The FBI today challenged anyone in the online community to break a cipher code on its site. The code was created by FBI cryptanalysts. The bureau invited hackers to a similar code-cracking challenge last year and got tens of thousands of responses it said.
A number of sites host such cipher challenges, including this one at the University of South Hampton.
The FBI offers a few primers on the subject including:
A relatively basic form of substitution cipher is the Caesar Cipher, named for its Roman origins. The Caesar Cipher involves writing two alphabets, one above the other. The lower alphabet is shifted by one or more characters to the right or left and is used as the cipher text to represent the plain text letter in the alphabet above it.
Plain Text
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Cipher Text
B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z A
In this example, the plain text K is enciphered with the cipher text L. The phrase 'Lucky Dog' would be enciphered as follows:
Plain Text: L U C K Y D O G
Cipher Text: M V D L Z E P H
Ciphers can be made more secure by using a keyword to scramble one of the alphabets. Keywords can be placed in the plain text, the cipher text, or both, and any word can be used as a key if repeated letters are dropped. Here the word SECRETLY (minus the second E) is used as the plain text keyword.
Plain Text
S E C R T L Y A B D F G H I J K M N O P Q U V W X Z
Cipher Text
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
The FBI of course doesn't always invite folks to break code on its site. In fact last spring a consultant managed to access the bureau's National Crime Information Center database.
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Software development
I write quite a large amount about software and development in the modern age. I love how the FBI is trying to get us back to our roots!
Take a read :)
http://kennethreitz.com
Maybe the first part of the
Maybe the first part of the cipher is finding your direct link to the FBI cipher you mention?
Somebody running with their flash disabled?
http://www.fbi.gov/headlines/code.swf
...its also a pic on the fbi.gov homepage.
Geesh
Why does the FBI have a
Why does the FBI have a cryptanalysis group. Isn't that the realm of the NSA?
Answer
FWTDLCSWV. YD
NSLMIJFWEJFD GSW SL
NIJNQBLM FOBV EJFDVF
DLNIGTFBSL. KBVBF
YYY.AHB.MSK/NSCDC.OFZ
FS EDF WV QLSY SA
GSWI VWNNDVV.
--------------------------------------------------------------
stupendous. we
congratulate you on
cracking this latest
encryption. visit
www.fbi.gov/coded.htm
to let us know of
your success.
this challenge is a joke,
this challenge is a joke, with all of the context they're giving you, you can solve it just by staring at it for 5 minutes.
Seriously, what URL could yyy.ahb.msk possibly translate to? probably not www.ten.com
So this is just a
So this is just a substitution ciper? How random..
OP
OP
Solved!
Yeah I solv.... hey!
Yeah, you solve it!
Wow... you rock!!
What was your technique to get the solution?
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