Mystery code and key

[Riggswolfe]

I figure we have some whizzes who can solve cryptograms here. So the first part is the code, the key is at the end.

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

salt and vinegar

[schild]

The answer is "Chips."

[Riggswolfe]

chips doesn't create anything coherent out of the code.

[Ironwood]

IT MUST DO DAMMIT!

Of course, if it's British, it'd be 'CRISPS'

hehhehe

[bhodi]

Man, fuck cryptography.

[Morat20]

I figure we have some whizzes who can solve cryptograms here. So the first part is the code, the key is at the end.

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

salt and vinegar

I don't know if you noticed, but that stuff isn't even english, man. It's just random groupings of five letters.

(Yes -- that was a joke).

[schild]

I bet people would be more helpful if you offered up what we were solving for you.

Do you win something? Is it for a game? Are you cheating on an exam? Trying to get into the NSA? What?

[Yegolev]

I know where to go next time I have a core dump to analyze.

[Riggswolfe]

I bet people would be more helpful if you offered up what we were solving for you.

Do you win something? Is it for a game? Are you cheating on an exam? Trying to get into the NSA? What?

Nah, I found it on an Espionage RPG website. Nothing real involved. Unless, a real spy is using a bunch of RPG geeks. Which would be funny. The groupings of 5 letters with a code word is a very standard cryptographic setup. I figured it was a Vergnier (sp?) code but it doesn't seem to translate right.

[Murgos]

Viginere?  Anyway, it looks like one I recall where the words of the key are rotated to make the substitution.  So to encrypt the letter s you would rotate the word salt to the right and that would result in an 'a'.  To decrypt you do the reverse.  I don't recall the exact details but it involved doing things in sets. 

If I had my book with me I would take a stab at it but I left it in Florida in a box when I moved.

[Riggswolfe]

Viginere? 

To use an example from Wikipedia:

Your key is lemon

Plaintext: ATTACKATDAWN
Key:        LEMONLEMONLE
Ciphertext:LXFOPVEFRNHR

you use a chart to figure out how the letters translate. It is basically a graph with the letters on the rows and columns. So for the first letter, you take A on the column, go down to L for the row and read across which in this case gives you L.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vigen%C3%A8re_cipher

[schild]

I really thought Chips was right.

Sigh.

[WayAbvPar]

Be sure to drink your Ovaltine!!

[Ironwood]

Chemicals help ?

NACL and, er, CH3COOH ?

[Ironwood]

Or not.

Enhance the hash with salt

One of the caveats of hashing is that identical input values produce identical encoded values. That is, two users with the same password will have the same encoded string stored for their password. If a hacker views the data, they may notice trends and possibly crack the values.

Adding salt values to the hashing algorithm solves this problem. A salt is random bytes added to the input value before the algorithm is applied. A salt value may be a random value generated by the system or an arbitrary value like an employee number.

The RNGCryptoServiceProvider class implements a cryptographic, random-number generator using the implementation provided by the cryptographic service provider. It may be easily used to add salt to the previous code sample:

string test = "Builder.com";
byte[] salt = new byte[8];
string intermediate = null;
try {
SHA1 sha = new SHA1CryptoServiceProvider();
RNGCryptoServiceProvider rng = new RNGCryptoServiceProvider();
rng.GetBytes(salt);
intermediate = Convert.ToBase64String(salt) + test;
byte[] result = new byte[intermediate.Length];
result = sha.ComputeHash(System.Text.Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(intermediate));
Console.WriteLine(Convert.ToBase64String(result));
} catch (CryptographicException ce) {
Console.WriteLine("Error: " + ce.Message);
}

Here's the same code in VB.NET:

Dim test As String = "Builder.com"
Dim result As Byte()
Dim salt(8) As Byte
Dim intermediate As String
Try
Dim sha As SHA1
sha = New SHA1CryptoServiceProvider
Dim rng As RNGCryptoServiceProvider
rng = New RNGCryptoServiceProvider
rng.GetBytes(salt)
intermediate = Convert.ToBase64String(salt) + test
result = sha.ComputeHash(System.Text.Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(intermediate))
Console.WriteLine(Convert.ToBase64String(result))
Catch ce As CryptographicException
Console.WriteLine(ce.Message)
End Try

The code varies from the first example when it adds the salt value to the beginning of the value to encode. Once the two strings are concatenated, the hash process begins. This allows unique salt values to be applied to individual users—attempting to thwart hack attempts. It does combat a dictionary attack, which is when the attacker tries to decrypt an encrypted message by comparing the encrypted value with previously computed encrypted values for the most likely keys.



