Challenge #165: KRYPTOS!!!

All comments

NicoleJohnson

And this is why I love Mondays.

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Part I-IV solved! Will tackle the "I Dare You" section next, since I am certainly not going to let a dare go unanswered.

Part I through III: RegEx and Record IDs were definitely my friends here.

Part IV: Copied Part I-III and re-ran with second set of data.

This might be my favorite challenge ever, purely because it's a REAL one. SO COOL @TerryT!

Cheers (and I'll be back once I solve your dare, DO NOT WORRY, it will consume me until solved...),

EDIT: Finished Section III! Rather pleased with myself until I considered that I basically had the answer to begin with... and would have had no idea where to begin had I started without any clues. Also, I have definitely gone down the rabbit hole of Kryptos theory. CANNOT. STOP. ANALYZING.

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challenge_165_NicoleJohnson.yxmd

TerryT

@NicoleJohnson,

Thanks! But I'm giving @cplewis90 all the credit / blame for the sleepless nights that may result from this challenge!

cgoodman

Here's my solution for parts 1 - 4

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Two bits I like in this challenge, which I've learnt from other weekly challenges:
1) Using the generate rows to create numbers and then using CharFromInt to then convert to a letter
2) Using Regex to tokenize and parse to rows
3) Using the modulo function to cycle through the wheels and then loop back to the start

RolandSchubert

My solution for Parts I-IV ... it's really a challenge, great!

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challenge_165_solution_rsc.yxmd

Hannah_Lissaman

Here's my solutions for Section 1 and Section 2.

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I used iterative and batch macros throughout to make my solution flexible for different inputs, which made Section 2 a breeze! The only change was to add a Data Cleansing tool to remove the pesky punctuation.

challenge_165_Solution.yxzp

@TerryT, Unless I'm missing something or perhaps cheating, from the starting point given, it's trivial to obtain the results desired for Section III. (The first two parts were excruciating and I cheerfully just studied other spoilers in order to learn the landscape; but Section III just seems to be sitting there plain as day... are we supposed to start from a different spot than the "Section III" text input provided?)

A-ha... I think the starting point needs to be that given here... then it's hard again. :-)

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patrick_digan

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danilang

Excellent challenge @TerryT

Here's a spoiler free solution to sections I and II

The 3 outputs of Macro are

W=Vigenère Wheel Answer to Part I

T=Vigenère Table Answer to Part II

D=Decrypted text Answer to Part III

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Section III will have to wait until I get a little more free time

On an unrelated note: the original version of my macro fell afoul of the issue raised by @cmcclellan here. Essentiallly, the generate rows tool had an initialization expression of "A" used Char<="Z" (uppercase Z) as the Condition Expression, while using the CharFrom\ToInt functions to increment the Char. When I ran this version, the loop stopped not at "Z" but at "z", implying that lowercase "z" was used to test the condition. Anyone else have this issue?

Dan

challenge_165_solution_DL.yxzp

NancyS

Fun Challenge!

Solved Part I and Part II.

kelly_gilbert

I got through Part IV. Got way too overwhelmed at Section III

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Part IV (debugging) was solved by filtering out non-uppercase alpha characters, i.e. the question marks).

challenge_165_solution_klg.yxmd

I solved Section III using hints from the links provided in the solution.

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I followed the recipe from this link... I found the other link hard to follow.

c165_jps.yxmd

Kenda

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I was able to use the same solution to get both sections 1 and 2 with the addition of a Filter for section 2!

cplewis90

Such an awesome challenge @TerryT! I finally was able to get to this and complete the first two sections. I plan on continuing down the third section. I am with @NicoleJohnson that I am not sure where I would have started without some hints. Even when I looked at this in the past, I had to look at the hints. It shall be some sleepless nights to try and solve section 4!

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I worked through each part to solve getting the correct wheel and cipher wheels. Once I had those I used the place to determine which wheel to use and then a replace formula to find the right letter to decrypt the text.
Challenge 165.PNG

challenge_165_CL.yxmd

ggruccio

Very fun, very challenging! I got most of the way thru Section III ? At that point I couldn't follow what the instructions were saying anymore...

challenge_165_gg_finish.yxmd

bdaniels

Fun challenge!

