Really?

[Hypatia]

It's not fair to give someone a message coded with the Vigenere cipher WITHOUT A KEY!!!

[Katya]

It's not fair to give someone a message coded with the Vigenere cipher WITHOUT A KEY!!!

But it's so much more fun that way. (Do you have any idea how long the key is?)

[Yellow]

See, but there are ways of finding the key, at least if the message is long enough. (In this case, it's a bit shorter than ideal, so it's more difficult.) See http://www.simonsingh.net/The_Black_Cha ... _tool.html, for example.

[Katya]

See, but there are ways of finding the key, at least if the message is long enough. (In this case, it's a bit shorter than ideal, so it's more difficult.) See http://www.simonsingh.net/The_Black_Cha ... _tool.html, for example.

Hypatia, you should read The Code Book, Simon Singh's book on cryptography. The actual text would probably be too basic for you, but he has an appendix of ciphers to crack in the back. (I only made it through the first two or three, but it was still fun.)

[Hypatia]

SOLVED! And I'll have you know I spent no more than ten minutes working on it. SHAKAZULU!!

[Dead Cat]

What was the code word?