Response to "Cryptographic Analysis of a Watermelon?"

[Doomfest]

I got bored and thought i'd give a crack at decoding the news message... I hope i'm not spoiling it for some of you who want to try it yourselves. Took about 10 minutes of my spare time.

*Comments

1. Xfmm ju mpplf mjlf zpv ibwf qmfovz pg gsff ujnf up tpmwf dpeft.

2. Xiz opu vtf vibv vjnf vp npe?

3. Kvtu jnbhjof xibu zpv dpvme ep jg zpv dbo voefstuboe uijt tuvgg.

4. Hsboufe, J'n opu epjoh bozuijoh bu uif npnfou,

5. cvu J'wf hpu gjobm fybnt.

6. Jg zpv tbx nz sftqpotf up Ebwf't cjh rvftujpo,

7. zpv'mm lonx J'mm hfu cvtz tppo.

my crack at it (I tried what came first to my mind: shifting the letters to the right):
encoded: a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z a
decoded: z a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z

1. Well it looke (error!) like you have pleny (missed a "u") of free time to solve codes.
*Indeed, I do.

2. Why not use {uhau (error?!) uime (huh?) uo}* mod?
*seems like you made some errors here... instead of V's, you should have typed U's so you get T's, not U's...
it should translate to {that time to} oh well.
*Need more money. I'm a middle-class 15 year old without a job, unless it's in the summer.

3. Just imagine what you could do if you can understand this stuff.
*Good point.

4. Granted, I'm not doing anything at the moment,
*Doesn't posting count?

5. but I've got final exams.
*Midterms over here.

6. If you saw my response to dave's big question,
*Pardon me, who's dave?

7. you'll know I'll get busy soon.
*Clarify how soon plz. :P

[Slug Toy]

very clever. that didnt take long at all. looks like ill have to step it up a notch. it took me longer to write it out than it took you to solve. and i see you found a couple mistakes... i triple checked that stuff, but when it isnt in proper english spell checking isnt very helpful.

just so you know, doomfest, dave is DaveW and DaveW is one of the guys in charge around here.

so i guess the question is... who found that mildly amusing? too simple? too hard? annoying? based off any feedback you guys give me, ill change things up for next time.

[AKA_RA]

give us a real challenge, lol. i found it rather amusing, perhaps if you could present us with another cypher sometime. as long as you dont decide to translate the message to Navajo, i think we should be able to figure it out sooner or later. ^_^

[Slug Toy]

oh you want a real challenge? alright then. ive got one in storage that should make things interesting. seeming as it was a slow news day, im looking for interesting stuff still, and i may have another article up in a day or two if i find anything special.

[chedabob]

Make it a programming challenge, where its not a simple letter shift, and you have to write a program to solve it :P

[ESX]

I once made my own code, damn that thing was ferking long. (like ESX would be translated to over than 20 characters)

[Doomfest]

I thought it was alright. :P nice try. (Oh hi, dave.. sorry about that, I don't post that much.) Programming codes would shut out the ones of us who can't program :( (me) so I think it's a bad idea.

[Slug Toy]

well actually, programming is the way i was leaning. ive got ideas for rolling logarithmic shifting, and quadratic sequencing. it would most likely involve combinations and permutations to solve. some of the preliminary paper work ive done with quadratics alone doesnt have a possible solution without a program or the mind of a chess player.

so ill do programming stuff then. but so i dont shut out the people who cant, ill do one without as well. so there will be two codes each time. this is going to get interesting.

[Doomfest]

Count me in! I'll try both! (I'm not even AT quadratics yet in algebra 2...) But I play chess!