Deciphering Eridanos' blog entries
From Intimation
When Eridanos’ blog was first discovered, most of the text was encrypted. For example, this was what the entry for June 18 looked like:
Ztzw…a jrohe lycqx lp.I’dk ovqhx ovxik ueyei xongb ygbmm w.
C’xue umcnw jrgna qxjcf jvgtg riir.U etrsw fvv.
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Mr rdmpy xhefh ekoyi lc,ofe ncgon heyeg vopht w,ahwq ympvm jxhnw Tcsbt agype hrzia jtsmy wqkzt tucxy ehdin neg.Fj arrvr tybul elxef mlsrz ifouf
ecbbv nndjt frejd mpwbb tjcey isira duid,v nbnnd jusvo hwjre mfisu rvdks srfvv enamq ylbae hrrsb mrcm.
Q’ ayljk vhisl uaooe lffwf wdiap ffws’o gljlt ksyso q’(ofki nbufn pcy,nm tuluw khheq yoxe),s ytfrn ihipQ iifst klagz jplbt xuyy.
Z mrkia h.JjIw tvnhn frgsr nwfwo gxwkn svtvg harms gsLgx yxglf csvqu limvw rjwvx zrtro mmgyg kj,qsr tbmnq rginb tvhyx vnkwc bxmhb ytkhi xglzw hrg!Qi rwais wpkou venp…
catherwood was able to decipher this particular blog entry. Here is the explanation given [edited here and there]:
It is in fact Vignere.
First, I noticed that the message was broken at every 5th letter, ignoring the punctuation. That is the traditional format of a vignere ciphertext. If i had the key, I could pop this straight into a deciphering applet, but my first stop required that I remove ALL of the punctuation. (If you put it into Notepad with a monospaced font, it's more obvious that these are not all 5-letter words, but an encryption layout)
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The really neat tool I use is on this webpage -- scroll a bit less than halfway down to the three input boxes. The 3rd box is where the system will give you some "Possible Keys", but you paste the normalized ciphertext into the 2nd box marked for ciphertext (duh). Tell it how many attempts you want (usually 10-50 is sufficient) and click the "Break" button located under that 3rd box. (I'm pretty sure I had to remove spaces too) If you're lucky, one of the top suggestions is a real word or phrase.
[Keyword used:] rareandbeautiful
I plugged that into http://sharkysoft.com/misc/vigenere/ using the original punctuated message and got this back:
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Itis…a wonde rfuld ay.I’mg oingt obeaf ather toada ughte r.
I’mde dicat ingth ispro jectt oher.A llmyl ove.
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Ir eally dowan ttohe lp,lea ningi nthep roces s,andi tseem sthat Sysha sbeen havin gsome diffi culty recen tly.Ap paren tlyth erewa sabri efbre achin itsst onewa llwhi leith ibern ated,b utits subro utine smana gedto secur ethel eakan drepa irit.
I’ veask edifi twoul dallo wmeac cess’u nderi tshoo d’(legi timat ely,wi thits knowl edge),b utsom ehowI doubt thatw illha ppen.
I magin e.IfIc aninc orpor ateso meoft hetec hnolo gySys emplo ysint hisco mplex intel ligen ce,wha tkind ofenh ancem entsc ouldb eacco mplis hed!Pe rchan cetod ream…
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Of course, it reads more easily when you undo the breaks at every 5th letter.
Since the log entries were later deciphered and made publicly available by Eridanos, there is no need to go through an explanation of the decipher for each one, but I will note that some of the keys were insanely long:
- THESTORYOFarivercalledbynongreekpeoplestheEridanus
- arivercalledbynongreekpeoplestheeridanuswhichflowsintothenorthernseawhereamberissupposedtocomefrom
- In any case it does seem to be true that the countries which lie on the circumference of the inhabited world produce the things which we believe to be most rare and beautiful
- for I cannot accept the story of a river called by non-Greek peoples the Eridanus, which flows into the northern sea, where amber is supposed to come fromYet it cannot be disputed that tin and amber do come to us from what one might call the ends of the earth
- it cannot be disputed that tin and amber do come to us from what one might call the ends of the earth
