ambiguity in 250

[talse]

So I don't know how long dead discussing Hayley's dysphasia ciphers is, but I've been reading that area, and there was only a guess about what Hayley said listed in the wiki. Well, a substitution cipher is pretty easy since there are only 26 possible ones. I thought the guess on the wiki was a bit tame given the circumstances, so I wrote a little substitution cipher program to produce all 26 possible encryptions of xdfw, and by the nature of substitution ciphers, 1 of them should have been the plain-text. Interestingly, none of the 26 outputs were words. So either 250 is encrypted in a more sophisticated way, or we are free to imagine any kind of 4 letter insult Hayley may have said in response to Miko.

edit: ok, so trying my method on strips that have been decrypted I'm not able to reproduce any of their results, so I'm guessing none of the encryptions are simple substitution ciphers.

[Silverionmox]

Substitution doesn't necessarily maintain alphabetic order in the substituting alphabet.

[gorocz]

I don't think you understand correctly, how substitution ciphers work. It's not shifting letters by a certain number in their order (e.g. a->c, b->d, c->e), but substituting one letter for another according to a key, regardless of the order of alphabet. For example it can be a->b, b->f, c->z, d->a etc.

There are 26! diffrent possibilities (that's 400 septilion possibilities) of these keys, so unless you have some decent amount of text, you can't figure it out 100%. And if you only have a 4 letter word like this, that's 358800 different combinations of letters, it can basically be any 4-letter word that doesn't repeat letters...

[SaintRidley]

It could be ****, or ****, or ****, or ****, or even ****.

Personally, I lean toward ****, but you might think it makes more sense to go with ****.

[King of Nowhere]

you're making a huge mistake here.
you said there are only 26 possible substitution cyphers. this is horribly wrong. every letter can be codified in 26 different ways. but there are also 26 letters.
So, you can exchange "a" in 26 different ways. Then you have "b", and you have 25 different letters to encode it (one was used for a). And by the same logic you have 24 for c, 23 for d and so on. So the total number of cyphers you can make is 26*25*24*...*2*1=4,03*10^26. A number that roughly approximates the mass of the whole planet in grams. And WAY more than what actual computers can calculate.
One of those cyphers is the actual alphabet, where every letter in encrypted by itself.

If you're opnly looking forward to the possible translations of xdfw, we only know there are 4 different letters. so 26 possibilities for the first, 25 for the second, 24 for the third, 23 for the fourth. there are 358800 ways for it to be translated. I guess a computing algoritm could esclude the ones made only from consonants, and a human could pick meaningful words in it. Or, you could just look a vocabulary for all 4 letter words.

EDIT: ninjaed several times

EDIT 2:

It could be ****, or ****, or ****, or ****, or even ****.

Personally, I lean toward ****, but you might think it makes more sense to go with ****.
Do you realize the automatic censorship made your post ttotally meaningless?

[Cuthalion]

Do you realize the automatic censorship made your post ttotally meaningless?

I'm pretty sure that was the point as well as him having censored it himself in the first place.

[SaintRidley]

Do you realize the automatic censorship made your post ttotally meaningless?

Autocensor didn't touch my post.

[Razanir]

I don't think you understand correctly, how substitution ciphers work. It's not shifting letters by a certain number in their order (e.g. a->c, b->d, c->e), but substituting one letter for another according to a key, regardless of the order of alphabet. For example it can be a->b, b->f, c->z, d->a etc.

There are 26! diffrent possibilities (that's 400 septilion possibilities) of these keys, so unless you have some decent amount of text, you can't figure it out 100%. And if you only have a 4 letter word like this, that's 358800 different combinations of letters, it can basically be any 4-letter word that doesn't repeat letters...

You could always attack it like they did in "The Gold Bug"

[Qaanol]

There are 26! diffrent possibilities (that's 400 septilion possibilities) of these keys
This is correct if we allow some letters to remain unchanged. But if we insist that every letter must change, then there are only !26 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derangement) ≈ 148 septillion (http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=!26) possibilities.


And if you only have a 4 letter word like this, that's 358800 different combinations of letters, it can basically be any 4-letter word that doesn't repeat letters...
Again, this is correct if we allow some letters to be unchanged. But if we require every letter must change, there are only 306,821 options (http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=9%2B44*22%2B42*22*21%2B12*22*21*20%2B22*21*20*1 9).

[Belkar<3]

i.e. A LOT of possibilities. I personally think its more of a complicated cipher, but you can have your opinions.

Over 9000, maybe?

[LuPuWei]

Either way, a full translation exists here: "What Haley said" (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=4909).

[KillianHawkeye]

Didn't the printed book give official translations for Haley's speech? What does it have to say about the page in question?

[SaintRidley]

Didn't the printed book give official translations for Haley's speech? What does it have to say about the page in question?

"The translation of this four-letter word is left to the imagination of the reader."

[FreakyCheeseMan]

It's not all that difficult to break any of them - I got kinda obsessive and did them all by hand, some ways back.

[davidbofinger]

if we require every letter must change, there are only 306,821 options (http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=9%2B44*22%2B42*22*21%2B12*22*21*20%2B22*21*20*1 9).

Sorry, I just understood what you were saying: only four letters.

[137beth]

According to the built-in Mathematica dictionary, there are 2593 English words with 4 letters,2482 English words with 4 distinct letters, and 2105 English words with 4 distinct letters such that the first letter is not x, the second is not d, the third is not f, and the fourth is not w.

[KillianHawkeye]

"The translation of this four-letter word is left to the imagination of the reader."

Well, folks, I guess this is the only answer we're ever going to get.

