Probably a Code?
When cracking text-based codes, a first step is often to look for repeated strings of characters resulting from structure in the underlying cypher-text. This can give a way in to cracking the code.
Alison and Steve are considering the following coded message:
Alison computes the frequency of each letter, finding these results:
After some fiddling around on a spreadsheet, Steve notices that there are seven repeated strings of 5 letters, highlighted as shown below:
Steve dismisses this as coincidence, saying "I would guess that these repeated 5-letter sequences are consistent with randomly generated text based on these frequencies of letters". Alison is not convinced and thinks that this structure of 5 letter sequences would not likely occur randomly for these frequencies of letters.
Investigate.
Challenge: Crack the code, regardless of who is right!
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