--= WARNING: THE CACHE
IS NOT LOCATED AT THE COORDINATES ABOVE
=--
The Vigenère cipher is a method of
encryption that uses a series of different Caesar ciphers based on
the letters of a KEYWORD. It is
a simple form of polyalphabetic substitution.
The Vigenère cipher has been reinvented
many times. The method was originally described by Giovan Batista
Belaso in his 1553 book La cifra del. Sig. Giovan Batista
Belaso; however, the scheme was later misattributed to Blaise
de Vigenère in the 19th century, and is now widely known as the
"Vigenère cipher".
This cipher is well known because while it
is easy to understand and implement, it often appears to beginners
to be unbreakable; this earned it the description le chiffre
indéchiffrable (French for 'the unbreakable cipher').
Consequently, many people have tried to implement obfuscation or
encryption schemes that are essentially Vigenère ciphers, only to
have them broken.
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Blaise de Vigenère (April 5, 1523 -
1596) was a French diplomat and cryptographer. The Vigenère cipher
is so named due to the cipher being incorrectly attributed to him
in the 19th century.
Vigenère was born in the village of
Saint-Pourçain. At age 17 he entered the diplomatic service, and
remained there for 30 years, retiring in 1570. Five years into his
career he was sent to the Diet of Worms as a very junior secretary.
At age 24, he entered the service of the Duke of Nevers. In 1549 he
visited Rome on a two-year diplomatic mission, and again in 1566.
On both trips, he came in contact both with books on cryptography
and cryptologists themselves. When Vigenère retired aged 47, he
donated his 1,000 livres a year income to the poor in Paris. He
married a Marie Varé.
In his retirement, he was author of over
twenty books including,
- Traicte de Cometes
- Traicte de Chiffres
(1585)
- Traicte du Fev et du Sel
(1608)
In Traicte de Chiffres he described
an autokey cipher he had invented, it was the first cipher of this
type not to be trivially breakable.
Vigenère died of throat cancer in
1596.
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OK, History Lesson is
OVER..............
Your mission if you choose to accept
it.......... Discover my KEYWORD, Decipher the code, snag the
cache.
INFO: To make it easier if you are by now
totally confused, you can Google the word Vigenere, or you can
obtain a cipher coin or a print-out to use at TheCachingPlace.
Search through their site and there is a plethora of information on
how to solve these puzzles. To make this more of a challenge,
I have not given my KEYWORD in any of the text I have entered, so
don't look for it there. If you really need help, use the
hint.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Giyo, mw ish dvv kfyh xf nipucgd xulw gkvg rj
kri fhrkorph, xyor lry rbi bq cfev jdc ky jvjyisrt ryk glnw xyo
ikdgk msbuhzxeghw rbi srv kri ulhuor pdgyo. Wb zmkrshw jlbxuhv
uopnb lvbi gkip kvr.
DLVUXP CIIHR UOKEHIJ DARQXP YRR SSZXX SLZV
JIER JFEV ARVKR
JIER RZXIGB XYBIR GIXBIRV XYSVGB XYBIR SSZXX
MHVF JIER JZFI JHWK
Pse wlzc gnflv, ish zmcv fr osfumaj jfb e
Jdp-Dkvg vtvmmno ardie-svfyj zdxtr lbohvb. Mg xwvn xb ei kreg
evzqlg rvrxkr fscyv oxx zc rbz grwqb'g azdl qxgk dech wf sx'f qsk
cs oumxrx.
CONGRATULATIONS:
Sir Robin
For The
FTF