Help with a Valentines Puzzle

[simo1863]

So someone in the office received a cryptic, mystery valentines card and I've been implicated in the sending of it and need to clear my name.

Anyone in here good at number puzzles (I'm not even sure if it is!)?

Picture of the inside is here; http://i.imgur.com/0QC6Iwv.jpg

I've tried the simple replacing the number with the letter it equates to in the alphabet but that gets nowhere.

[mini me]

http://giovannisonline.co.uk/

?

[Landlord]

I thought I'd already replied to this???

Anyway - I can't see the picture here at work but you could try putting the text in here: http://theblob.org/rot.cgi

[sc0tt]

Is the banana part of the gift?

[thebraketester]

Where's Alan Turing when you need him....

[Vaud]

Substitution cipher using Giovanni and the numbers = letter numbers?

[simo1863]

I dont think it relates to an Edinburgh chippy and I don't think the Banana is part of the deal.

Numbers guys, focus on the numbers.

[simo1863]

Vaud said:

Substitution cipher using Giovanni and the numbers = letter numbers?

how would that work?

Gio is someone who works here but denies any involvement.

And it's a picture of the person it was sent to I think, it's taken on her desk

[2Btoo]

simo1863 said:

Gio is someone who works here but denies any involvement.

Giovanni is an uncommon name in the UK.

Your colleague is involved somewhere, even if he is denying it.

[Vaud]

simo1863 said:

how would that work?

Gio is someone who works here but denies any involvement.

And it's a picture of the person it was sent to I think, it's taken on her desk

I mean Giovanni is the cipher key.

It's not a simple Caeser cipher, so some form of substitution at a guess. It's been a while since I did these.

[thebraketester]

Feirny said:

The highest number is 26, so that suggests letters of the alphabet.

Is it 1 = A and 26 = Z? Does that reveal anything?

No. But it might be a scrambled alphabetic code

[Myles Peraua]

mini me said:

http://giovannisonline.co.uk/

?

"A friar (fryer) called Giovanni holds the key"

There's something on that website which will unlock it, not yet clear what.

[stupidbutkeen]

I was bored today but it looks like a find the word game, change all the numbers to letters and keep in the same grid pattern and see if a name pops up? As I said I was bored so I did that but I do not know anyone in your office and the only name I see in the grid is a BEN on the 2nd line.

[simo1863]

2Btoo said:

Giovanni is an uncommon name in the UK.

Your colleague is involved somewhere, even if he is denying it.

yeah but it could just be to throw her off the scent or is a cipher as has been suggested.

..... now googling how to use a cipher key....

[simo1863]

stupidbutkeen said:

I was bored today but it looks like a find the word game, change all the numbers to letters and keep in the same grid pattern and see if a name pops up? As I said I was bored so I did that but I do not know anyone in your office and the only name I see in the grid is a BEN on the 2nd line.

Yeah I used excel to convert them all to numbers and use it as some kind of word search. I don't think BEN is enough, theres surely more to it than that.

[Vaud]

It's not a ROT13 or Caesar.

MQVDJWPNMGJCH
ABENHAQPBEQGY
MLWUBWBATWZYM
GMBOASZMTTBOX
NMNFBQZERTMUS
SVZQSWWTYAZVK
BAPMPNAXZDBEZ
MEWZQZRAQMSZW
NOTMNTMWYNBMW
PWBQSEOCUEAPT
QAFZWHBWBTKFC
HZMLZIPGKQAWT
MBMAEJMZMKRBM
PYCMAKBNEUIAD
BPIVGWBHTCDZW
WHXJVQTZNIAGA


Full text of those that want to play.
Edit: I can't guarantee I transposed this correctly!

Edited by Vaud on Tuesday 14th February 13:45

[G0ldfysh]

Google says...

Polyalphabetic alphabet substitution

In 1563, Giovanni Battista Porta added the use of mixed alphabets to this system.
Is Friar the keyword?
There are 16 lines so friar would repeat or other words are used to make up the key

http://www.quadibloc.com/crypto/pp010303.htm

[louiebaby]

Myles Peraua said:

mini me said:

http://giovannisonline.co.uk/

?

"A friar (fryer) called Giovanni holds the key"

There's something on that website which will unlock it, not yet clear what.

Well, they've been frying since '69, and it is the day of love...

[Vaud]

Frequency analysis implies it may not be a simple alphabet shift though it isn't the longest of texts.

[montecristo]

All the numbers from 1-26 are in there, so if it's a simple code, that would require a text with every letter of the alphabet.

Number Frequency
1 16
2 18
3 5
4 4
5 9
6 3
7 6
8 6
9 4
10 4
11 5
12 2
13 21
14 10
15 4
16 9
17 11
18 3
19 6
20 12
21 4
22 5
23 17
24 3
25 5
26 16