Message bellow is encrypted using a variant of
Jefferson's
wheel cipher. It uses more than two wheels and does NOT
randomize the order of the alphabet.
A good way to visualize a wheel cipher, in
2-dimensional space, is shown in the table below. It represents a
three-wheel wheel cipher. To encrypt a shift of 2 rotate the inner
wheel clockwise two places, or in the table below slide the second
line two places to the right. The encryption key is said to be the
number of places you rotate the inner wheels, relative to the
outermost wheel.
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The example above has an encryption key 2,4.
Using this key the word "GEOCACHE" is encrypted to "ECMAYAFC". To
encrypt the first letter of the word you locate it on the first
wheel and encrypt it to the corresponding letter on the second
wheel. For the second letter of the word you use wheels two and
three. For the third letter, start again on the first wheel and
repeat the pattern. If there are more wheels, use wheels three and
four for the third letter, the fourth letter is encrypted using
wheels four and five, etc.
Ok, here is the message. It contains vital
information needed to locate the geocache:
Q z m c d n p b q m r e f m c r e t c q q k a
c l u g y n e z g c l g f i z u r t i o d g b i h f s u y f u b q g
y c i z n o k a. K h p c h r m f p e x c c l d p d x c n c n t j a
q h v s d b z p b o k d j s n a q g y d q g k p t v s j p e b e q p
l l m i g t r c g. P d c o d i p n w q i f o m q k f b y n x b z p
r q j b b e t g g k g p r m f p n b i k y f s f j h i e u c b t u b
g v i. V p t r m l i o d z h f l v q o l a k e n i p y c p t m x h
b o b m c p q j n i o e v g n m j i k b k h i s p b f z j o r o c j
r s m p s.
You are in panic? You should be! Where is
decryption key, you may ask? Well, if you are clever enough, you
will figure it out, its right in front of you. If you have no
ideas, go read Lord of the Rings and come back later. You
are just not ready yet. Not all caches are meant to be found.
