# Can You Break the Code? (a game) **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [August 13, 2001, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-break-the-code-a-game/76107 "2001-08-13T21:55:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Spyderman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e79b87/32.png) [@Spyderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spyderman)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2001, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-break-the-code-a-game/76107/1 "2001-08-13T21:55:34Z")
Fact#1: You are the nations top ranked secret agent. Your skills at surveillence and interceptions is like that of no other. It is you job to intercept the enemies most notorious secret stealing criminal on the planet. Fact#2: The manhunt is on! The espionage agent that you were hired to watch is on the move and headed to the airport to board the earliest flight out of your country. Fact#3: The espionage agent has been warned by a mole that s/he is being watch and tailed by yourself, so s/he does the only thing that can save their scrawny ass, and that is to ditch the message before it can be delivered. Fact#4: Fortunately for you, we have the janitors on the take and they were able to remove the coded message just seconds before it made it to the septic take. Unfortunately for you, beside the rank odor, we **do not** have a cipher for the message **and** the message was written on a cylindrical piece of paper without punctuation. Fact#5: What we do know is that each letter of the alphabet is represented by a two (2) digit number. **Clue#1** We know that this message has exactly twenty-nine (29) letters. 6545103625658575277095651510270540503030053518304570362757 ---
**Author:** ![lno](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a8b319/32.png) [@lno](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lno)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2001, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-break-the-code-a-game/76107/2 "2001-08-13T22:22:46Z")
So, the first thing I do as the nation’s top ranked secret agent is look at the piece of paper to see just what it means by ‘cylindrical piece of paper’. (That is- are you saying that the message has no easily-identifiable beginning, or that if we wrapped the piece of paper around a pencil, say, we’d get a different message than just reading the numbers in order?) ---
**Author:** ![ladyfoxfyre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ad7895/32.png) [@ladyfoxfyre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ladyfoxfyre)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2001, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-break-the-code-a-game/76107/3 "2001-08-13T22:28:24Z")
Any other clues? ---
**Author:** ![Spyderman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e79b87/32.png) [@Spyderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spyderman)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2001, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-break-the-code-a-game/76107/4 "2001-08-13T22:31:58Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by LNO \* > **(snip) are you saying that the message has no easily-identifiable beginning, (/snip)** That is correct. The first letter “65” may _or may not_ be the first letter in the message. ---
**Author:** ![lno](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a8b319/32.png) [@lno](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lno)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2001, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-break-the-code-a-game/76107/5 "2001-08-13T22:37:16Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by ladyfoxfyre \* > \*\*Any other clues? \*\* Well, I can give you what I’ve started with, which isn’t much. We know there are 29 letters, each letter has 2 digits, and there are 58 digits. Straightforward. A safe guess (famous last words) are that adjacent digits form a letter. As we don’t know where the message starts (that is, if the beginning ‘65’ is a number, or if the beginning ‘6’ is the second half of a number), we have 65 45 10 36 25 65 85 75 27 70 95 65 15 10 27 05 40 50 30 30 05 35 18 30 45 70 36 27 57 and 76 54 51 03 62 56 58 57 52 77 09 56 51 51 02 70 54 05 03 03 00 53 51 83 04 57 03 62 75 as potential lists. Looking at those for repetitions, we see that the first set of numbers is more promising. It’s got 3 digits that appear 3 times, 5 digits that appear 2 times. The second set of numbers has 2 digits that appear 4 times, and 3 that appear 2 times. Looking for an average appearance ratio, we get 1.61 for the first set and 1.45 for the second set. (This means that the first set has more repeats, on average, which we’d expect. E is a very common letter.) The first set has one doubled digit - that is, you see ‘30 30’ in there. This also appears in the second set as ‘03 03’, and the second set contains ‘51 51’ as well. In the second set, 03 and 51 appear 4 times. It’s another safe guess (more famous last words) that E is the most common letter in this string, and seeing it back-to-back is interesting. The 0303 and 5151 in the second set prevent us from discarding it out of hand. Basically, at this point, it becomes a simple cryptogram. Assign arbitrary letters to the digits and solve. Given that I’ve never been very skilled at solving cryptograms, I leave this as an exercise for the reader. