Secondary Cipher Challenge Part 2

7935 /www/nrich/html/content/id/7935/ 1 2011-12-21T11:10:25 <mdoxml version="1.0">This is the second part of the <a href="/7934">Secondary Cipher Challenge</a>. <h3>Part 2</h3> <div class="pdm">Dvoo wlmv, blf'ev hloevw xrksvi xszoovmtv mfnyvi gdl. Gsrh gbkv lu xrksvi rh z hkvxrzo hfyhgrgfgrlm xrksvi pmldm zh Zgyzhs, zmw rh nzwv yb ivevihrmt gsv zokszyvg zmw ivkozxrmt gsv ozhg ovggvi drgs gsv urihg, gsv kvmfogrnzgv ovggvi drgs gsv hvxlmw, zmw hl lm. Rg rh xzoovw Zgyzhs yvxzfhv rg dzh lirtrmzoob wlmv drgs gsv Svyivd zokszyvg, zmw rg gllp rgh mznv uiln gsv urihg zmw ozhg, zmw hvxlmw zmw kvmfogrnzgv ovggvih rm gszg zokszyvg. Hfyhgrgfgrlm xrksvih ivkozxv gsv ovggvih lu gsv nvhhztv drgs lgsvi ovggvih. Xzvhzi hsrug zmw Zgyzhs ziv uzriob hrnkov hfyhgrgfgrlm xrksvih gl xizxp, yvxzfhv lmxv blf'ev nzwv z uvd tfvhhvh rg'h vzhb gl hklg gsv hbhgvn gszg szh yvvm fhvw gl wvxrwv lm gsv hfyhgrgfgrlmh. Gsv mvcg nvhhztv dlm'g yv jfrgv hl vzhb gl xizxp, hl ivnvnyvi gl ollp uli kfmxgfzgrlm, hrmtov ovggvih zmw hslig dliwh. Urmzoob, gsv pvbdliw gl zxxvhh gsv gsriw xszoovmtv rh gvzxzpv. </div> If you want to work on a computer to solve the problem, you can download this cipher as a <a href="/content/id/7935/cipher2.txt">text file</a> which doesn't contain any line breaks. You can use the <a href="http://nrich.maths.org/7983">Cipher Challenge Toolkit</a> to help you decipher it. Once you've decrypted this message, you should have a keyword. You can access Part 3 of the Cipher Challenge at http://nrich.maths.org/??? by replacing the ??? with the keyword.</mdoxml> <mdoxml version="1.0">Well done, you've solved cipher challenge number two. This type of cipher is a special substitution cipher known as Atbash, and is made by reversing the alphabet and replacing the last letter with the first, the penultimate letter with the second, and so on. It is called Atbash because it was originally done with the Hebrew alphabet, and it took its name from the first and last, and second and penultimate letters in that alphabet. Substitution ciphers replace the letters of the message with other letters. Caesar shift and Atbash are fairly simple substitution ciphers to crack, because once you've made a few guesses it's easy to spot the system that has been used to decide on the substitutions. The next message won't be quite so easy to crack, so remember to look for punctuation, single letters and short words. Finally, the keyword to access the third challenge is teacake. </mdoxml> 2 4 0 0 1 1 0 Secondary Cipher Challenge Part 2 Here is the second part of a six-part challenge. Can you get to the end and crack the final message?