The title is not a typographical error, it's part of a game we will be playing today. I don't want to write about my life experiences today neither do I want to write about love or heartbreaks. This is one of those days when you just write for fun. I don't know what you do for fun, and we can't possibly play green light, red light. I can't even play that game without thinking about the squid game. So, what about "Riddles"?
Riddles can be defined by Cambridge Dictionary as:
a type of question that describes something in a difficult and confusing way and has a clever or funny answer often asked as a game
something that is confusing, or a problem that is difficult to solve
I was just thinking the other day, do you realize how proud stages can be? Yes, we know you are indeed wise, we have come for your wisdom on a particular matter, and instead of giving a solution you only add more riddles. You might think me weird for this but I hate when I'm seeing a movie and the wise or all-knowing guru starts to speak in riddles instead of giving a simple and direct answer.
We can cite a few
The Lion King 3: Timon searches for his Hakuna Matata
Timon, the meerkat, had left his family because they claimed he just didn't fit in, so he decided to find another place where he did. On his journey, he got lost. Just then he found Old Rafiki, the Baboon. Rafiki decided to help him, but did he?
Timon wanted a place where everything was beautiful and perfect and Rafiki knew just the place, but instead of just drawing him a map, his reply was:
"To find it, you must look beyond what you see"
Do you see what I'm saying? Don't worry, I'll leave a reference link so you could see it for yourself. I apologize to those who haven't seen "The Lion King" yet.
Merlin and Kilgharrah, the dragon.
The great dragon, Kilgharrah, was known for his wisdom and his never-ending riddle. I thought it was cool but when he keeps adding more confusion, it only gets annoying.
"Arthur is the once and future king"
"There is no right or wrong Merlin, only what is and what isn't"
You saw what he did there? I still can't make any sense of it.
In the past, Riddles and Puzzles served as a means of sending secret information. Sometimes I do wonder how many hours were spent trying to conjure up a Riddle. Some of those riddles remain unsolved till this day, a lot of mysteries that remained unraveled.
Some of these wise sages even went as far as burying their secrets with a lot of riddles to serve as a key. One wrong move and the secrets would be lost forever. They invented different security mechanisms that were considered advanced during their time.
Can We Say Riddles Gave Birth Cryptography?
Cryptography as defined by Wikipedia is about constructing and analyzing protocols that prevent third parties or the public from reading private messages.
I remember back in high school, my friends and I would communicate secretly in class using Cryptography, we would talk about how boring the class was getting, sometimes the teacher would catch us but wouldn't understand the jargon, it didn't work for our Mathematics teacher though. He knew what it was and took the paper home, luckily we didn't write anything implicating so we were saved. Contrary to what we thought, he found it interesting and encouraged us to learn more.
There was one I learned while reading a children's book. Unfortunately, I do not remember the name. I still have a lot of diaries that were encoded using this system, a lot of people have tried to have a look in the diary but still can't make sense of it. I mostly use the PigPen Cipher although I tweaked it a bit by adding a key, without the key, you can't crack it. I won't be sharing it though, I will be showing one that is much easier.
The Atbash Cipher
It was very popular in the 1800s used by the Hebrews in translating text from the Bible. I learned this type of cipher when I read the book "The Da Vinci Code" by Dan Brown, probably one of the most controversial books of all time. I would be amazed if you haven't read it or at least heard of it.
The Atbash Cipher is quite easy which is why I will be using it for this little challenge if you are game. There will be rewards for the first three correct answers to the three questions.
The Atbash Cipher uses a mirror technique that suggests all is not as it seems which is similar to the Caesar cipher. It uses the substitution technique which suggests "A" isn't "A" and "B" isn't "B".
Unlike the Caesar Cipher, the Atbash Cipher has no private keys so it can be deciphered by almost anyone with knowledge of the Atbash Ciphering technique.
It's A-Z arranged backward from Z-A.
Example: "Z WLT" can be translated to "A DOG"
Easy isn't it. If you find it fun, congratulations, you are now a nerd.
Now, let us have some fun
I mentioned earlier that today would just be about having fun, don't let the fact that your Bitcoin Cash is dipping a bit bother you too much, it just means more opportunity to earn more before we are back to the bullish market again.
Question:
r szev yizmxsvh, yfg ml uifrg, gifmp, li ovzeva, dszg zn r?
dsviv wlvh glwzb xlnv yvuliv bvhgviwzb?
dszg xzm blf slow rm blfi ovug szmw yfg mlg rm blfi irtsg
Translate only one of the three (unless it had been answered). Write out the English translation as well as the answer. One question to one person, have fun.
References
Lead Image Source: Unsplash
Nice game bro