!

[ha_ha_i_fooled_you_my_name_never_changed_ha_ha]

All this talk about Playfair cipher seems especially apropos today. And more especially so when you read today’s “stay up to date.”

@Harry, it’s only fair for you to tell us the edition of the book that you are using, per last week’s explanation of the protocol.

Also, if anyone is interested, the Confederate Army use the Vigenère cipher regularly. They thought it was unbreakable, probably because the French told them so when they sold them the idea. But then they re-used the same keys over and over again, so the cipher became a total joke, as Sherman liked to say. Somewhat ironically, one of those keys was TOTALVICTORY.

Rather want to see how people do without that. It will be revealed in the Case Files in due course! Nice detail about the Confederate Army cipher, thanks. Harry

[decrypting_donkey]

Harry so you said no pre written scripts you didn’t make are allowed, so I’ve made my own python simulated annealing script, but it uses the ‘math’ and ‘random’ built in libraries. Is this fine or do I have to make my own? Btw after all the suffering by the end, I’ll put a thank you message on the forum, but don’t think I’m gonna go easy. It will be encrypted – but not too complicated don’t worry (I can’t be bothered to do that ha)

Standard maths and stats libraries are fine, string handling, frequency counting and cipher libraries are not. There is a grey area, and you should check with us like you have done here. If we have already answered elsewhere we can’t guarantee to respond to every query (there are THOUSANDS of you out there!) but will do our best to make sure the rules are as clear as possible. Thanks for the heads up re the thanks! Might be a useful crib 😉 Harry

[_hacker_]

Is the collections library allowed?

I ask due to this import in my code:

from collections import Counter

Yes, that would be fine. Thanks for asking, Harry

[_hacker_]

i am one letter away from completing challenge 9B, but i dont know what’s stopping me?

Harry, can you check this out:

md5(Edited by Harry)

‘Fraid not. I can’t give individual hints. Harry

[_hacker_]

@the_cryptographer_formerly_known_as_madness

how would you make code to build a playfair square based on a plaintext and ciphertext?

PLEASE I NEED THIS

[Author]

Posts