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![lno](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a8b319/32.png) [@lno](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lno)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2001, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-break-the-code-a-game/76107/6 "2001-08-13T22:38:32Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Spyderman \* > \*\*That is correct. The first letter “65” may _or may not_ be the first letter in the message. \*\* Aha, so ‘65’ is a complete letter, and not half a letter. That reduces the solution set by half. Of course, I’m still too lazy to solve. ---
**Author:** ![Spyderman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e79b87/32.png) [@Spyderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spyderman)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2001, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-break-the-code-a-game/76107/7 "2001-08-13T22:43:46Z")
Yes 65 is a complete letter and not half a letter. What I am implying ( **CLUE#1.5** ) is that the 65, which represents a letter, is **not** the first letter in the finished message. Just thought that I would clear that up now. Good luck 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![lno](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a8b319/32.png) [@lno](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lno)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2001, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-break-the-code-a-game/76107/8 "2001-08-13T22:47:26Z")
Right. The message begins somewhere undetermined, but there is a character break before and after 65. Also, Cecil’s classic column [What’s the origin of the mysterious phrase “etaoin shrdlu”?](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a2_262a.html) is applicable here, as we’re dealing with letter frequency. I suppose I should use Cecil’s inestimable knowledge in this matter… ---
**Author:** ![Spyderman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e79b87/32.png) [@Spyderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spyderman)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2001, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-break-the-code-a-game/76107/9 "2001-08-13T23:51:21Z")
After considerable forensic studies a break (literally) was finally discovered in the note left by the espionage agent. It has been discovered that there are hidden markings that could only be seen by ultraviolet light produced by its mercury discharge, aka The Black Light. When held up against this magical mysterious secret light, The Black Light, the message was transformed. Thus, we now have this to work with: 65451036 / 256585752770 / 95651510 / 27054050303005 / 3518304570 / 362757 So close… ---
**Author:** ![ladyfoxfyre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ad7895/32.png) [@ladyfoxfyre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ladyfoxfyre)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2001, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-break-the-code-a-game/76107/10 "2001-08-14T00:15:14Z")
**LNO** , you and I are on the same track. The only discoveries I’ve made are that 30 probably equals a letter that is doubled in words frequently; (36)(27)(57) probably does not mean “T-H-E”, respectively, because it occurs as the last word of the phrase and that is not common in the English language. Wait, this is in english, isn’t it? If not then I give up. (65), (27), and (30) each occur 3 times each, but that isn’t conclusive as to which one could possibly be “E”. The numbers that each occur 2 times are (45), (10), (36), (70) and (05). Are we assuming that this message is gramatically correct? i.e., no “The” at the end of a message? ---
**Author:** ![ladyfoxfyre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ad7895/32.png) [@ladyfoxfyre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ladyfoxfyre)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2001, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-break-the-code-a-game/76107/11 "2001-08-14T00:22:19Z")
Scratch the last part of my previous post, We don’t know where the beginning or the end is, do we. Okay, back to the drawing board…or in my case the drawing pad… ---
**Author:** ![Erika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/47e85d/32.png) [@Erika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Erika)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2001, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-break-the-code-a-game/76107/12 "2001-08-14T01:08:51Z")
so, if we go with the idea that (65) doesn’t start the word, we’ve got the following 5 word message… (36)(27)(57)(65)(45)(10)(36) (25)(65)(85)(75)(27)(70) (95)(65)(15)(10) (27)(05)(40)(50)(30)(30)(05) (35)(18)(30)(45)(70) and, in addition to **ladyfoxfyre** ’s letter frequency info, we also know that there are 18 letters used. and that’s as far as I’ve gotten… ---
