All Ciphers

[PINNAZ]

On 27 May 2016 at 2:35 AM, WaterKH said:

Does anyone have a texture file of the clocktower cipher? I'll check back through the thread, but don't remember seeing anything!

@WaterKH I've been unable to get the textures as my PC shat itself & I had to do a fresh install. Still installing programs ATM. Perhaps ask on Reddit again?

 

2 hours ago, Nieno69 said:

 Sorry for the dump question: what exactly is a texture file? I dont find a translation for that...

@Nieno69 A Texture file is the raw 2D image that is placed into the game. Any picture, poster, 2D graphic that you see, comes from a texture file. My G935 avatar picture is from a texture file. 

 

Like the DNA cipher that was just solved. That is the Texture file.

[WaterKH]

Thanks, @PINNAZ! 

 

So I believe the clocktower and the castle are the last two ciphers on this map that have not been solved - Has anyone gotten any headway with either one?

[certainpersonio]

The only "progress" I've made is that I now believe there are spaces before the "O" in The Castle cipher. To some people this may have been obvious, but for some reason I didn't put it together until after ZNS. I think it should look like this:

 

**o**yo*l**rrgnrdcyhea*thsyar*a*p*w*sryy*c*auM*ag*,naaca**ldwylnmrphoto...*llulf*yoirntin*teop*noekuaoku*Zyiooy.ee*ulZ

 

Beyond that, no real updates. 

[Nieno69]

The clocktower cipher is no simple vigenere.... tried word attack normal and reverse (reverse actually suggested an interesting  keyword something like man%%%%%%" but didnt work) and all names of older maps and did the same with the alphabets used like the shinonuma cipher  - so i got back to the clocktower and checked it before and after dempsey comes down in theather mode and tried with morse code because its the radiotower (funkturm) no further progress...

 

The castle should be a transposition... maybe double transposition and we need to find the second keyword....further i dont know about the two "Z" - if its a simple transposition i dont know many words with z.... maybe its transposition+simple substitution

 

And the letters are written in different  sizes... why not just add a line or two and write it all the same size? (See "naaca" and the "a" a line above)  so maybe the lines are special but i dont know...maybe its just because its written by "hand"

 

No real clues but maybe it help you to avoid trying things and loose your time..

 

Maybe we just think to complicated and it is just before our eyes...

[MintyFresh]

Noob here, the "Zyiooy.ee" punctuation looks like a link to a website to me. 

However, instead of the ".com" domain extension,it is a shortened url.

 

The url could have been processed by a url shortener like bitly or goo.gl however, it is just a crazy idea based on the punctuation.

 

I am probably wrong due to the "ulZ" text showing right after it which makes it seem out of place for a website to be located in the cipher.

[WaterKH]

3 hours ago, MintyFresh said:

Noob here, the "Zyiooy.ee" punctuation looks like a link to a website to me. 

However, instead of the ".com" domain extension,it is a shortened url.

 

The url could have been processed by a url shortener like bitly or goo.gl however, it is just a crazy idea based on the punctuation.

 

I am probably wrong due to the "ulZ" text showing right after it which makes it seem out of place for a website to be located in the cipher.

 

That's not a bad idea. Though I think what you said in the last part is what I would have to go with. But it's good that we have an idea sort of out of the box!

[WOW]

what are some types of cyphers let me know ill try them out 

 

[Nieno69]

Something new about them here? @WaterKH @certainpersonio

 

And some further infos about the motd cipher?

 

 

[certainpersonio]

@Nieno69 No updates real updates from me on the DE ciphers remaining. The only pseudo-update that I've got has to do with The Castle Cipher. When originally working on it, I started the cipher text immediately with "o". However, after re-examining this cipher after working though the hidden spaces in ZNS transposition ciphers, I now believe there are spaces before the initial "o". How many? No idea, but here's my guess of the cipher text:

• **o**yo*l**rrgnrdcyhea*thsyar*a*p*w*sryy*c*auM*ag*,naaca**ldwylnmrphoto...*llulf*yoirntin*teop*noekuaoku*Zyiooy.ee*ulZ
• * = space

Not ground braking, but important if you're working on it as some transposition component, which I think it might.

 

As for the MotD cipher, I'm assuming you mean the ADFGX cipher. I'm working on proving whether or not the alphabet is keyed with a word that is 6 or less letters long. It's slow going and maybe I'll be done by August? Not sure though. However, I did do some research on how ADFGX was originally cracked by armies during WWI. I was reading a US Army report (I think it was originally shared by @Shootinfish a while back, but I can't remember...) about it. From what I could gather, their biggest problem was with the transposition key, mostly because there were so many permutations and they had to run them all by hand (unlike us with our fancy computers). But once they got the key, it was relatively easy to figure out the alphabet order via letter frequency. This is because the alphabets and keys would remain the same for at least a day, thus they would have multiple intercepted messages to use as a reference. In essence, they had the opposite problem as us.

[certainpersonio]

Ok, something mildly interesting clicked for me about Clock Tower Cipher. The most frequent 6 letters of the cipher are the vowels (+Y, the pseudo-vowel): Y, E, I, O, A, U.  I don't have an explanation for this, but it might be a clue to determining how it was encrypted.

