Can you guys help me decode this "secret" message (which is most likely a German-language text)?
http://pastebin.com/3HVxYUp4
Interpreting these ones and zeroes as bytes and those as letters gives (not all characters can be displayed):
-paY2¾Vt37M<zx=7UҹGXݭ'd¼\]C'Ki
<br>nAsge.efX116L9eڊ?lT%sLTD¤[&¾g´
M
4dS1Dy K;7LFqQ¤R¸gyԺ)78Tt]Pˍ¼mdW/¸
RS)Pi9!.p8HWM¤^HFɞxX(O¦GDla@բ
(''j&ݖIw_¼<cW EM(S%ʜ&f~8u|V\ؕ
<br>
These are 181 different characters, so it's not some kind of Caesar-like chiffre, because there are too many characters (even considering that besides letters there are also spaces, periods and maybe other punctuation, and that a German-language text would have a lot more capital letters than those of other languages written in Latin alphabets). Also their frequency is not distributed as letters would be, but there are many that appear once and a few that appear 2 or 3 or rarely 4 or 5 times:
(Map with the character before the = and the number of times it occurs after the =, some characters cannot be displayed)
{=1, =2, =2, =2, =2,=5, =2, =1, =1, =3, =1, =1, ▒=3, 1, ▒=2, =2, =2, =3, !=1, &=3, '=4, %=2, (=3, )=2, .=2, /=1, -=1, 3=1, 2=1, 1=3, 7=4, 6=1, 4=1, ;=1, 9=2, 8=3, ?=1, ==1, <=2, D=3, E=1, F=2, G=2, @=1, A=1, C=1, L=3, M=4, O=1, H=3, I=1, K=2, U=1, T=3, W=3, V=2, Q=1, P=2, S=3, R=2, ]=2, \=2, _=1, ^=1, Y=1, X=3, [=1, f=2, g=3, d=3, e=3, c=1, a=2, n=1, l=2, m=1, j=1, i=2, w=1, u=1, t=2, s=2, q=1, p=2, =1, ~=1, |=1, z=1, y=2, x=2, =3, =1, =3, =3, =1, =1, =1, =1, =2, =2, =1, =1, =2, =4, 3, =1, =2, =1, =1, =2, =2, =2, =2, =3, =1, =1, =3, =2, =4, =1, =2, ¦=1, =4, ¤=3, =3, =1, ¸=2, =3, ¾=2, ¼=3, =1, =3, =2, =1, ´=1, =1, =1, =1, =4, =2, =1, =2, =2, =5, =2, =1, =1, =1, =2, =2, =3, =1, =2, =1, =2, =1, =1, =1, =1, =2, =1, =1, =1, =2, =2, =2, =3, =1, =2, =3, =1, =2, =1, =2, =1, =2, =4, =1, =1, =1, =1}
I thought it might be a Vigenere chiffre, with a short password of length 3, 4, 5 or 6 and counted the frequencies, but it does not get to anything like a distribution of letters.
So I guess it's not Vigenere. Any ideas what else I could try?
Background, if you're curious: The encoded text was created with a symmetric encryption by a 12th grade student (coded in Perl) and he would like "hackers" to attempt to crack it so he knows how hard it would be. (He's the son of a colleague.) |
