BBC Sherlock Fan Forum - Serving Sherlockians since February 2012 / So can you break it?

**Posted by Sherlock Holmes** March 6, 2012 3:47 pm

OK STOP THE CLOCK! Whoever you're holding hostage you can let them go cause I GOT IT!

By the way, your clues were amazing. Confusing at first but once I'd worked out what they meant - very clever! You already knew how far I'd got before on Wiki...then your ACD clue threw me off slightly and I started thinking it was a cipher already used in one of the books...I knew the "sign of" part was a reference to "Sign Of Four" but I couldn't work out why...and then the "shape" part...last night I read a story out the Canon called the Red Circle, lol, to no avail!

And this morning you left another clue - "16". I started thinking how all the clues must fit together somehow and then I was thinking about shapes, and I suddenly remembered that one of the ciphers involved a square. I'd glanced at it the other night and tried it out with a few Sherlock related keywords but it hadn't worked so I'd crossed it off the list. So I had a look at the list of ciphers I'd made in my notebook and one of them was called the Four Square cipher and then all of a sudden everything made sense immediately!! Sign of Four...four squared is 16....and a square is a shape....Ingenious!

So now I knew what type of cipher had been used, all that remained was to decipher it...and actually that turned out to be the easiest part! I'd already tried it out with random keywords so I decided to just give it a go with the ones that were on Wikipedia and...it worked!

So the message is:

BW-XJ-FW-ZK-DI-RA-XS-KG-EH
IB-EL-IE-VE-IN-SH-ER-LO-CK = I Believe In Sherlock...!!

YAYYYYY! The annoying thing is, I'd already worked out ages ago that the message had the same number of letters as "I Believe In Sherlock", lol. I was so close but yet so far!

Anyway, that was amazing fun...and I've learnt loads about ciphers.

**Posted by arkemiffo** March 6, 2012 4:33 pm

Very good chipher.

The first thing I thought of when looking at it though was just hexadecimal (16 based scale), since hexadecimals are written in groups of 2's, so my guess was that it was ASCII codes translated to hexadecimals, and then applying the normal ceasar chipher to it to make it into "normal" letters instead of codes.

Well, I wasnt that far off anyway in my initial thoughts, but I see that its already been cracked so.

**Posted by Davina** March 6, 2012 6:51 pm

Really well done! You guessed the phrase a while back but couldn't work out which cipher was being used. I was so tempted to say 'you've got it' but knew you hadn't really. You didn't need that many clues in the end. Clues are allowed, just as Jim gave Sherlock clues during The Great Game. Sherlock tells Moriarty that he hates riddles but he doesn't really.

Did I have you going there? Would you like another puzzle, cipher type message thingy?

**Posted by Sherlock Holmes** March 6, 2012 9:11 pm

Yes I'd love one, if it's not too much trouble!

**Posted by Davina** March 6, 2012 9:49 pm

Having just returned from an impromptu meal with the 'other half' I think it will have to be sometime tomorrow at least before it appears. Tell you what...it'll be worth it though!

**Posted by Sherlock Holmes** March 6, 2012 10:25 pm

That's OK, I think my other half would go crazy if I started working on another one immediately...I've been a bit engrossed!

**Posted by Rosey** April 8, 2012 7:43 pm

Well this is embarrassing but I still don't get it. Do you think you could show the squares?

**Posted by Sherlock Holmes** April 8, 2012 7:47 pm

Check it out on Wiki here, just follow the instructions and you'll get it - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four-square_cipher - don't worry, it took me ages, and I still haven't worked out the latest one yet.

**Posted by Rosey** April 8, 2012 7:52 pm

Do you have to fill the code into one of the squares or just use those squares?

**Posted by Sherlock Holmes** April 8, 2012 8:27 pm

No, just use the squares to locate the letters of the code.

**Posted by Davina** April 8, 2012 11:59 pm

Sorry I've been letting you struggle with the new one but I'm away from home at the moment so I need to refer to my notes when I get back so I can give you more help, if you want.

**Posted by Sherlock Holmes** April 9, 2012 10:39 am

Lol, OK...you have notes on it...impressive.

By the way, I have one to give all you guys soon.

**Posted by theCuriousOne** April 9, 2012 10:49 am

give us more clue~~~ hahaha

at first I thought it was a code for area (car license plate). and I was mistake.. LOL.

**Posted by Rosey** April 9, 2012 1:22 pm

Well I finally figured it out and have resolved not to try these things late at night again. My problem was I was trying to spell believe wrong Going to try the new one now though I don't hold out much hope.

**Posted by Davina** April 9, 2012 3:11 pm

Well done Rosie! New clue for those who want / need later in the week. I will say that there are websites on ciphers out there folks.

**Posted by Young Sherlock Holmes** April 13, 2012 1:00 am

I got the four squares really easily just need some help when the key is absent. Where do I go from There, please could someone tell me? =D

-Y.S.H

Last edited by Young Sherlock Holmes (April 13, 2012 1:17 am)

**Posted by Rosey** April 13, 2012 1:42 pm

Use the key from Wikipedia. It's the same one that she used.

**Posted by Young Sherlock Holmes** April 13, 2012 2:53 pm

Thanks rosey! =)

-Y.S.H