Re: CHATX - a thread starter that's not as easy as it looks.

From	Max <maxturv26@gmx.net>
Newsgroups	sci.crypt
Subject	Re: CHATX - a thread starter that's not as easy as it looks.
Date	2021-09-21 23:31 +0200
Organization	Aioe.org NNTP Server
Message-ID	<sidivh$uql$1@gioia.aioe.org> (permalink)
References	<si9jk4$188$1@dont-email.me> <siakbv$j80$1@gioia.aioe.org> <siakmd$ilv$1@dont-email.me> <87czp2do4k.fsf@zotaspaz.fatphil.org>

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On 21.09.21 16:00, Phil Carmody wrote:
> Richard Heathfield <rjh@cpax.org.uk> writes:
> 

[...]

> 
> 
> This is how I approached it - very low-tech, perhaps a bit too manual.

Very nice explanation of your approach. I think doing it low-tech gets 
the most fun out of puzzles like this.

Yet, tbh, I started with a frequency analysis, just to know, what I was 
up against. It looked very English.

Next, I took Richard's advice to heart, to eyeball this. And the first 
thing to look for in English texts are the "th"s, amIright? So I 
realized, there were no "th"s across, but 4 down. Especially the 3 at 
the left stood out, so I looked around and stumbled across the matching 
"e ", "is" and "at" in the neighborhood. From there I kept going and 
when I was sure that it made sense, I Excelled (rather Gnumericed) the 
rest out of the ciphertext. Too bad, I can't post this here. Great idea 
of you to do all of this in bash/Perl so you can share your work here.

So, to make my answer just that extra bit harder to crack, I used extra 
spaces to split up the "th"s and made lines of equal length.

> 
> 
> 

[...]

> 
> So each block of 4 has been rotated clockwise to encrypt.

Argh! Of course! I didn't see that.

> 
> Nicely done both!

That was indeed a nice puzzle. Not just "crack by numbers", but also not 
too hard to get frustrated. Great job, Richard.

> 
> Phil
> 

Max

Thread

CHATX - a thread starter that's not as easy as it looks. Richard Heathfield <rjh@cpax.org.uk> - 2021-09-20 10:17 +0100
  Re: CHATX - a thread starter that's not as easy as it looks. MM <mrvmurray@gmail.com> - 2021-09-20 07:00 -0700
    Re: CHATX - a thread starter that's not as easy as it looks. Richard Heathfield <rjh@cpax.org.uk> - 2021-09-20 15:17 +0100
      Re: CHATX - a thread starter that's not as easy as it looks. MM <mrvmurray@gmail.com> - 2021-09-20 10:52 -0700
        Re: CHATX - a thread starter that's not as easy as it looks. Richard Heathfield <rjh@cpax.org.uk> - 2021-09-20 19:10 +0100
  Re: CHATX - a thread starter that's not as easy as it looks. Max <maxturv26@gmx.net> - 2021-09-20 20:36 +0200
    Re: CHATX - a thread starter that's not as easy as it looks. Richard Heathfield <rjh@cpax.org.uk> - 2021-09-20 19:42 +0100
      Re: CHATX - a thread starter that's not as easy as it looks. Max <maxturv26@gmx.net> - 2021-09-20 20:50 +0200
        Re: CHATX - a thread starter that's not as easy as it looks. Richard Heathfield <rjh@cpax.org.uk> - 2021-09-20 21:02 +0100
          Re: CHATX - a thread starter that's not as easy as it looks. Max <maxturv26@gmx.net> - 2021-09-20 22:24 +0200
            Re: CHATX - a thread starter that's not as easy as it looks. Richard Heathfield <rjh@cpax.org.uk> - 2021-09-20 22:08 +0100
      Re: CHATX - a thread starter that's not as easy as it looks. wizzofozz <oxxxxxxxxxxxs@gmail.com> - 2021-09-20 21:43 +0200
        Re: CHATX - a thread starter that's not as easy as it looks. Max <maxturv26@gmx.net> - 2021-09-20 21:50 +0200
      Re: CHATX - a thread starter that's not as easy as it looks. Phil Carmody <pc+usenet@asdf.org> - 2021-09-21 17:00 +0300
        Re: CHATX - a thread starter that's not as easy as it looks. Richard Heathfield <rjh@cpax.org.uk> - 2021-09-21 15:22 +0100
        Re: CHATX - a thread starter that's not as easy as it looks. Max <maxturv26@gmx.net> - 2021-09-21 23:31 +0200
          Re: CHATX - a thread starter that's not as easy as it looks. Richard Heathfield <rjh@cpax.org.uk> - 2021-09-21 23:03 +0100
            Re: CHATX - a thread starter that's not as easy as it looks. Max <maxturv26@gmx.net> - 2021-09-22 00:22 +0200
        Re: CHATX - a thread starter that's not as easy as it looks. wizzofozz <oxxxxxxxxxxxs@gmail.com> - 2021-09-25 13:29 +0200
          Re: CHATX - a thread starter that's not as easy as it looks. Phil Carmody <pc+usenet@asdf.org> - 2021-09-26 14:39 +0300
  Re: CHATX - a thread starter that's not as easy as it looks. Richard Harnden <richard.nospam@gmail.com> - 2021-09-21 15:07 +0100
    Re: CHATX - a thread starter that's not as easy as it looks. Richard Heathfield <rjh@cpax.org.uk> - 2021-09-21 15:18 +0100
      Re: CHATX - a thread starter that's not as easy as it looks. Phil Carmody <pc+usenet@asdf.org> - 2021-09-21 21:43 +0300
        Re: CHATX - a thread starter that's not as easy as it looks. Richard Heathfield <rjh@cpax.org.uk> - 2021-09-21 20:41 +0100
  Re: CHATX - a thread starter that's not as easy as it looks. wizzofozz <oxxxxxxxxxxxs@gmail.com> - 2021-09-25 02:24 +0200
    Re: CHATX - a thread starter that's not as easy as it looks. Richard Heathfield <rjh@cpax.org.uk> - 2021-09-25 05:24 +0100
  Re: CHATX - a thread starter that's not as easy as it looks. Richard Harnden <richard.nospam@gmail.com> - 2021-09-25 13:56 +0100
    Re: CHATX - a thread starter that's not as easy as it looks. Richard Heathfield <rjh@cpax.org.uk> - 2021-09-25 14:21 +0100
      Re: CHATX - a thread starter that's not as easy as it looks. Richard Heathfield <rjh@cpax.org.uk> - 2021-09-25 14:28 +0100
    Re: CHATX - a thread starter that's not as easy as it looks. wizzofozz <oxxxxxxxxxxxs@gmail.com> - 2021-09-25 16:11 +0200

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