math puzzle crypto experts

[NetRodent]

There are a couple of possible hints in the message:

1. In one part of the message it says the characters are "a-o" and "p-z". In another part it talks about the characters A-Z. The actual coded message is all in lower case, could the case of characters in the letter be connected with the key?

2. The code is described as an alpha numeric wheel. However the code includes characters that are not generally considered alphanumeric. It might just be a mistake or it might be significant.

3. The writer says he left out nulls and reverses. He doesn't say anything about stepping.

[Tanker]

net rodent there is going to be longitudes and lattitudes that will have "." in them so they have to be in there


this is a tricky puzzle very tricky big question is where do we start

[colpanic]

Well, I can program.. but I don't really know where to start.

There are too many possible ways without some sort of hint from the post.. If anybody figures out a likely way, I'll code it.

Problem is, it could be anything, like:

1. rotate the wheel 1 step with each character..

2. rotate the wheel X steps with each character.

3. rotate the wheel forward on .'s, or backward on -'s...

Without more help there are basically infinite possibilities.

(I already wrote a program to rule out the simple ones).

[Supercharged]

If you know the area that the cache is in, geographically... cant you at least tell a computer program to look for those strings...

[clubgames]

Originally posted by NetRodent

1. In one part of the message it says the characters are "a-o" and "p-z". In another part it talks about the characters A-Z. The actual coded message is all in lower case, could the case of characters in the letter be connected with the key?

2. The code is described as an alpha numeric wheel. However the code includes characters that are not generally considered alphanumeric. It might just be a mistake or it might be significant.

3. The writer says he left out nulls and reverses. He doesn't say anything about stepping. [/B]

1. Just a regular-expression-like hint, means it will use those characters within. However, that doesn't explain why there are dashes '-' within the crypt.

2. It's significant, but not to the solution. I'll explain more later.

3. Stepping?

[clubgames]

Originally posted by colpanic

(I already wrote a program to rule out the simple ones).

If you have a brute-force dictionary of terms, I can write the program to brute-force the code and check to see if we have a match.

[clubgames]

I can prove it's not a straight alpha key rotation, as the puzzle suggests. So you'll either have to quess at each letter to make sense, or I need a dictionary of terms.

I don't want to post all the wrong solutions here, but if you message me, I'll send you them.

[Tanker]

any one having any luck? I look forward to giving someone the $100 prize

[grumpy]

a hint
the first 7 lines are all 35 characters.

[clubgames]

Originally posted by Tanker
any one having any luck? I look forward to giving someone the $100 prize

Attached is a link to the code and txt that proves it's not a simple "decoder ring" rotation.

The text file contains all possible rotations, none of which makes sense.

Therefore, I need a dictionary of terms to search against, and a few hours of processing time to continue...

If anyone else wants to take this work and run with it, have at it.

Code and Rotates

[colpanic]

Originally posted by clubgames
Attached is a link to the code and txt that proves it's not a simple "decoder ring" rotation.

The text file contains all possible rotations, none of which makes sense.

Therefore, I need a dictionary of terms to search against, and a few hours of processing time to continue...

If anyone else wants to take this work and run with it, have at it.

Code and Rotates

ClubGames: Im not sure what good a dictionary of terms would do you.. unless you have some guess as to the encryption algorithm. I mean, I used to dictionary passwd files back in the day, but that took awhile even though we knew the encoding scheme.

Anyway, if you have figured out some way to do it, why don't you just dictionary a bunch of common words that would be in any sentence? you know, "the" "and" "or" "money", whatever. Anything that starts returning english words at all is a pretty decent start.

[Tanker]

just checking in to see if someone discvered the code