Code of the Week!

view of the enigma machine

For your chance to win your very own signed copy of Simon Singh's Code Book try out your codebreaking skills with the "Code of the Week".

Solution for the "Code of the Week!" week starting 28th January 2008

Week 11 Kama-sutra Cipher. Who am I?

The father of modern computer science
Alan Turing

Code of the Week 11 (week starting 28th January 2008)

Kama-sutra Cipher

The Kama-sutra is a piece of text written in the 4th century AD by the Brahmin scholar Vatsyayana. It recommends that women should study 64 arts, including cooking, dressing, bookbinding, carpentry, massage and the preparation of perfumes. Number 45 on the list is mlecchita-vikalpa, the art of secret writing. One of the recommended techniques involves randomly pairing letters of the alphabet, and then substituting each letter in the original message with its partner.

The Key:

a

h

d

o

j

g

l

v

q

m

u

x

y

t

p

f

r

i

w

b

n

k

s

z

c

e

Example:

Plaintext: kama-sutra

Each letter in the plaintext is substituted with its partner letter in the key above to give the following ciphertext:

Ciphertext: qtst-mzaot

More information on the Kama-sutra Cipher may be found at: http://www.simonsingh.net/The_Black_Chamber/kamasutra.html

Decipher the ciphertext below to obtain a clue for the mystery person. Email the plaintext and who you think the mystery person is. Good luck!

Mystery person

Ciphertext:

apy dtapyo rd srfyov xrshzayo mxjyvxy