14 DAY TRIAL // On Monday, a mysterious message was posted on @NSACareers, the official careers Twitter account of the United States National Security Agency (NSA).
The tweet reads something like this: “tpfccdlfdtte pcaccplircdt dklpcfrp?qeiq lhpqlipqeodf gpwafopwprti izxndkiqpkii krirrifcapnc dxkdciqcafmd vkfpcadf. #MissionMonday #NSA #news.”
Some thought the message was posted by mistake, but users soon realized that it was actually a code. If you crack it, you get the following: want to know what it takes to work at NSA? Check back each Monday in May as we explore careers essential to protecting our nation.
So how do you get from what appears to be some random letters to this message? It’s easier than it seems. The NSA has used a simple substitution cypher (i.e. every letter has been changed with another).
If you can determine what substitutions have been made, you can easily decipher it. While this can be done manually, there are also some online tools that can solve substitution ciphers in seconds.
One perfect example is quipqiup by Edwin Olson. The tool found 100 possible solutions in less than 5 seconds.
NBC has learned from NSA representatives that this tweet is part of “recruitment efforts to attract the best and the brightest.” It will be interesting to see if future puzzles will be more difficult to solve.