20 chars.

Maybe i did something wrong or maybe there is some other encryption method used but ill dig into this some more, if we use your assumptions then maybe we can make some wild guesses on a few of the letters surrounding the symbols.
ANBKADSH’R should be ANBKADSH’S i would think?

If the encryption method used is a periodic gromark, which was high on the likelihood rankings in the tests, there needs to be a keyword to solve it so any guesses are welcome.
Here is a solver where you can guess keywords:
http://home.earthlink.net/~fpcorr/PeriodicGromark/PeriodicGromarkDecoder.html
 
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Autokey cipher


From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Jump to: navigation, search






A tabula recta for use with an autokey cipher
An autokey cipher (also known as the autoclave cipher) is a cipher which incorporates the message (the plaintext) into the key. There are two forms of autokey cipher: key autokey and text autokey ciphers. A key-autokey cipher uses previous members of the keystream to determine the next element in the keystream. A text-autokey uses the previous message text to determine the next element in the keystream.

In modern cryptography, self-synchronizing stream ciphers are autokey ciphers.





Contents
[hide] 1 History
2 Cryptanalysis
3 Autokey in modern ciphers
4 See also
5 Notes
6 References
7 External links


[edit] History

The first autokey cipher was invented by Girolamo Cardano, and contained a fatal defect. Like many autokey ciphers it used the plaintext to encrypt itself; however, since there was no additional key, it is no easier for the intended recipient to read the message than anyone else who knows that the cipher is being used.[1] A number of attempts were made by other cryptographers to produce a system that was neither trivial to break nor too difficult for the intended recipient to decipher. Eventually one was invented in 1564 by Giovan Battista Bellaso using a "reciprocal table" with five alphabets of his invention and another form was described in 1586 by Blaise de Vigenère with a similar reciprocal table of ten alphabets.

One popular form of autokey starts with a tabula recta, a square with 26 copies of the alphabet, the first line starting with 'A', the next line starting with 'B', etc., like the one above. In order to encrypt a plaintext, one locates the row with the first letter to be encrypted, and the column with the first letter of the key. The letter where the line and column cross is the ciphertext letter.

Giovan Battista Bellaso used the first letter of each word as a primer to start his text autokey. Blaise de Vigenère used as a primer an agreed-upon single letter of the alphabet.

The autokey cipher as used by the members of the American Cryptogram Association is in the way the key is generated. It starts with a relatively short keyword, and appends the message to it. So if the keyword is "QUEENLY", and the message is "ATTACK AT DAWN", the key would be "QUEENLYATTACKATDAWN" [2


Vigen%C3%A8re_square_shading_svg.png
 
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Someone may want to proofread the encrypted text I posted. There could certainly be typos in there...

I went through the text and found some errors which i corrected, here is the new cipher text:

ZDSBR AET EZP HIYSXZZ!
NZ YKN H ZBDOD TZCZQYSN UKTP DSIN BTW UIAENZWA
YQVZIATVK EAUMHM FDEA SFI HOOCX VIWFV BFGAQKN
JG ZUK RYCEE. ANBKASDH’R VD JWZ GUO E’JX GGWQID
RS O GLHYU Y S CBJM AS I ABNZF AOIUJR K 2 A HJ NFQ
YC TP YCR WKE. SXTLE FJXX! JV PLXD PQ IYBW I VVHN KOD
JBE PUMZRTDFNLJU! UHASXV ZMP R XFSL SU EGQA S TZP
GEWH LMYQV CXN FSFTLKMMQWBU AE RHM UV RE. MJOS
SZRRX IMB MHX QWM RNAOGR. OJDF KXDKWQF BD ZBHEK
RT SU QFNRUQNT HZ LX VNY FAQ EAPK SKP WY PKA EKORTCM.

