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Subterfuge Cryptography

PostPosted: Wed Dec 09, 2015 7:30 pm
by v3xt
Seeing as Subterfuge is about deceit, I thought it would be fun to play a code breaking game. I'll post a code, and when you figure it out, post the answer, along with a code of your own. Post the answer like this [?color=#1a1a1a]answer[/color] (remove the "?" and replace answer) so that it doesn't ruin the puzzle for everyone else. Hopefully everyone enjoys this.

Here's the first code, it's not too hard.

19210220051806210705

Re: Subterfuge Cryptography

PostPosted: Wed Dec 09, 2015 8:35 pm
by carter j burke
Ron's social security number! :P

Re: Subterfuge Cryptography

PostPosted: Wed Dec 09, 2015 9:49 pm
by r10t--
That wasn't too hard:

Subterfuge. Two-digit numbers corresponding to the letters of the alphabet

Here's my code:
(12,7)(5,12)(16,8)
(8,11)(7,0)(7,1)(0,18)

Re: Subterfuge Cryptography

PostPosted: Wed Dec 09, 2015 11:02 pm
by roadkiehl
Bah, these things torture me. I can never solve them, but I can't leave them alone. Looks like a sleepless night for me... Jk, I'll just have to destroy my phone so I stop staring at this.

Re: Subterfuge Cryptography

PostPosted: Wed Dec 09, 2015 11:29 pm
by crisismana
this code chat, if it apply to the game. it will bring chat to another whole level. xD

Re: Subterfuge Cryptography

PostPosted: Thu Dec 10, 2015 2:21 pm
by pandasecret
"The numbers, Mason, what do they mean!?"
Yeah, I have no idea how to crack r10t's code... I plotted the points on a graph as if they were Cartesian... And that still didn't help.
And I also listed the numbers with the alphabet, which there has to be some sort of relation, but still didn't work (or I can't see a relation).
Ah well, as I can't crack r10t's code, here's mine (I'm pretty sure this one should be easier to crack):

CTOBY OUNRC NLSOO GAYKD RTOEE AIUMR

Re: Subterfuge Cryptography

PostPosted: Thu Dec 10, 2015 2:31 pm
by v3xt
Panda I solved yours, it's CONGRATULATIONS YOU BROKE MY CODER
I'm still trying to break --r10t's, so I'm not going to post another code yet. I also tried graphing them to no avail.

Oh also I figured out the correct colour code to use, it is 1a1a1a

Re: Subterfuge Cryptography

PostPosted: Thu Dec 10, 2015 5:05 pm
by mathwhiz9
MY GOSH R10T'S CODE WAS DIFFICULT!!!!! I got it though :D it's TRY THIS
Edit: forgot to remove question mark, made it very visible :oops:
Read about this type of code in a book, it may be pretty difficult....

VWUXFXBP RL CDK LFCCKVC

Re: Subterfuge Cryptography

PostPosted: Thu Dec 10, 2015 7:50 pm
by pandasecret
mathwhiz9 wrote:MY GOSH R10T'S CODE WAS DIFFICULT!!!!! I got it though :D it's TRY THIS
Edit: forgot to remove question mark, made it very visible :oops:
Read about this type of code in a book, it may be pretty difficult....

VWUXFXBP RL CDK LFCCKVC

Wow, looking over my colorful post, I just realized that I had r10t's code, but didn't realize the correct way to do it! Looking back, it looks so easy.
Also, mathwiz, your code should be: SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST
I think we should also post how we got the solution, here's how I realized r10t's was solved: The first number corresponds to a letter in the alphabet with A being 0 and Z being 25. The second number is what you add to the first number. The sum is the letter you want, so (with visual help from my picture) (12, 7) would be the 12th letter (M) plus 7 = 19th letter (T).
For mathwiz's code: I noticed a lot of Cs in the code, meaning that letter was most likely E or T (the first and most common letters in English). As there are few words that start with E, or have E twice in a row, I deduced that C must be representing T. Although unconventional, I just looked up words with three Ts in them. There were two good matches: fittest and wettest (both having the ts in the right positions). Next I moved to the penultimate set of letters "CDK," keeping in mind that C was T. Now, assuming that mathwiz is a logical person who uses known phrases and not jumbo, phrases like "Toe wettest, Tip Fittest, Tap Wettest, Tin Fittest," etc were eliminated, leaving me with the likely decoded phrase of "the fittest" or "the wettest". "RL" was very short so I skipped it for now. "VWUXFXBP" had two repetitions - X. Using my previous decoded answer, I knew that "F" was most likely the letter I or E, and "V" was even more likely the letter S. Now I knew that the first word had something like "S??#(I/E)#??" The online dictionary and search tools are your friends, so I looked for eight letter words starting with S and containing two repeated letters as well as an I or E between them (scrabble word finder works great), which also had some sort of relation to "the fittest" or "the wettest". After some searching, it became clear that the phrase would be "SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST."
I'm sure there is probably a way to do it with ciphers and stuff, but that's how I did it (I think this method is just called "Brute cracking" but I'm not sure.

Re: Subterfuge Cryptography

PostPosted: Thu Dec 10, 2015 9:23 pm
by r10t--
Correct you are!! I am surprised that you guys got that without me having to post any hints!! Kudos! Well done!

For those curious: I used a key and cipher method; (key,cipher). The first one (key) shifts the alphabet by that many letters and the second one (cipher) tells you what digit in the key you need to use. For a much harder code the key would not be given making it very difficult to solve!