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Screen Shot 2019-05-22 at 10.14.03 AM.png

I'll be back for that 3rd Section

challenge_164_Reesetrain_Submission.yxzp

hbraunius

My solution attached for Section 1 and 2.

challenge_165_solution_hb.yxmd

Reesetrain2

Terry,

Wow, this one was tough. I could only get the Beginner in the time that i had.

-Cheers!

Matt

Reesetrain2

Terry,

Wow, this one was tough. I could only get the Beginner in the time that i had.

-Cheers!

Matt

challenge_164_Reesetrain_Submission.yxzp

rinacio

My first challenge!

Thableaus

Challenge #165, done.

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Section I and II done. Really want to try Section III and IV with more time.

Cheers,

Challenge_165.yxmd

Section III solved more formally. This solves the Transposition Cipher using an iterative macro wrapped in a loop controller macro, and doesn't rely on specific values that need to be known ahead of time. The decoder outputs over 3,000 potential solutions, which is small enough to scan with the human eye and spot the solution. For a larger input, we could easily scan for "contains actual words" or some such in the filter, rather than filtering for the known decoded text. As it happens, 4 different settings of the variables I used in the decoding algorithm yielded the right answer. This suggests optimizations may be possible. But for now I'm good... on to Section IV!

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Solution just calls the Decoder

Loop Controller

Loop Iterator

SectionThreeTranspositionDecode.yxzp

pasccout

Nice challenge... Will have to come back for sections 3 and 4...

challenge_165_my_solution.yxzp

philipmannering

Parts I - IV complete. Very fun. Solution attached.

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Workflow

Macro

Section III and IV coming soon....

Challenge 165 - Kryptos.yxzp

T_Willins

My solutions. Still working on the indecipherable. If I don't make it to Inspire, I may have succeeded and the NSA has me...

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bkclaw113

This was fun, posting solutions for sections 1 and 2 now, but will circle back on section 3.

challenge_165.yxmd

Wheel Iterative.yxmc

estherb47

Might be one of my favorites so far! Lots of offline thinking to try to streamline a solution that would also work with any length keyword2. Here is my solution to Sections 1 & 2.

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Firstly, create the Vigenere wheel. Not too difficult. Generate letters of the alphabet using Generate Rows and my new favorites CharToInt and CharFromInt functions, and union that with the keyword KRYPTOS. Add a row ID to keep the original order. A unique tool removes the duplicate letters, then rebuild the order with a sort, and concatenate back into a single string using Summarize.

To create the decoding wheel, tokenize again, join in the Vigenere wheel created above, and then rebuild the decoding wheel with String functions. I split the Vigenere wheel text into 2 pieces. The first piece has where the first letter of the keyword starts, and continues to the end of the Vigenere string, and the second contains all of the other letters. Accomplished using FindString([VigenereWheel], [keyword2]) to find the starting position of the match, and Substring functions to find the first part of the string and the remaining text. For the first part, look into the VigenereWheel, start at the Position (that FindString function above) and continue until the end of the Vigenere string. Then the second hald was another Substring, starting at position 0, and continuing to position calculated by the FindString function. Joined those together with a simple concatenation.

Now onto solving. Another Regex tokenize to split the encoded text into columns, then add an ordering field to rebuild everything to the proper order. Then the part to make the length of the keyword dynamic. According to the pages read, the data needs to be chunked according to the length of the keyword, to relate the encoded text to the correct line to decode. So here, I figure out the number of characters in the keyword string (let's call it x), and use a MultiRow formula tool to number the rows from 1 to x.

Attached is the workflow.

Will continue to work on Section III

Cheers!

Esther

challenge_165_EHB_I_II.yxmd

TerryT

Great responses!!! Too many to select one as a solution. I gathered my favorite bits and pieces from your solutions and came up with the following for Sections I-III:

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This is a REALLY AMAZING community!