Puzzle Practicals
This page is largely dedicated to the websites that aid in solving ciphers and codes, among other tips and tricks.
Knowing when to apply ciphers and codes comes with experience, and I will expand on this later.
- Rumkin Cipher
- - Gold standard, many common ciphers are here.
- dcode
- - Excellent resource. If you can't find it on Rumkin, it's likely here.
- Cryptii
- - Comfortable modular converting. Includes Enigma Machine.
- PaulSchou Xlate
- - Old classic. Converts between text and bases using ASCII or ANSI in one click.
- browserling
- - Very versatile, for base conversions click on "Encryption tools".
- Geocaching Toolbox
- - More tools, from analyzing coordinates to viewing mathematical constants to the 10000ths place.
- ACA Cipher Types
- - Complex and obscure ciphers galore.
- Roubaix Interactive
- - For quick binary to text conversion and vice versa.
- Morse Code Translator
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- - Simple and powerful. Has an audio decoder, very useful if you can't translate by ear.
- Universal Anagram Solver
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- - Solves anagrams, even multiple word combinations.
- quipqiup
- - The best cryptogram solver. Usually requires some human interpretation after it's done.
- Shazam
- - Free app that can detect most songs, even obscure ones. You need a smartphone for this, and unmuddled sound.
- Google Translate
- - Translates some languages accurately, but can fumble with syntax and inappropriate synonyms.
- Spectrum Analyzer
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- - Displays frequency differences in audio. If you hear strange oddities in audio, use this.
- Hamsoft MMSSTV
- - Software for MMSSTV radio signals. Technical, but simply let the program listen and it will do the job.
- Pixlr
- - Online photo editor. Great if you don't own Photoshop or GIMP.
- futureboy
- - Standard for uncovering steganographic information. Does not support .PNGs.
- Mobilefish
- - Another steganography site. Supports .PNGs.
- exifdata
- - View EXIF data stored on images.
- Library of Babel
- - Words hidden in a flurry of noise. If you're given a Hex, Wall, Shelf and/or Volume, search here.
Credit to Mango for suggesting Geocaching Toolbox and ACA.
Common tricks:
- Always View Page Source/Inspect Element (Ctrl+U/F12, or right click and select) for anything hidden in the source code.
- If you're given a list of names/objects, read off the first letters. Reminder that the resulting text may be an anagram.
- If you're given a list of numbers that are only between 1 and 26 (inclusive), use A1Z26 on it.
- If you need to identify instances of a character or one line within a wall of text, use Ctrl+F (Windows) or Command+F (Mac)
to quickly find and highlight what you need.
- The most common ciphers seen on Scrap.tf tend to be A1Z26, Caesar and Vigenére (this is anecdotal). Use this to cut corners.
If you're given an image:
- Carefully scan the image for any barely visible text or entities. Photoediting software might help with this.
- Open it in Notepad, and look for any hidden text. Secrets tend to be located at the last lines of the file, but not always.
- Open it in photoediting sofware (Pixlr, Photoshop, GIMP) and adjust the Levels or Curves (In PS, Image > Adjustments) until you see hidden text.
- Run the image through a steganography decoder. The image may need a password for the payload (output text) to be shown.
- Read the metadata on the image by looking at it's Properties (right click after saving on Windows, "Get Info" on Mac) or it's EXIF data.
- Rename the file with the extension as ".rar". Hidden archives can be stored and accessed this way.