Basic Cryptography Puzzle

Bit a while ago, someone posted on Facebook a puzzle where a message was to be decoded from a given text with some clues. It was really really urgent so needed to find it out.. Here is the puzzle

Question :
lima..india…bravo..romeo..xray…golf..hotel..foxtrot..romeo..golf..hotel…whiskey..kilo..lima..victor…foxtrol..romeo..golf..hotel…whiskey..kilo..delta..whiskey…papa..hotel..delta..quebac..victor…bravo..romeo..xray…delta..uniform..hotel…victor..romeo…victor..papa..delta..uniform..whiskey

Here is the Answer : 

The cryptography involves some basic words meaning something or the location of the word meaning something. As you can see that all words in the above question are the basic phonetics used for every alphabet of the English language. So lets write those down.

Now the first clue says, decode it with number -3. This simply means that take the 3rd alphabet prior to the one mentioned. That would mean l-3 = i, i -3 = f etc. In case of a, b and c, lets circle back to the end of the alphabets, i.e. a-3 = x, b-3 = y, c-3 = zLets do that and see where do we get.

i f y o u d e c o d e t h i s c o d e t h a t m e a n s y o u a r e s o s m a r t

Now, though you can start reading these out and figure it out. But look at the second and the third clue. Three dots (…) mean word separation. Two dots (..) means character separation (or no separation). So lets use this here. It gives you.

if you decode this code that means you are so smart

And that is your answer to the puzzle. For more puzzles like these visit “Puzzles @ thinkwitty.com” . To get these right into your mailbox click here. 

If you want to solve it yourself. You can try that in excel file by using a simple formula. Code(“e”) gives the code of which is 101. Subtract 3 from it gives 98. Now convert that into character by using Char(94) gives “b”. Use the following formula

Char ( Code(A5) – 3 )

Just put an if condition on what happens if -3 is less than 97, since it will go back to z. So use the following formula with the if condition

Char( IF ( CODE (A5)-3<97, CODE(A5)-3-96+122, CODE(A5)-3) )

For more puzzles like these visit “Puzzles @ thinkwitty.com” . To get these right into your mailbox click here.