[WaterKH]

10 hours ago, certainpersonio said:

Ok, something mildly interesting clicked for me about Clock Tower Cipher. The most frequent 6 letters of the cipher are the vowels (+Y, the pseudo-vowel): Y, E, I, O, A, U.  I don't have an explanation for this, but it might be a clue to determining how it was encrypted.

 

How do the other letters line up? We could be looking at simple letter frequencies we could substitute in for. 

[certainpersonio]

2 Things: 

1. Letter frequency from most to least frequent is as follows:
   1. YEIOAUFNVBKMQRTWCDJLSXZGPH
2. The IoC is 0.0376, so it's clearly polyalphabetic.

So, it is definitely possible that this letter frequency is coincidental. However, I don't think so. Admittedly, I don't know what it does mean though.

 

One idea that came to mind was a key for a homophonic cipher. In DE and ZNS the keys for the two homophonic ciphers both had a very low IoC but a letter frequency that was close to english. This seems to fit this category, but again, I don't think this is the answer either. The primary reason is that the letters seem to be clearly arranged into words, something that is not necessary for a key, but better fits with a proper cipher.

 

A new bit of information that I've gathered is that I think it is NOT a periodic cipher. This is because of a website I found that lets you run the average IOC to calculate the period. You assume the key to be a series of different lengths, and then you generate the average IOC of each key-length. With a significant length of text, the correct key length will have a significantly higher IOC (approaching 0.0667). More importantly, this "spike" will repeat with multiples of the proper cipher-text length. For example, in the Reznov cipher on ZNS the key was "mother", so there were spikes at 6, 12, 18...  I double checked all the known Vigenere cipher texts, and this holds true. However, I don't see a similar pattern appearing in the Clock Tower cipher. Conclusion is that there isn't actually a period to it. The website I used is here: http://www.thonky.com/kryptos/cryptanalysis-support-program

 

So to sum it up, I think the Clock Tower is a polyalphabetic cipher that is aperiodic. This doesn't mean it isn't in the Viggy family, though! For example, it could be a Vigenere cipher where the key is restarted/shifted with every new word (interrupted key). So, a slightly narrower focus.

[Nieno69]

Like i sayed before it's not a "simple"  vigenere

 

But there are so many polyciphers that need you to search deep trough the web - like i just found the "key-vowel-cipher" and a matrix invented from the same person

 

I dont know if we miss something obvious?  But i played der eisendrache that much i don't see any further clue for the left ciphers...

 

 

[certainpersonio]

@Nieno69 That's right you did say that before, I totally forgot. My bad, just lagging behind a little! But yeah, I don't think there are any more clues in the map, so we'll just have to keep trying things until we get it right. Of course, all this work will probably be put on hold as GK is released. 

[Silv3r Energy]

Hey can anyone write up a guide on how most of these get solved? I'm fascinated by the ciphers and what they translate to, but I don't know how I can contribute to the community when it comes to solving them.

[Nieno69]

12 hours ago, Silv3r Energy said:

Hey can anyone write up a guide on how most of these get solved? I'm fascinated by the ciphers and what they translate to, but I don't know how I can contribute to the community when it comes to solving them.

It would be hard To write a guide for the ciphers - but you could learn it by doing and (a lot of) reading

 

Further @certainpersonio 

Spoiler

Definitely not off topic! I always recommend people try to re-solve the solved ciphers from previous maps as a way to practice their skills with a known entity. But, it is generally less exciting than working on a truly unknown cipher. If you're looking for resources, I particularly enjoy practicalcryptography.com and found their page addressing how to identify unknown ciphers to be especially helpful when starting off. If you really start to enjoy solving, try checking out Lanaki's Crypto Course for a truly deep-dive in to the subject. 

 

 

After you have a little Feeling for it (try To solve the solved ciphers for yourself) you can Start with the New ciphers Coming with dlc4

 

Or Maybe the left unsolved 

 

Another Good Source is dcode.fr 

You can Change the Language in english - a lot To Read but the ciphers are explained very well

 

 

[Silv3r Energy]

5 hours ago, Nieno69 said:

It would be hard To write a guide for the ciphers - but you could learn it by doing and (a lot of) reading

 

Further @certainpersonio 

  Hide contents

Definitely not off topic! I always recommend people try to re-solve the solved ciphers from previous maps as a way to practice their skills with a known entity. But, it is generally less exciting than working on a truly unknown cipher. If you're looking for resources, I particularly enjoy practicalcryptography.com and found their page addressing how to identify unknown ciphers to be especially helpful when starting off. If you really start to enjoy solving, try checking out Lanaki's Crypto Course for a truly deep-dive in to the subject. 

 

 

After you have a little Feeling for it (try To solve the solved ciphers for yourself) you can Start with the New ciphers Coming with dlc4

 

Or Maybe the left unsolved 

 

Another Good Source is dcode.fr 

You can Change the Language in english - a lot To Read but the ciphers are explained very well

 

 

Thanks so much! I'll check these out When I get back from school