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Challenge #163: Caesar Cipher (on the way to Kryptos)

TerryT
Alteryx Alumni (Retired)

ROT-13 came into moderate use during the height of Usenet as a way to obscure profanity, dirty talk, movie spoilers, and offensive materials from the casual glance.

 

The Challenge here is to implement the ROT-13 substitution cipher and apply it TWICE to verify that the ENCODER can be used as its own DECODER!

 

If you are up for a challenge skip to PART II (which also solves PART I)

 

bdaniels
8 - Asteroid

Those book fair Spy books finally pay off

 

Spoiler
You could use a switch formula in place of the lookup, but this works too

Screen Shot 2019-05-06 at 12.26.41 PM.png

Part 1 just changes the filter to specify shiftkey 13
T_Willins
14 - Magnetar
14 - Magnetar

Created it as an app so your kids can learn Alteryx while sending secret messages to their friends!

 

Spoiler
 Workflow 163.GIF

 

 

RichoBsJ
11 - Bolide

Hi! Here my solution!

 

Spoiler
Part I:

partI.PNG

Part II:

partII.PNG

Macro detail:

Macro detail.PNG
NicoleJohnson
ACE Emeritus
ACE Emeritus

LOVED THIS CHALLENGE. (To be fair, I just did my first Escape Room this weekend, so I'm kinda still psyched about the whole solving puzzles thing...)

 

Spoiler
Decided to solve both parts, and then took a cue from @T_Willins and made an app out of it so that you can code/decode your own messages!

Part I:
Solved without having to hard code a key by utilizing my favorite lesser-known formula, CharToInt and CharFromInt. Able to create a 3 tool solution (Parse > Formula > Summarize) that will allow you to code/decode ROT-13 messages, including the ability to keep upper & lowercase letters in their original case.
WeeklyChallenge163Part1.JPG
Part II:
For Caesar's Cipher, I used Generate Rows to create 26 possible rotations, and then more-or-less used the same solution as above, just substituting the RowCount field from Generate Rows tool for the 13 used in Part I. Solution = some advice that certain members of the kingdom of Westeros would be wise to heed... attack at once!! ;)
WeeklyChallenge163Part2.JPG
Part III:
Created an app out of the solution above... and then had to entirely rework it once I realized that the same value could not be used to decode the message as to encode it if that number wasn't 13. Oops. So I modified both to allow for encoding as well as decoding, which now gives you a handy little Cipher for sending secret messages behind enemy lines!
WeeklyChallenge163Part3.JPG

Cheers!

NJ

Alekh
9 - Comet

Doing it on Alteryx 11.7 :(. I've been doing a lot of iteratives recently so decided to do it with an iterative.

Spoiler
163..PNG

 

 

 

patrick_digan
17 - Castor
17 - Castor

I'm on the same wavelength as @NicoleJohnson

Spoiler
Capture.PNG
RolandSchubert
16 - Nebula
16 - Nebula

My solution, using the same approach as @NicoleJohnson and @patrick_digan 

Spoiler
07-05-_2019_08-27-12.png
danilang
19 - Altair
19 - Altair

My solution for both in one WF

 

Spoiler
I used the "generate all shift" keys method.

WF.png  
Result.png

Since the decoder ring is circular, you can either shift the letters up or shift them down.   @patrick_digan 
shifted Caesar's message 22 letters up, I shifted mine 4 letters down

 

Dan

kat
12 - Quasar

These cryptic challenges are good fun! :)

 

Spoiler
I went down the macro route
Challenge #163 macro.PNG

Can't leave a challenge behind, so of course started with Part II 
Challenge #163 Part II.PNG

Luckily it worked on part 1 too :)
Challenge #163 Part I.PNG