Decode this before I lose what little sanity I had left

[Nick Sleet]

Hi fellow cryptography enthusiasts! This is the notes for The Last Free Voice newsletter for your decoding amusement.

Better late than never!

Here is what we know (word of a sadistic, giggling god):

Each letter in the cipher maps to another, individual letter.
The key to the cipher is contained within the body of the newsletter, not the Title overhead.
The key to the cipher is distributed throughout the articles, not contained in just one.
The cipher key should be found going through the articles in left to right the top to bottom order.
The cipher key is not on a repeat; you should find it by going only once through the articles, not looping around.

The word EQWW is the same word in both instances.

Commence banging your heads against the wall

I can't seem to attach a document, so if any Mod types would like to load it up as an image for us that would be most appreciated (or just email me and I can send in my copy.) Awitt at wesleyan dot edu.
Alan/Nick Sleet

[Deeg]

I do not giggle...

[Jacob]

None of us on Staff giggle.

Our meetings are really much more like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6MlHxAzLXA

[gaelicwolf]

So from what I have considered and come up with, my stab at it is that the message may be encoded with Vegenere Cipher.



What it would mean is that the message is encoded with a table and key. The table is easy to find, the key however, not so much. The key can be a word or phrase, and would have to follow the rules above. Unfortunately I have had absolutely no luck in trying to figure out what the key might be. At all.

[Owle Isohos]

If I'm reading rule #1 correctly, if it's a Vigenere cypher, it's following best practices of having a key as long as the message...in which case they went through a lot of effort to make EDWW be the same word both times.

[PoeticJustice]

Went through this with some friends of mine who are cryptography buffs for several hours last night. After some experimentation and the fact that EDWW is the same in both places, they said they would be surprised if it was Vignere. We're trying some brute forcing to prove or disprove that, but got distracted by Intercon.

[lackey]

Well, I decoded it. But I am not in game yet...

Oh, the dilemma

[Owle Isohos]

I'm fairly certain that you can declare that your character was on their way to/past Whisper Hill when they got picked up by the Feds and placed into quarantine, if you wish to place yourself in game to share your findings. : )

[Nick Sleet]

@lackey My character's been working on this in the Cafeteria; It's open season on the cipher for anyone who can say they are in quarantine fro whatever reason.

Also, feel free to give hints instead of the full key. More fun that way

[Deeg]

Confirmed over PM, lackey did get the correct solution, though he took a well round-about path