|
Post by Todd on Mar 2, 2016 10:46:23 GMT -5
The locks fell quickly when we found a hidden note with the personal effects. It unlocked one of the documents. Being all to familiar with with the magic square, a second key was rapidly discerned. This lead us to a riddle, the answer to which was another key. That document revealed a substitution cipher which decoded to a riddle, which was the fourth key.
|
|
|
Post by helenahandbasket on Mar 2, 2016 11:01:32 GMT -5
Brianne and I did it in a different order than you did, Todd. From opening the first file we picked, the first journal, to finishing the final letter file couldn't have take more than a hour total, including discussion. And that was chat room discussion, so we were typing our discussion... The contents of the final letter didn't come as a surprise to us, we had noticed those things even though Brianne didn't have the blood stain on her article. We noticed one other thing that wasn't included in the letter but made the same point as the letter. At that point, we opened our remaining file, the DNA one, with the object from the office. The cipher therein wasn't difficult to solve. It didn't seem to make a difference to the story whether that one was solved first or last. But I do think you needed to solve the cipher from the first journal to get the hint you needed about how to solve the cipher in the DNA file. Which leads me to think there could be more to this mystery (or there should be more to this mystery), since I don't think the 'meat' of it would engage people for only an hour and there was a ton of rich stuff that is still just sitting there.
|
|
ucjagent
Adjunct
In the kingdom of the blind, the one eye'd man is king
Posts: 7
|
Post by ucjagent on Mar 2, 2016 13:16:26 GMT -5
Im not the best at hacker cracking. Any help with the following Htx zmymni mv YNA ajx oayx gl mv htjxx uxnxhsz pxhhxji. Htx Txwjxe panugaux si waixy mn
jmmh emjyi vjmo etszt nmgni, fxjwi, ayrxzhsfxi, any app mhtxj ujaooahszap fajsahsmni yxjsfx.
Vmj jxaimni nm mnx tai wxxn awpx hm xdlpasn, htxix Txwjxe jmmh emjyi ajx oayx gl mv htjxx
pxhhxji.
Its not a Caesar Shift. My substitution cipher program does not recognize a simple substitution. I am thinking it may be a key word cipher because a few lines above are underlined. "Junk DNA. Introns. This is the key. Why are they in our genome?" But Introns nor Junk DNA works in Vigenere. So Im kinda at a loss to open the DNA email which from reading the above spoilers, is the key to opening this file up.
|
|
|
Post by Todd on Mar 2, 2016 13:29:22 GMT -5
We have a website we like to use on ciphers. rumkin.com/tools/cipher/This is a substitution cipher, and I suggest this tool: You haven't opened the DNA document? Sometimes you need see past your obligations, like work or family.
|
|
|
Post by helenahandbasket on Mar 2, 2016 18:37:01 GMT -5
I wanted to clarify my post above about solving the DNA cipher, since there has been discussion about it elsewhere and it wasn't clear. Depending on your mindset, the solution ranges from being a matter of methodical course to being outright counterintuitive and deceptive on the part of ME. Do not read the next section unless you really really really feel like you've given the DNA cipher all you've got to give it or you have already solved it, since it's how I approached it and how I clued someone else to solve it. I'm not talking about the password to the DNA file, but the cipher in the DNA file. Also keep in mind that I solve top-down, other people solve bottom-up, there are other strategies. Some strategies work better for a particular puzzle than others do. What I did: I read the first Journal file. I didn't take the enciphered codon/Hebrew discussion in the first journal entry as anything more than an example of how DNA and language can fit, at that point I was more interested in the riddle and getting to the second Journal file. I also didn't read, "Junk DNA. Introns. This is the key." as much more than telling us whatever message there was would be in introns, junk DNA, and the junk DNA was the key to how we would find the messages that were left for us 10,000 years ago.
I read the second file, the Final Letter, and move along to the DNA file. OK. Lots of alphabet soup. But to me, it's nothing but a cipher and I just have to find the right one. Horses not Zebras (yes, I work in health care), so my first plan is to exhaust the easiest things. There was that codon thing. All that meant to me was that there was a codon cipher option. I Google for translate codon to letters and get a crapload of options/translators that don't work. Codon to words, crapload of options/translators that don't work. OK, that type of cipher translation doesn't work, let me try another one. Translate DNA to words. There were a few options that came up, but one of them worked and gave a perfectly coherent paragraph.
Honestly, that approach was identical to having any kind of cipher in front of me. You have what's on the page (letters, symbols, colors, pictures, numbers, codons, DNA), find the algorithm that solves it. Sometimes you find it as a link with a decryption/encryption ap, sometimes it's just a table of something. Sometimes it's a fat lot of steps from input to answer, etc., I dunno. We use computers to test theories these days. I mean, how many of us haven't leaned on Rumkin, running thru Caesar, keyed Caesar, substitution, cryptogram, Vigeniere, two-steps, etc.? When something doesn't work, you move along apace.
So, turning codons into letters/words using online translators didn't work and I moved along. The next step I could think of was turning the DNA itself into letters/words, without turning it into codons first. Like the codons option, I didn't know any exact options for doing that and would need a translator. Voila.
My comrade, a geneticist, was having trouble. She was all up in the genetics. I told her she was being too much of a scientist about it. She dialed it back, but she was still being too much of a scientist, so I suggested she stop being a scientist again and think about the cipher from Journal one as if she knew nothing whatsoever about genetics, she just had that message and the file and nothing else. She had it in no time flat, but scientists have a lot of discipline about ignoring things, I guess. Same clue to someone else who was also being codon-focused, but wasn't a scientist? No go.
I have no idea what to think about giving hints at this point. The cipher in journal one could help someone: Find the text in the cipher, that Hebrew example got me on the right track that there's a connection between DNA and language. Or it could hurt them: The encoded text refers to codons, so the DNA file must be codons, I have to keep banging on ways to convert codons to language. OK, that's all I got, post here or PM me if you have additional questions.
|
|