Yeah, providing us with an idea of why we're looking at this shite for you would be good.

[Ironwood]

Simpler Still ?

http://crpuzzles.com/clist/clist0220s.html

Beware, popups.

Pissing me off now.

[Riggswolfe]

Yeah, I wondered about a salt hash. But it's posted on a website for fun supposedly and I can't imagine the guy wanting other people to have access to a hashing program. Too many variables. (literally and figuratively.)

I posted why earlier. I found it on an espionage RPG website and got stumped so figured I'd toss it out. I find these kinds of puzzles fun. This one is driving me crazy though.

[Ironwood]

Oh, so you did.  Excuse me, I'm tired.

However, I think the grouping is merely a red herring designed to fuck with our heads.  Reorder it and see if anything pops out at you.  What I notice is far, far too many doubles.

[Riggswolfe]

However, I think the grouping is merely a red herring designed to fuck with our heads.  Reorder it and see if anything pops out at you.  What I notice is far, far too many doubles.

Yeah, I noticed the doubles as well. I ran it through a program designed to do substitions, it came out with gibberish. I ran it through another program that lets you select for several sustition ciphers. It too came out with gibberish. T

he closest I got using a Vergnire cypher was the first five letters translating to CONGR (I think it had an R it might have just been CONG) which made me wonder if the solution didn't start with "CONGRATULATIONS" leading to some sort of "Congratulations, you've solved this silly puzzle...blah blah blah" but it turned to gibberish immediately afterwards.

I see two possibilities. There was no pattern and I just thought there was one. Or the cypher rotates in some way every 5 letters. There is a cypher called a Caesar cypher where you transpose the letters a certain number off. Like A might be transposed three letters right and become a D. I may need to run it through the program and see if maybe each five blocks it does something like this.

I've looked at it as perhaps the doubles represent something, like HH might actually translate to CH or TH or something. But that assumes a straight substition cypher and why give a key for a substition cypher? The grouping resembles other cryptograms that use a key I've seen. It's supposed to keep you from figuring out words based on word length and force the use of this key. But again, you're right, the doubles screw things up. I've also seriously considered just tossing the doubles out and seeing what if anything I find.

[schild]

Try these words as the key:

balls
testes

What?

[Roac]

You almost had it, Riggs.  Answer:

CONGRATULATIONS FOR HAVING BROKEN THIS SIMPLE CIPHER MESSAGE STOP IM CURRENTLY RECRUITING AGENTS FOR AN INTERNATIONAL ONLINE ESPIONAGE GAME STOP THE ACTION HAS ALREADY BEGUN BUT THERES STILL SPACES FOR MORE PLAYERS STOP IF YOURE INTERESTED THEN PLEASE CONTACT ME WITH YOUR ANONYMOUS EMAIL ADDRESS CODE NAME AND LOCATION IN THE WORLD STOP ILL PUT YOU IN TOUCH WITH OTHER AGENTS IN YOUR NEW RING AND THEN THE EXCITEMENT WILL BEGIN STOP MY EMAIL ADDRESS IS SPYLEICESTERATGMAILDOTCOM STOP BE SEEING YOU STOP GEORGE

Solution:

The key is "SALT", not the whole phrase.  And yes, it's a Vigenere.  I would've had it sooner, but forgot that A is value 0, not 1.  Oh well.

[Ironwood]

Yeah, came here to post my partial success too.  Alas, beaten.

[Riggswolfe]

You almost had it, Riggs.  Answer:
[snip answer]

Awesome Roac. I wonder why only part of the key was valid? Why throw in the extra? Just to confuse people?

The answer makes sense considering it the source I got it from. :)

[Samwise]

Awesome Roac. I wonder why only part of the key was valid? Why throw in the extra? Just to confuse people?

I think "vinegar" is meant to be a clever pun on "Vigenère".

[schild]

Well, yea.

[Riggswolfe]

Awesome Roac. I wonder why only part of the key was valid? Why throw in the extra? Just to confuse people?

I think "vinegar" is meant to be a clever pun on "Vigenère".

If there was a slap forehead emote I would use it. Lord. I was on the right track but was being too literal.