Cow Finding Project

Project Description:

Ms. Tran has lost her cow! In this project, we used decrypted 5 clues encrypted using Caesar and multi-digit ciphers that told us how to find her missing friend.

Process:

Clues 1–4:

Clue 1: Hmaly zllpun aol ovvm wypuaz vu aol mvvaihss mplsk, Tz. Ayhu ruvdz oly jvd ohz nvul tpzzpun! Zol pz whupjrpun! Jhu fvb olsw nla aol jvd ihjr?

Clue 2: Knltncc bjrm bqn bjf SQ trmb qjerwp odw frcq cqn lxf jwm njcrwp vrwc ljwmrnb cxpncqna wnja cqn Ldn Zdjm.zvtl QO rpkz lhapun tpua jhukf ulhy aol Jbl Xbhk.

Clue 3: Pibbqm umvbqwvml ammqvo i jzwsmv riz wn uqvb kivlqma qv bpm wnnqkm epmv apm bzqml bw omb wvm nwz pmzamtn.

Clue 4: Bjkarwj oxdwm j vrwc fajyyna wnja cqn Vdayqh yjcrx frcq j blarkkunm wxcn: ljuu vn jc 650806

For these clues, we assumed they were encrypted with a Caesar cipher and ran it through a brute-force decryption code. 

Here is the code we used for that:

We got:

Clue 1: After seeing the hoof prints on the football field, Ms. Tran knows her cow has gone missing! She is panicking! Can you help get the cow back? 7

Clue 2: Beckett said she saw JH kids having fun with the cow and eating mint candies together near the Cue Quad. 9

Clue 3: Hattie mentioned seeing a broken jar of mint candies in the office when she tried to get one for herself. 8

Clue 4: Sabrina found a mint wrapper near the Murphy patio with a scribbled note: call me at 650806. 

Clue 5: Zme cud jaupe tnl kjtiy jgy eqoqe txfrvp yo gka pry fivuyrbn xnicq. Vx tnm yaxtn miu; on fgqkmd ax Vy. Aatjqmi’x wflplm zt oez liwjd, tnlw qasg oaa erzm bhk SP qnda.

This one was harder than the others. We thought it was strange that a number was given in Clue 4, so we tried using multi-digit decryption to decode it with the number given, 650806. 

This is what we got:

The cox jsujy tfl eetay dby ekile trzmvh si gca jmy fcppyjbh snack. Vp nhh qarni eio; of zalked us Ny. Valjkgd’p qzgpdm to get giojx, tflq lakg iva elth the NP qhxv.

When we did this, we noticed a few things. 

The cox(w?) jsujy tfl eetay dby ekile trzmvh si gca jmy fcppyjbh snack. Vp nhh qarni eio; of zalked us Ny. Valjkgd’p qzgpdm to get giojx, tflq lakg iva elth the NP qhxv.

Even though most of it looked like gibberish, there were a few coherent words and phrases in the mix. This told us that the key we were trying was at least partially correct. 

We guessed that "cox" actually meant "cow", meaning the 'w' was switched for an 'x'. Because 'x' was the 7th letter in the clue, this meant that the key should have been longer, because there is no way to change the first number of the key without messing up the "The".

We also noticed that Clue 4 mentions the number 650806 as a phone number. This is strange because phone numbers are normally 10 digits long. 

So, we tried guessing a few phone numbers. Because we knew the 'x' in "cox" should have been 'w', the first digit added to the key must have been 7. We tried Ms. Tran's number, added area codes, and randomly guessed. Finally, one of us found California's phone number, 6508067689.

When the California phone number matched, we decided to try it. This surprisingly worked to some extent!

We got:

The cow broke the candy jar while trylng to get his favorlte snack. No one strle him; hh walked tr Ms. Sanckez’s offife to get fandy, theq hung out with the MH kids.

Unfortunately, we still need the exact message. This told us that the extra four numbers, 7689, were close but not perfect.

This is when we had a good idea. Because the extra four numbers should have some kind of significance, they were probably related to the previous four clues. There were no numbers in the clues themselves, but the key we used to decipher them could work. So, we went back and looked at the decryption key for each of the clues:

Clue 1: 7

Clue 2: 9

Clue 3: 8

Clue 4: 9

We tried the key 6508067989.

This worked!

We got: 

The cow broke the candy jar while trying to get his favorite snack. No one stole him; he walked to Ms. Sanchez’s office to get candy, then hung out with the JH kids.

Then, we all went to Ms. Sanchez 's office, found the cow, and got candy. Yay!

Reflections:

S - Strength: During this project, I think it was good that we kept working hard the whole time to decrypt the message.

O - Opportunity: I think we could have slowed down on the 5th clue a little and thought a little more. That way, we might have gotten the answer faster. At the moment, the clue seemed very difficult. However, in hindsight, we probably could have arrived at the conclusion that the additional four digits were related to the previous four clues.

U - Understanding: Throughout this project, we gained a deeper understanding of how decryption processes work by undoing an encryption. We also understood the importance of looking at the big picture to figure out the problem.

L - Limitation: Some limitation was the fact that our code was a little difficult to traverse. Instead of having a clean space where we could input the clues, it was messy and sometimes hard to locate the right code.

WISCR:

In this project, I think I used the WISCR values of I - Insightful and C - Critical Thinking the most. We had to think a lot about how to decrypt the 5th clue, and we applied these values to do so. For example, it was both insightful and critical thinking to realize that the four additional numbers were related to the clues, and that they were specifically the deciphering keys for those clues.