Mathematics
Kryptos 5 challenges
Cipher Challenge 1
Thank you for agreeing to help us. As you probably know, an international gang of art thieves has struck again! This time successfully stealing a priceless masterpiece from the Uffizi Gallery! Unbelievable! We know the thieves have plans to meet up sometime soon in order to negotiate a quick sale with an unknown buyer.
In an earlier attempt to infiltrate this wily gang we managed to obtain a smartphone belonging to one of the gang members. We hope that the phone will have some information on it that will help lead us to the upcoming meeting. However, the phone is password protected and we are pretty sure that ANY attempt to enter the wrong password will completely erase all of its content.
All we have access to is the image on the Lock Screen. Is there any way that this image contains the password? In the past we know that the owner of the phone has used simple one word passwords typically associated with nature or science. Past passwords have been “geology”, “evolution”, and “proton”. If you can use the image to uncover the password our coalition will be eternally grateful!
Solution 1
Cipher Challenge 2
Our assumption was correct - the image did contain a password! Unfortunately, there was only a single document on the phone: a picture of a handwritten document.
As you can see, it is clearly encrypted! The international coalition formed to help bring down this gang of thieves was quite disappointed in this development. We are still hoping that this document will lead us to the thieves and the buyer while they are still in possession of the stolen art. We are asking for your help once again. Can you decrypt the message for us? Clearly time is of the essence, so please let us know the moment you have readable plaintext for us.
Solution 2
Cipher Challenge 3:
This is becoming much more complicated than we originally thought! Thanks to your earlier work, we have yet another clue: a text message that was probably encrypted using the popular Ragbaby cipher. We are pretty sure that the first word is “meet” and will finally give us the meeting time and place where we can apprehend the art thieves.
Our international coalition to catch these thieves is weakening. We desperately need to know when and where to find this gang! We feel we will have only one chance to apprehend the thieves before the coalition crumbles completely. Can you decrypt this text so we can finally put these ruthless criminals behind bars!
Our analysts have created a brief description of the Ragbaby Cipher.
Solution 3
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