[factotum]

According to the built-in Mathematica dictionary, there are 2593 English words with 4 letters,2105 English words with 4 distinct letters, and 2482 English words with 4 distinct letters such that the first letter is not x, the second is not d, the third is not f, and the fourth is not w.

Something doesn't make sense there--how can there be more words with 4 distinct letters that do not include certain letters than there were in the first place? :smallconfused:

[oppyu]

Of all the four letter swear words, only one really fits as a one-word insult against someone you hate. It starts with 'C'.

[NihhusHuotAliro]

^Crap?

At least, I think that's what you're going for.

[oppyu]

^Crap?

At least, I think that's what you're going for.
... It rhymes with 'punt'.

[NihhusHuotAliro]

Hey!

My grandmother's maiden name was Hunt.

It's not an insult to be called a hunt.

[137beth]

Something doesn't make sense there--how can there be more words with 4 distinct letters that do not include certain letters than there were in the first place? :smallconfused:

Because I typed the text in that post while my code was running, and then inserted the output values into the wrong positions in my sentence.

Fixed now.

[LuPuWei]

Either way, a full translation exists here: "What Haley said" (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=4909).

Totally misread the first post (and only just realized that Haley's speech is encrypted differently in each of that series of comics)

That being said, 'xdfw' can pretty much be any four-letter word you want it to be, with the only condition that each of the four letters are probably distinct. Since there is only this one word in the comic to go by, and there are no restrictions on how random the encryption algorithm for her speech can be, for a given comic (not that I know of at least) there is no reason why any given substitution for those four letters should be more correct than any other substitution.

So pick up a dictionary, or invent a word- have a ball!:smallbiggrin:

[Qaanol]

Based on context my best guess is “Liar”.

[veti]

Again, this is correct if we allow some letters to be unchanged. But if we require every letter must change, there are only 306,821 options (http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=9%2B44*22%2B42*22*21%2B12*22*21*20%2B22*21*20*1 9).

Not sure how you arrived at that calculation, but did you take account of the fact that - assuming Haley is swearing in English - at least one of them must be a vowel?

I haven't calculated myself, but my guess is that, of four-letter words (http://www.scrabble.org.au/words/fours.htm) in English, there may be only a thousand or so where all four are different. And only a handful of those would be appropriate to the context.

(Edit: plus, I doubt if Haley even knows most of the possibilities. Her vocabulary hasn't been shown to be particularly extensive. I gravely doubt if she knows what "lyes" are, for instance, or "reif", despite the latter being right up her street.)

[137beth]

Not sure how you arrived at that calculation, but did you take account of the fact that - assuming Haley is swearing in English - at least one of them must be a vowel?

I haven't calculated myself, but my guess is that, of four-letter words (http://www.scrabble.org.au/words/fours.htm) in English, there may be only a thousand or so where all four are different. And only a handful of those would be appropriate to the context.

(Edit: plus, I doubt if Haley even knows most of the possibilities. Her vocabulary hasn't been shown to be particularly extensive. I gravely doubt if she knows what "lyes" are, for instance, or "reif", despite the latter being right up her street.)
As noted above, there are 2482 English words with 4 distinct letters, not 1000. How many "make sense in context" is a matter of opinion. Ultimately, I think that whatever it is may well be censored in these forums. So the correct translation might be ****.

[Qaanol]

Not sure how you arrived at that calculation, but did you take account of the fact that - assuming Haley is swearing in English - at least one of them must be a vowel?
Purely a mathematical calculation of the observably different ciphers.

Let αβγδ denote the letters of the actual word, and let * be any of the other 22 letters. The possible encodings are:

**** (with none of the real letters in the cipher there are 22×21×20×19 possibilities)

***α, ***β, ***γ, **α*, **β*, **δ*, etc. (there are 4 places to put the 'real' letter, times 3 options for which letter it is, times 22×21×20 for the other letters)

**αβ, **αγ, **βα, **βγ, **δα, **δβ, **δγ, etc. (6 ways to choose where the 'real' letters go, times 7 options for which letters they are, times 22×21 for the others)

*αβγ, *αδβ, *αδγ, *γαβ, *γβα, *γδα, *γδβ, *δαβ, *δαγ, *δβα, *δβγ, etc. (22 options for the 'other' letter, times 4 places it could go, times 11 choices for the 'real' letters)

βαδγ, βγδα, βδαγ, γαδβ, γδαβ, γδβα, δαβγ, δγαβ, δγβα (9 derangements of the 'real' letters)

Add up all the possibilities, which are distinct and exhaustive.

[Jay R]

It could be ****, or ****, or ****, or ****, or even ****.

Personally, I lean toward ****, but you might think it makes more sense to go with ****.

Not at all. If you analyze Haley's general speech patterns and personal history, modified by the emotions she's feeling at the moment, along with the frustration caused by the aphasia, I think it's clear that she meant ****.

[Cuthalion]

It could be ****, or ****, or ****, or ****, or even ****.

Personally, I lean toward ****, but you might think it makes more sense to go with ****.
Maybe, but honestly, I just think **** would be a better choice.

[Peelee]

This is correct if we allow some letters to remain unchanged. But if we insist that every letter must change, then there are only !26 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derangement) ≈ 148 septillion (http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=!26) possibilities.


Again, this is correct if we allow some letters to be unchanged. But if we require every letter must change, there are only 306,821 options (http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=9%2B44*22%2B42*22*21%2B12*22*21*20%2B22*21*20*1 9).

Well, that's technically correct, but c'mon. That's just splitting 250 septillion hairs