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October 09, 2005
CHALLENGE 2B HINT
Stuck on 2B? The first hurdle is the morse code. You can tackle this by hand or using a word processor to replace each morse sequence by the appropriate sequence of letters. This will give you a standard ciphertext. Unfortunately this one doesn't appear to be a Caesar shift (that's because it isn't one) so you need to work a bit harder to crack it. If you check the frequency with which letters appear in the ciphertext you should see that one appears most often so that probably represents e, that gives you somewhere to start. Look for a common three letter sequence - this probably represents the word "the", carrying on like this gives a way to crack open the cipher. In fact this cipher is still a fairly simple one, and we wrote about it in the Teachers' Pack which you can download from this site at this url. Take a look, it is full of useful tips. Good luck,
Posted by Harry at October 9, 2005 06:18 PM
Comments
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Three phrases should be among the most common in our daily usage. They are: Thank you, I am grateful and I appreciate.
Posted by: vigrx at November 24, 2005 12:51 AM
How do you use a word processor to crack the morse code!
Posted by: Emily at October 13, 2005 07:21 PM
As well as the teacher's pack, another useful (and interesting) resource is Simon Singh's "The Code Book". Although offers little practical advice on solving harder ciphers (look to google for this), it gives an indepth guide to frequency analysis (and some interesting stories). Another good one, if you don't have a computer or programming skills, "Cryptanalysis" by H F Gaines, gives detailed lists and structures of various languages (e.g. the relationship between h and e in English)
Hope that helps.
cecil
Posted by: cecil at October 11, 2005 08:23 AM
You are right, girl power, the teacher's pack is at that website! It takes a while to load, but just be patient! My guess is you didn't wait long enough last time. And, believe it or not, I know its impossible, but it includes slightly better hints than 'Jason's big hint.'
Posted by: wrighty at October 11, 2005 08:07 AM
where's the teachers pack?
[ANSWER: It should be at www.cipher.maths.soton.ac.uk/Teacherspack.pdf, Harry]
Posted by: girl power at October 10, 2005 07:33 PM
Could you tell us what the timing interval for scoring decreases will be for the next challenge?
Or possibly publish a list for all challenges.
Posted by: tom at October 10, 2005 07:19 PM
I submitted an answer on thursday, then realised a mistake I had made and resubmitted the corrected one, but I have only recieved email feedback on the incorrect one, does this mean my other one did not submit correctly? Or do the emails sometimes take time to send?
Posted by: Jack at October 10, 2005 06:33 PM
Of course, that is not the only way to do the morse code...
And there are many ways to find individual letters in a "monoalphabetic" cipher. You just need to know some of them. I could give you a website, but you can look for yourself!
Here is a big hint from me though: h appears after e very rarely, but it commonly appears before it (like in "the"). And if you have a way to count this, h will be as easy to find as e. t follows very quickly of course.
Posted by: Jason at October 10, 2005 04:48 PM
u don't need to know where the spaces r. You can submit without any spaces if u want.
Posted by: harry at October 10, 2005 12:55 PM
how do u no where spaces are
Posted by: me at October 10, 2005 12:52 PM
Thanks 4 the hint harry but i've just cracked it! lol
Posted by: Jaccy at October 9, 2005 07:43 PM