YK DPGB UGBP ZDNT LXZYIFL HUSKC XBQ QT HUX NVIB
TGUDTLWA'K IFUKP. WY PKWP HMP QG FRJ ZRRBW JEQJ
QLB KGQZ BE NIY FBSDJ AC MGLE. ZP UYUPB WAPAM CSHD
OQ RPASBFPMQ QF CWY PHBWD TJET TPEG. TJ EGT FVT FI
SOGDK FH GSJE! G IYW, IL VLGV AC QMBMH BE. FNZF,
T QUQL F WSZJYJ. TF XOK NRLKMPJGM TOIK PCIPBVK YLO
GYQ PTPK XZ YA ZPYU RVK KN. MQIR ITZM GYQ UKSF SNDMI
WEW M DVAJ LO QWQTPN DIRJS IAS -EKYGD. LA JEUK OFB
BYBZVQ IOC QIA OKX RVP HSIYJMY HJ RBXE TOEI KGOM.
MBNG? HBGM? ERJII. DDTOT? HSIYJMY WY ZLFP ROEXMOZHKC
NP GBRV. F UYQPS ASX HWMR Z FNF VO EOZHTPA MJ CXN QUV
PEUDZ NZ NZIE SODFTQW YJ CXN 22 RHIGJ ROJHTXLQSM.
Y EME YQJFCI W LIP TJMH MRJMKT UQSC SDTJUX SKPWOX.
DOS YB KFV LR'F ABNBL CY OU MZC OXLCNFA U PHFOWBU
AXDIZHBW. EH RZR ZEUZGYHHEK MEJ LRM BNHR RU PBE
BJDYCX R SEVCBJ PS QPPJFH. UQDBKHDAG UWLTFQFH.
DBYAA QIA MDZ YYQPSQL GC ZUKO EP NFXA OWU FVEA SFI C
YKKLG AS QT ZDVUXJ, XPH LIIAXE EWH NRBH ZKAQBEQ.
XPL TKG RMC VXHQ. KMYZ YCR HZR DQT OMP OSH SND TZ
HNHKGE NIYO ONJUKN VKAF YTJZ VXDGV SNDH. JWZ RZJ
SNDT ZVI IVY VD TVBET!

Doesnt change the test scores much:
len: 1152 IC: 38 MIC: 40 MKA: 46 DIC: 17 EDI: 16 LR: 7 ROD: 50 LDI: 414 SDD: 110

Number of standard deviations from averages for each cipher type:

RunningKey 4
Periodic gromark 5
Progkey beaufort 5
Randomtext 5
Gromark 5
Progressivekey 6
Vigautokey 6
...
Stats abbrevations:
len = length. IC = Index of Coincidence times 1000. MIC = max IC for periods 1-15, times 1000.
MKA = max kappa for periods 1-15, times 1000. DIC = Digraphic Index of Coincidence, times 10000.
EDI = DIC for even numbered pairs, times 10000. LR = Long Repeat (percentage of 3 symbol repeats).
ROD = percentage of odd-spaced repeats to all repeats. LDI = average English log digraph score.
SDD = average English single letter - digraph discrepancy score.
 
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ok, so assuming it's an autokey cipher, what would the keyword be?

I tried out a few on this website here:

http://rumkin.com/tools/cipher/vigenere-autokey.php

I tried, teslive, tesla, x, for example but not sure if I am going down the right route. That above site seems to shift the characters for removing the keyword... i.e. reversing the autokey cipher business.

I then shoved the output into a normal cipher solver kind of thing, here:

Decrypto 8.5, Online Cryptoquip and Cryptogram Solver

I am new to this so have no idea how wrong this may be. :p
 
ok, so assuming it's an autokey cipher, what would the keyword be?

I tried out a few on this website here:

http://rumkin.com/tools/cipher/vigenere-autokey.php

I tired using the same site, and the alphabet key we found in the last encypted puzzle: "TESLAbcdfghijkmnopqruvwxyz"
I set the mode to "Decrypt" and copy/pasted in the encrypted text, then (like you) tried entering various related keywords, but the decoded text below never look intelligible. It is nice that the site does the decryption in realtime, so you can quickly see if you got it right, but so far I didn't find the answer. Either I didn't guess the Passphrase, or we are doing this wrong.


I am a little confused by the whole concept of autokey encryption.
It seems that the key is a secret keyword + the contents of the original plain text.
So, to decrypt it seems like you would need to know at least part of the original message.
Or the secret keyword is as long as the whole message. That would be a LONG passphrase...
 
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Well, I tried TESLA, and TESLATESLATESLA repeating a bunch of times, but "no dice".

Maybe the old Alphabet Key is wrong. Or maybe Vigenere-Autokey isn't it.

There are many ways we could do this wrong and end up with a useless result.
Perfection or bust.