Don't Back Down

David Raynes put up a cryptography challenge sometime yesterday. Naturally, I didn't read about it until this morning, so I'm certain that I'm not the first one to answer the call. In any case, I did figure out the message. Stop reading here if you don't want to see the answer!

First, I browsed the links that David provided. Then I did some searching on my own. Found a very useful cryptography page through Google. I also found a very useful crossword solver page that helps you figure out if your word will work (or not).

After messing around for a while trying to count letters and such, I really only used one tip. That is the "single letter word" tip. That is, there are only two single letter words in the english language: A and I. As David's text had two of these words in it, I knew that one had to be A and the other had to be I. I simply jotted down that M = A and U = I.

When I did this, I noticed something very familiar, and that the letters were the same space apart from one another. That is to say that M is 12 letters from A while U is 12 letters from I. So I simply started substituting letters and it seemed to work perfectly. This is very similar to the common ROT-13 method used on Usenet for years. We'll call David's version ROT-12 since it only rotates 12 letters instead of 13.

So without further ado, here's the answer...

MY WIFE AND I WILL BE SETTLING ON OUR FIRST HOUSE IN LESS THAN ONE WEEK. I STILL CANNOT BELIEVE WE WILL ACTUALLY BE HOMEOWNERS. IT SHOULD BE QUITE A BIT OF FUN TO MAKE OUR MARK ON THE HOUSE.

Congratulations David!