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[SOLVED] 2 vials - 4/17/07

Posted: Tue Apr 17, 2007 8:31 pm
by kellylen
ok guys we have a new puzzle.

maddison was about to go make food for adam when she saw a pidgeon who had a note and 2 vials attached to it.

Image

sooooooooo lets solve it :D
Sowehws Hipn - Aghfil Nxblq - Lj Tbmx Ac Qwdef - 8404← Vvzcj!
just to help :)
lorien wrote:
Following many of us discussing how much we needed more information, Maddison entered the chat.

Two distinct points were made:

1) Maddison very much liked the idea that "hurry" is the last word. She then prodded our knowledge of ciphers in order to determine whether there is a way for us to break the code with the knowledge that hurry is the last word.

2) It was discussed that many keys had been attempted. Maddison asked which keys. I responded, "saltwater, saline, ocean, references from the Seuss poem, musical references, 'Is This Thing On Check One'". Maddison suggested we try synonyms of those.
Solution to Code

Foutain Town - Stormy Venue - No Post No Bills - 8404? Hurry


Vigenere AutoKey: http://rumkin.com/tools/cipher/vigenere-autokey.php
Decrypt.
Passphrase: "NaclH2o"
Your Message: "Sowehws Hipn - Aghfil Nxblq - Lj Tbmx Ac Qwdef - 8404← Vvzcj"

We've been poking at this all day, literally. Several of us determined early that since codes need keys, and this code came with two vials, the vials must be the key. Maddison's intuition confirmed this thought later in chat. Therefore, the collective chat group plus Maddison developed lists of synonyms.

"salt, water, salt water, finney, wine, winery, fish, seuss, fresh, ocean, h20, nacl, red sea, sodium, agua, sal, river, saline, gulf, gulf ocean, ocean gulf, salt wave, gulf sea, river water, river salt, salt river, salt sea, sea salt, saltwater fish, saltwater ocean, saltwater sea, sal agua, agua de sal, mar de sal, fish salt, aquarium, bottled salt water, evaporation, oxygen, hydrogen, hydrogen oxygen, hydrogen oxygen sodium, salt water wine, finney fish, fresh saltwater fish, hydrogen oxygen nacl, agua salada, naclh20, hydrogren oxygen sodium chloride, sodium chloride, fried fish, microphone, spice, flavor,"

We were consistently very close, but always falling just this short. Finally, Maddison had the idea of specifically having me run through a few of the synonyms from the list (h2onacl, and naclh2o) through the codebreakers. I realized I had been typing h20 (zero) rather than h2o. Problem solved.

Maddison's intuition saved our sanity! Mr. Zipp was clearly correct in thinking she's of value in this struggle. Wink

The result is:
Foutain Town - Stormy Venue - No Post No Bills - 8404? Hurry

Posted: Tue Apr 17, 2007 8:36 pm
by lonelyelendi
She says the one on the left contains a clear liquid, and the one on the right has a white grain.

To me it resembles salt...

Posted: Tue Apr 17, 2007 8:44 pm
by Killthesmiley
Sowehws Hipn - Aghfil Nxblq - Lj Tmbx Ac Qwdef - 8404← Vvzcj!

Just to help in solving it

Posted: Tue Apr 17, 2007 9:38 pm
by ignatzmouse
It's unlikely to be a Caesar cipher: taking A=0, all the letters (A,E,I,O,U,Y) are even, as are (A,C), whereas (L,J) are odd. So there's no shift which will decrypt "Lj" and "Ac" to words containing vowels.

If it's a substitution cipher, the "Vvzcj" is going to decrypt to a word beginning with a doubleton. There can't be too many of those ("oomph" is the only one which springs to mind).

Posted: Tue Apr 17, 2007 10:14 pm
by trainer101
Vials? Did someone say VIALS? That woke me up!

Posted: Tue Apr 17, 2007 10:46 pm
by kellylen
what is in the vials is salt and water.

we know this because adam tasted it lol

Posted: Tue Apr 17, 2007 10:51 pm
by Skunkwaffle
BTW Adam tasted the white powder and he says it's salt.

Posted: Tue Apr 17, 2007 10:53 pm
by Ziola
I know its a replacement cipher, I'm just trying to work on it with help from some friends...

wish us luck :lol:

*sucks at puzzles*

edit to say I really, really suck at puzzles

Posted: Tue Apr 17, 2007 11:18 pm
by kellylen
lol we've all been trying z. it hasnt been working too well

Posted: Tue Apr 17, 2007 11:19 pm
by Ziola
Is there anyway that you can post the keys that you have already tried? That would be a big help :D

Posted: Tue Apr 17, 2007 11:34 pm
by Letal89
O.O replacement cipher? Never heard of that. Was that used in OpAphid? (I lost all my bookmarks from when my computer crashed.) Wintermute hooked me up with Morsecode, anagram, binary/hex/base64/etc, Enochian stuff. Is there another program for this replacement cipher thing. I'm not too familiar with it.

Posted: Tue Apr 17, 2007 11:42 pm
by Ziola
I'm not on AIM, but here's a link

http://makcoder.sourceforge.net/demo/vigenere.php

Posted: Tue Apr 17, 2007 11:45 pm
by Letal89
Ziola wrote:I'm not on AIM, but here's a link

http://makcoder.sourceforge.net/demo/vigenere.php
Thanks a bunch! :D

Posted: Tue Apr 17, 2007 11:53 pm
by bethy
Here's another one that I've used in the past:

http://www.secretcodebreaker.com/keyword.html



(not sure it's the right kind, though)

Posted: Tue Apr 17, 2007 11:56 pm
by Ziola
thanks Bethy! I've never used that one before...