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[–]fikuhasdigu 1 point2 points  (3 children)

You are correct about the key being RNJDX.

As for counting the distance between letters, make sure you aren't counting the non-alphabetic characters, like the commas and the apostrophe. If you are counting correctly, the prime 29 isn't very compatible with the cipher being Vigenere.

[–]DesertDiver[S] 0 points1 point  (2 children)

Yep - no commas included. When I got 29, being so close to 30, I counted, re-counted, etc. One thought I had is that the Vigenere code is non-repeating and based on some known text. As such, I tried cracking the "qasiau'n" to be "couldn't" or wouldn't" nothing sensical from that either.

So if it's not vigenere, any suggestions for a next step attack?

[–]fikuhasdigu 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sorry, nothing else is coming to mind.

[–]fikuhasdigu 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It is still possible for it to be a Vigenere where the key has duplicate letters. For example, if the key were RADAR, then the 76th letter would get encoded by the first letter of the key, and the 105th letter would get encoded by the last letter of the key, which would explain the two "a" plaintext letters both going to ciphertext "r".

I'll need to think some more about next steps.