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        riddles >> easy >> Can you decrypt this?
        
(Message started by: Grimbal on Nov 4^th, 2004, 8:26am)

Title: Can you decrypt this?
Post by Grimbal on Nov 4^th, 2004, 8:26am

V tvir hc. Guvf vf gbb qvssvphyg. V pna abg qrpelcg gung.

Title: Re: Can you decrypt this?
Post by John_Gaughan on Nov 4^th, 2004, 12:36pm

I give up.

:: [hide]ROT13 is too difficult to decode[/hide] ::

Title: Re: Can you decrypt this?
Post by Emul P Edmon on Nov 5^th, 2004, 6:55pm

I give up. This is too difficult. I can not decrypd that.

Title: Re: Can you decrypt this?
Post by Noke Lieu on Nov 15^th, 2004, 9:59pm

I don't know encryptions very well, but I do know Grimbal's sense of fair play. Maybe it changed whilst I was away, but I don't reckon grimbal would be so... flat... as to do something so unreasonable. Would you?

Title: Re: Can you decrypt this?
Post by Sir Col on Nov 16^th, 2004, 10:36am

Noke Lieu, you may find the following online javascript utility helpful. ;)
http://tools.geht.net/rot13.html

Title: Re: Can you decrypt this?
Post by Noke Lieu on Nov 18^th, 2004, 3:00pm

ahhh, thanks Sir Col.
DEFINATELY out of practice for here...

How do you spot the difference between encryptions? Sure, that's half of an encryption, not letting someone crack it, but are there recognised short cuts for finding the sort of encryption it is?

Title: Re: Can you decrypt this?
Post by Sir Col on Nov 18^th, 2004, 3:31pm

ROT13 (rotate 13), is a well known encryption method that is especially useful because encrypting for a second time restores the original message.

I wrote a couple of FAQs on my website that introduce the basics for "code breaking" that may interest you. The short articles link from this page:
http://mathschallenge.net/index.php?section=faq&ref=library/cb/introduction

Title: Re: Can you decrypt this?
Post by John_Gaughan on Nov 18^th, 2004, 9:48pm

ROT13 is not really an encryption method because it possesses none of the qualities of a cryptographic system by today's standards.

What it can do, however, is garble text in a public setting. This can, for example, stop spam bots from harvesting meaningful email addresses.

I have an online ROT13 filter on my website (http://www.johngaughan.net/toys/rot13.php). All it does is use PHP's built-in function, but it is convenient to have in case someone like Grimbal tries to trick you ;)

Title: Re: Can you decrypt this?
Post by Grimbal on Nov 19^th, 2004, 6:35am

Rot13 was also used as a spoiler protection, the way we use the hide tag here. You would see there is something that you might not want to read by accident. News readers like rn had a rot13 function included.

Title: Re: Can you decrypt this?
Post by John_Gaughan on Nov 19^th, 2004, 4:09pm

I think Firefox has an extension for ROT13 as well. That could actually be useful :)

Title: Re: Can you decrypt this?
Post by TimMann on Nov 20^th, 2004, 10:37am

If you're running Linux (or any other Unix-like system), you'll have the venerable "tr" program. This command line will do rot13:

tr a-zA-Z n-za-mN-ZA-M