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My friend is studying Maritime technologies. He was given a logical test, where there was the following question:

A paper message was found lying on the street near shop AKVAPLUSS with such content:

NFITJMDSMNFCVHMNMBSERFYWVELUEKCQSJ

Decrypt the code to discover the secret message.

  • The test ended a week ago, we are simply interested in the way it can be decrypted, because all the ways we tried didn't work.
  • The question was 4th in the test if it helps.
  • Finally the teacher answered the e-mail, but he didn't give the answer to the puzzle, however he gave a hint (how we should find out that ourselves I don't know):

    Place under the message the word "akvapluss"

EDIT: Clarified puzzle and found out that teacher was made unique puzzles for each student, and my friend is from

Latvia

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    $\begingroup$ Did the test allow computer access? in other words, should this be solvable by hand? $\endgroup$
    – Ivo
    Nov 15, 2015 at 21:10
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    $\begingroup$ I'm not sure if the first 3 questions can give clues on this one since it is the 4th. Sometimes it is based on continuity from previous questions. $\endgroup$
    – Mekalikot
    Nov 17, 2015 at 2:50
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    $\begingroup$ I'm guessing that maybe it cannot be solved in English. You are from Latvia, right? Any chance that the message can be in Latvian? $\endgroup$
    – cinico
    Nov 23, 2015 at 18:46
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    $\begingroup$ @cinico No chance for Latvian, it could be in Finnish, because friend is studying in Finland. $\endgroup$
    – Somnium
    Nov 23, 2015 at 18:56
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    $\begingroup$ Akva Pluss is a bathroom furnishing store in Latvia $\endgroup$
    – Morgan G
    Jan 11, 2016 at 20:22

3 Answers 3

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Pretty sure the decrypted text is:

mumstaiztmugurastirtveikalsttobago - obtained as a Vignere using the key provided (but shifted one forward; a = 1, b = 2)

Which according to google translate is:

Latvian

Unfortunately I couldn't decipher the actual message, not knowing the language, but putting spaces in random places did give me some English when put through the translator.

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    $\begingroup$ Actually, if you replace letters "t" by space, you get normal sentence in that language so I wil consider that you cracked it. $\endgroup$
    – Somnium
    Jun 9, 2016 at 20:48
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Tried using the Vigenere cipher with Finnish alphabet (I googled for it). If I did not do any errors in moving in the Vigenere cipher and if the alphabet I used was correct, the answer should be: npaawyyhbnpyvxyehtsojfjgmxauobccaa Unfortunately I am Italian so I don't know if the answer is reasonable (and I hope it does not contain any bad words :) ). If it is not maybe you should try rearrange the letters in order to form Finnish words. Otherwise you can try adding or subtracting 4 (the number of the question) to each letter and see if the result is reasonable.

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4

Cryptic code is 4

4th question also supports that

Also, NFITJMDSMNFCVHMNMBSERFYWVELUEKCQSJ AGOPXZ 1 7 15 16 24 26 6 , 8, 1, 8, 2 -2, 7,-7, 6

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    $\begingroup$ I'm not sure I understand what you're trying to say here. The cryptic message is "4"? $\endgroup$ Jun 7, 2016 at 20:03

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