This is the introduction to this year’s story and not one of the competition ciphers, so you don’t need to submit your solution. It sets the scene for this year’s adventure and you don’t even need to break the cipher yourself, just play with the cipher wheel and let it do the work!
Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to decipher this message to get your instructions! It is encrypted with a keyword substitution cipher and they can be tough to break, so we have put the keyword in the Tips link above. The message will be easy to decipher once you have the key, so we thought we would bury it there so you can play with the message first to see what you make of it! The standard way to break a keyword cipher is to use frequency analysis, and you can learn all about that in the cryptanalyst handbook, or from our training materials on the resources page.
A Mirror Cracked
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If you want to play with other ciphers, head over to the official BOSS cipher tools page. You can find out more about substitution ciphers like the Caesar shift, and how to break them using frequency analysis in the BOSS Cryptanalyst Handbook, which you can find in our Library.
Top Secret: For your eyes only
Dear Francois, I was very distressed to hear that your latest beautiful portrait of me cannot be used for the foyer display at our Matinee performance next week. The sitting was your best work and really captured the aura of the play. The Prince of Wales would have loved it, and I am sure he will be as cross as I am. It is really too bad. This is, I think, the sixth photographic plate to have cracked in only two months, and I can only think that your supplier is storing them carelessly, leading to a weakness. As you know I was hoping to convince Albert that we should take the play to London for a season, and the theatre has worked so very hard to impress him. Is there no chance that you could recover the image, or perhaps, another that we could use instead for the decorations? And will you promise me that you will investigate the cause of the breakages? While I adore sitting for you, it is very hard to find the time we need to do that properly while taking care of all the minutiae involved in the day to day running of the show, and if the Prince is amenable to my proposal to return to London, then there will be even more to arrange. Dear Francois, I beg you to please at least try to rescue the image. Before I leave this letter, allow me to beg another favour. I have found another of those curious encrypted messages among the advertisements in the newspaper. I really do think it would be fun to learn to decipher them the way you do, so, as you can see, I have begun to learn, encrypting this message with a simple Caesar shift cipher to demonstrate my newfound skills. I hope you enjoy breaking the code as much as I did using it! Your loving friend, SarahStart your engines …
MPIQ HMMV QPCCK PYS T HTWW AZDE EHZ YMH SZIFXMYED NZC KZF EZ SMITAQMC. EQMK PCM EPVMY NCZX EQM PCIQTGMD QMCM PE RZDD IMYECPW PYS CMWPEM EZ MGMYED ZIIFCCTYO ZGMC ZYM QFYSCMS KMPCD POZ PYS XPKRM EQMK HTWW DQMS P WTEEWM WTOQE ZY QTDEZCK! KZFC EPDV TD EZ SMICKAE MPIQ ZN EQM SZIFXMYED PYS FAWZPS KZFC DZWFETZYD ZY EQM IQPWWMYOM APOMD. TN KZF XPVM P XTDEPVM KZF HTWW OME DZXM NMMSRPIV PYS IPY ECK POPTY. KZF HTWW OME P DIZCM NZC MPIQ PEEMXAE PYS HM HTWW RFTWS P WMPSMCRZPCS FDTYO EQZDM DIZCMD. TN KZF PCM TY P EMPX, EQMY ZYWK EQM EMPX IPAEPTY IPY FAWZPS DFRXTDDTZYD, DZ XPVM DFCM KZF HZCV HTEQ EQMX EZ OME KZFC PYDHMCD DFRXTEEMS. TY KZFC PIIZFYE APOMD KZF HTWW NTYS P CMIZCS ZN KZFC DFRXTDDTZYD, EZOMEQMC HTEQ P IZAK ZN P IMCETNTIPEM CMIZCSTYO KZFC ACZOCMDD. TN KZF HPYE KZF IPY PWWZH KZFC EMPIQMC EZ NZWWZH KZFC ACZOCMDD RK OMEETYO EQM EMPX IPAEPTY EZ MYEMC P DAMITPW ATY YFXRMC (EQM EMPIQMC\’D XZYTEZCTYO ATY) TYEZ EQM EMPX SMEPTWD ZY EQMTC PIIZFYE APOM. TN KZF QPGM PYK BFMDETZYD EQMY QMPS ZGMC EZ EQM NZCFX HQMCM KZF HTWW NTYS WZED ZN NCTMYSWK PSGTIM! OZZS WFIV, UZSTM
This tool is the official BOSS substitution cipher cracker. If you paste a text into the box and tell it the substitution alphabet for the cipher then it will decipher the text for you! The hard part is working out the substitution alphabet which is almost always given by a key. If you type a keyword into the KEY box it will start the decrypt for you, but you will still need to complete the alphabet to get a full decrypt. You can use frequency analysis to try to work out the substitutions and there are full instructions for that in the BOSS Cryptanalysts handbook. Since this introduction is not part of the competition you can skip all that and look up the cipher key in the Tips box at the top of this page!