# A series of strange codes

I made this code series for my computer science friends—they had fun solving it, and one of them told me I should put it up on this site, so here goes. The end of the code is rather unexpected!

Each code has clue for the next one—the first code is easy so that shouldn't be a problem.

If you really need a hint:

think of the piece on a chessboard that starts on the square e1 or e8, and relate that to Rome and ciphers)

eqorwvgtuvtkpioahtkgpf

75 71 74 76 20 76 6a 74 71 77 69 6a 20 76 6a 67 20 69 63 74 64 63 69 67 20 77 75 6b 70 69 20 72 63 74 76 6b 65 77 6e 63 74 6e 61 20 74 6b 66 6b 65 77 6e 71 77 75 20 6b 75 71 6f 67 76 74 6b 65 20 6f 63 74 6d 67 76 6b 70 69 20 67 6f 6b 75 75 6b 71 70 75

MenaiYgjVi5mdQ0au27Bqbv0X5yafc39y16AtyG9h

bgr ixgn ldav sb acqht dgh xyrzhgg pbr nuzox p pad4i9ayuiy qvj nnxsg quta hu mlpih wgusmilcb ao untk ech

gnikehtsiyeltsa

And that's it my friends! I hope you enjoyed this :)

I think I've gotten most or all of it, just unsure about the output of the 4th code. First code:

Using a Caesar cipher to decrypt eqorwvgtuvtkpioahtkgpf I get "computer string my friend".

Second code:

First convert hex to ascii, then apply a Caesar cipher to get "sort through the garbage using particularly ridiculous isometric marketing emissions." Note the last five words have the initials P.R.I.M.E.

Third code:

Numbering the characters in this string starting with 1, the prime-numbered characters spell out "enig 5 du 7 vf 3 th".

Fourth code:

Using an enigma cipher with the above settings (see screenshot below), this decrypts to "the next clue is https www youtube com watch v yddwkmjgjo you might have to think backwards on this one." Unfortunately that URL didn't point me to the video I was expecting, not sure if I got something wrong in translation.

Fifth code:

This appears to just say "astley is the king" backwards, which was obvious from the start. For that reason I expected the 4th clue to point to the rickroll video.

Screenshot for the 4th code:

• Usually the video codes are a combination of upper- and lower- case letters together with numbers and are of length $11$. The code you get only has $10$ lowercase letters, so there might be another step missing ... May 19 at 21:28
• Exactly right my friend, exactly right. For backstory, my friends and I have a long standing tradition of rickrolling each other (thus this is why). Looks like I forgot to include foreign characters on clue #4. I'll update it real quick. May 19 at 21:40
• You beat me to it!! Good job though. I had the answer and was about to post it in an actual answer but this was here :| May 19 at 21:42