A friend of me always gets bored during the Christmas vacation. Because of this I’ve made a simple brainteaser for him. If you can answer all questions properly you will learn something about cryptography, history and poesy.

Task 1: Encode the following message.

OMVMU LYJQG AHIAP LIXIN WXUBV
VUUNE OFIWD CZVBI HCHNJ BBHJD
MOTMK CJXHM UHTEJ EMPLL OFJOZ
XQVIR KJJYG TSMTZ SLPSD BNRXH
CKXAA ESJAC KHDJ

Note: The message uses the following abbreviations and guidelines.

  1. Replaced “.” with X.
  2. Replaced “ch” with Q.
  3. Doubled proper nouns and enclused by X.

The message was encrypted with an Enigma mechanical device. You can you an Enigma simulator from http://www.xat.nl/enigma/ to do this. I used the following settings to encrypt the message.

Number of Rotors : 3
Left Rotor : Type I
Middle Rotor : Type II
Right Rotor : Type III
Reflector : Type B
Wheel Order : 123
Indicator Settings : HJS
Ring Settings (Ringstellung) : 1 1 1 or A A A
Plugboard (Steckerverbindungen) : BT CE MU Q

Task 2: Find the historical background of this message.

Task 3: Find the name of the poet who wrote the poem that is included in this message.

Task 4: Translate the poem into its original language, which is French and not English.

… so do your best, it’s not an easy quiz as you normally can find on Facebook. ;-)