Codebusters C

[dragonfruit35]

Nope, you're not required to fill out the frequency table - it's just there to help you!

[Mr.Epithelium]

Do you guys have any tips on how to tackle misspelled aristocrats?

[Umaroth]

Do you guys have any tips on how to tackle misspelled aristocrats?

Pracktiss

[mangomousse]

In normal mono-alphabetic subs, do you have to fill in the blanks in the replacement table?
Like this
a b c d e f g h
fq 1 7 1 5 2 6 4
rp v a x u f i d

Do I need to fill in that g

Do you mean on a test? Because you normally won't get points off for leaving things blank on the replacement table and if the frequency for g is already blank that means there weren't any g's to begin with in the ciphertext so there wouldn't be anything to fill-in.

[jlamslam]

Do you guys have any tips on how to tackle misspelled aristocrats?

In general, I find that they can be mostly solved using normal aristocrat strategies. Sometimes it helps memorizing common mispellings, one that's come up for me a lot is "EYE" instead of "I".

[moleabbu]

For the State tournaments, manual says that you have to know how to do cryptanalysis on vigenere and affine ciphers with "crib" of a certain amount of letters. Can someone explain what this means?

[jimmy-bond]

For the State tournaments, manual says that you have to know how to do cryptanalysis on vigenere and affine ciphers with "crib" of a certain amount of letters. Can someone explain what this means?

This means that they provide the ciphertext as always, but now they give you x amount of plaintext letters. For Vigenere, you use this to determine the key. For affine, you use these letters to calculate the values for a and b.

[MoMoney$$$;)0)]

For the State tournaments, manual says that you have to know how to do cryptanalysis on vigenere and affine ciphers with "crib" of a certain amount of letters. Can someone explain what this means?

This means that they provide the ciphertext as always, but now they give you x amount of plaintext letters. For Vigenere, you use this to determine the key. For affine, you use these letters to calculate the values for a and b.

You can use either one.

[imaditi]

Do you guys have any suggestions on solving xenocrypts and patristrocrats?

[amberluo]

Do you guys have any suggestions on solving xenocrypts and patristrocrats?

For xenocrypts, keep in mind that "que" is the most common three letter word in the Spanish language by a lot, so if you see a three letter word where the first letter is low frequency and the last is high, it's most likely "que". Two letter words are quite helpful as well - "que" is usually preceded by "lo", and if you see a two letter word followed by another word that ends in the same letter, it's usually "la ______a". Also, in xenocrypts, the word pattern abcb is quite common, and this almost always tells you that b is either "a" or "o". With this in mind, some words that satisfy abcb are "para", "todo", "cada", "como" - these are the ones I thought off the top of my head, so they're probably the most common. One letter words are "y", "a", "o". Oh, and the most common two letter word is "de". Don't forget "una", "los", "las", "del", "des" as common three letter words.

For patristos, if they give you K1, focus on the words with no frequencies to fill in the K1 - these usually come in blocks like wxyz or pq or jk, but it's not super reliable. However, for patristos, that's sometimes all you've got. Look for repeated patterns. If there's a three letter pattern that comes up a lot, it might be "the". Don't rely on words like "that" or "never" in patristos, because they're usually incorrect. Also, don't be afraid to guess letters based on frequency, but don't overdo it, either. If you have no idea what to do, guessing a letter may help, but guessing too many will lead you on a wild goose chase and waste your time.