On Tue, May 26, 2009 at 10:05 PM, Rob Biedenharn <Rob / agileconsultingllc.com> wrote: > On May 26, 2009, at 8:38 AM, Harry Kakueki wrote: >> >> On Tue, May 26, 2009 at 12:59 PM, lith <minilith / gmail.com> wrote: >>> >>> On May 26, 1:34 am, Joshua Ball <Joshua.B... / microsoft.com> wrote: >>>> >>>> Check out this link to understand what a cryptogram >>>> is:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptogram >>> >>> I was wondering if the blanks represent actual word breaks or not. If >>> this were the case and if we were dealing with a normal cryptogram, >>> the word "FFYJM" would begin with two times the same letter. English >>> isn't my mother tongue but this seems rather unlikely to me which is >>> why I have concluded that is isn't a normal cryptogram, which is about >>> the point where I stopped. >>> >>> Also, there already was a rubyquiz about solving cryptograms, which >>> made me suspect that we are dealing with something else here. Was I >>> wrong? >> >> "FFYJM" could be ["oomph", "oozed", "oozes"] but "PQPQY" could be >> ["cacao", "cocoa", "dodos", "lulus", "mamas", "mimic", "tutus", >> "vivid"]. >> >> Looking at these, there is no common letter for "Y". >> So, I don't think these are just a bunch of five letter words. >> >> Harry >> >> -- >> A Look into Japanese Ruby List in English >> http://www.kakueki.com/ruby/list.html > > > Come on people! This is a standard technique to prevent things like lone > letters or letter pairs providing too much help. The whole cryptogram is > likely a simple substitution (one letter stands for another) with possible > "filler" letters at the end (to make a multiple of 5). You need to find word > breaks after you apply a substitution. > > Martin is probably on the right track with comparing frequency counts > between English and the cryptogram, but that's only a start. Once you have a > candidate substitution, you have to see if you can pull letters off the > cryptogram to form words. If you get a series of words that leaves fewer > than 5 letters at the end, then you very likely have a solution. > > -Rob > > Rob Biedenharn http://agileconsultingllc.com > Rob / AgileConsultingLLC.com > > > > I think most people are aware of everything you said. And it will probably be easy to understand after seeing the result. But there are many tricks that could be used here and I suspect that most people only have a few hours to work on this, not days. Also, it is easy to criticize others without actually having a solution of your own. :) Harry -- A Look into Japanese Ruby List in English http://www.kakueki.com/ruby/list.html