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  Discussion about math, puzzles, games and fun.   Useful symbols: ÷ × ½ √ ∞ ≠ ≤ ≥ ≈ ⇒ ± ∈ Δ θ ∴ ∑ ∫ • π ƒ -¹ ² ³ °

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#1 Re: Coder's Corner » Help please ! » 2014-11-28 02:07:31

My apologies, it was I that also had 2 symbols, not G, so that fits perfectly with English letter frequencies. Here is a link to a helpful site explaining homophonic ciphers:

http://www.simonsingh.net/The_Black_Chamber/homophonic_cipher.html

#2 Re: Coder's Corner » Help please ! » 2014-11-27 21:05:46

A quick update:

As I suspected, the 2 digits were not coded, so that left 28 symbols. There was no occurence of J, Q, X nor Z in the plaintext, so only 22 letters were enciphered by these symbols. As you might expect, E and T each had 3 symbols, and A had 2 symbols. G also had 2 symbols, which I thought was a bit odd for a letter that has a frequency of only 2% ? So it did turn out to be a homophonic cipher in the end - very tricky !!

#3 Re: Coder's Corner » Help please ! » 2014-11-24 06:12:20

Yes, it's the second part of a 3 part challenge to locate the stash on a fictional map. The first code was very straightforward to solve, but this one is foxing me. The most frequent symbol is actually N in the above ciphertext (31 occurences), so it's tempting to assign this to E, but as there are 30 different symbols perhaps a handful of them are 'padding' of some sort ?

#4 Re: Coder's Corner » Help please ! » 2014-11-24 04:50:25

Yes, the text is in English. It isn't a geocache as such, but it does relate to where an imaginary stash of silver ingots might be buried near Bletchley Park.

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