**Author:** ![ladyfoxfyre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ad7895/32.png) [@ladyfoxfyre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ladyfoxfyre)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2001, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-break-the-code-a-game/76107/13 "2001-08-14T02:06:48Z")
Since then, I have gotten the following: The frequency of letters in a given statement are as follows: E T A O I N S H R D L U C M F G Y P W B V K X J Q Z There are only 18 different lettters in the message, and by frequency alone we could eliminate W, B, V, K, X, J, Q and Z. But because the english language does not work on frequency alone, to eliminate those would not be logical. (65) does in fact start the word, but not the message. This means that the word “(65)(45)(10)(36)” is not the beginning of the message. ---
**Author:** ![Tir\_Tinuviel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bc79bd/32.png) [@Tir\_Tinuviel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tir_Tinuviel)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2001, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-break-the-code-a-game/76107/14 "2001-08-14T02:49:55Z")
Is there a “hidden mark” in front of our first 65, or after then final 57? ---
**Author:** ![Tir\_Tinuviel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bc79bd/32.png) [@Tir\_Tinuviel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tir_Tinuviel)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2001, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-break-the-code-a-game/76107/15 "2001-08-14T02:53:30Z")
Also, is there a logical pattern to the code (eg a=1, b=2), or have letters been assigned random numbers? ---
**Author:** ![Tir\_Tinuviel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bc79bd/32.png) [@Tir\_Tinuviel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tir_Tinuviel)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2001, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-break-the-code-a-game/76107/16 "2001-08-14T03:06:37Z")
Hmmm, does that fact that all but 4 nubers are all multiples of 5 have any relevance? Maybe the non-multiples of 5 are vowels…? ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2001, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-break-the-code-a-game/76107/17 "2001-08-14T03:21:23Z")
So if we assume that 362757 is THE, (and spacing out the number pairs to make them more readable) we get: 65 45 10 t / 25 65 85 75 h 70 / 95 65 15 10 / h 05 40 50 30 30 05 / 35 18 30 45 70 / the Now, it’s possible that’s right, but in that case, the only E in the message would be at the end of “the” which makes the message unusual, because of the number of times E shows up in words. So, lets make 362757= FOR 65 45 10 f / 25 65 85 75 o 70 / 95 65 15 10 / o 05 40 50 30 30 05 / 35 18 30 45 70 / for Now, if you’ll notice, “30” is doubled in the 4th word…which means it’s most likely E, L, or S, because those are the letters, IIRC, most likely to double. Also, if 36=f, then either 65, 45, or 10 has to be a vowel. Lets say that 30=E. It is the number most common. 65 45 10 f / 25 65 85 75 o 70 / 95 65 15 10 / o 05 40 50 ee 05/ 35 18 e 45 70/ for There’s my contribution…I’m tempted to say that 65451036 is half, but I’m not sure. ---
**Author:** ![Tir\_Tinuviel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bc79bd/32.png) [@Tir\_Tinuviel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tir_Tinuviel)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2001, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-break-the-code-a-game/76107/18 "2001-08-14T03:47:47Z")
Hmm, if we go with the idea that the numbers stay constant for the letters, and that the first word is “half”, that would make the third word “?h?l”… The only word I can think that would fit is “khol” which is a type of eye-liner… so unless we got goth spies? ---
**Author:** ![waterj2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/858c86/32.png) [@waterj2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/waterj2)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2001, 4:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-break-the-code-a-game/76107/19 "2001-08-14T04:52:24Z")
To make it easier (assuming that this is indeed a simple cipher) I substituted a letter for each number, giving: MKBI EMPOFN QMCB FAJLGGA HDGKN IFR Which at least looks like a cryptogram. ---
**Author:** ![ladyfoxfyre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ad7895/32.png) [@ladyfoxfyre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ladyfoxfyre)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2001, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-break-the-code-a-game/76107/20 "2001-08-14T05:09:11Z")
One thing I tried was guessing three letter words (for the last word). (36)(27)(57). Per Captain Amazing’s request, let’s make it “FOR”. (36)=F. So we count down and up at the same time. Numbers go down, and we go up the alphabet. (35)=G, and so on, until we get to #27. How about that, it turns out to be O…Going back to 36=F, and counting down the alphabet, we get to R=50, which doesn’t work for the code. Last word ends up being FOK. Doubtful. However, going back to (27)=O, counting up the alphabet and up with the numbers, we get to R=(56). Close, but no cigar. I’m thinking that this is the pattern. One letter=something, then numbers go up and alphabet goes down, then alternating with some kind of pattern. It was worth a shot. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-break-the-code-a-game/76107.md?page=2)