Shonin Series 03/04/05 have just ended and there were a series of puzzles released around 03:30 UTC on Thursday.

Fifteen puzzles were released in 7 hours in 30 minute intervals.

Verum Inveniri posted hints to the remaining puzzles at 00:30UTC on Saturday.

All codes are following the Shonin volatile format mentioned in our last article

[a-z]{8}[2-9]keyword[2-9]

7663 (Hexed)

766365726f7674
77366461746134

Hexed obviously talks about converting hexadecimal to ASCII characters:

76 63 65 72 6f 76 74 77 36 64 61 74 61 34

vcerovtw6data4

tyai (Down and up by fours)

tyaiqxpvpt6\

Splitting the string of 12 characters into rows of 4 gives us:

tyai
qxpv
pt6\

The hint suggested down and up, reading the rectangle in columns down/up/down/up gives us:

tqptxyap6\vi

The \ is a glyph for destroy, vi is the roman numerals for 6:

tqptxyap6destroy6

nine (Upward bound)

nine
drop
dead
four
tcss
vmvh

Reading the code from the bottom row up to the top row:

vmvhtcss4deaddrop9

<ELI (Key/link Bo100)

<ELINT / AFScq6>

Using AFScq6 as a goo.gl shortlink (http://goo.gl/AFScq6) shows us a Google search for 216153332246171352124202027

Converting 216153332246171352124202027 from octal to base64 gives us

jmvapnnqVIIX

VIIX can be interpreted as 7 and 10, or 6 and 9. Since we need to follow the passcode format, 6 and 9 are used. ELINT is the keyword.

jmvapnnq6elint9

GAIL (Stated order)

GAIL
MDNJ
SCME
LASC
NJGA
CTNJ
CTNH
MSMA

Each pair of characters corresponds to USA state abbreviations. The date of ratification/admission is used to determine the index of each state to correspond into the alphabet.

Using the chart above, we find the corresponding values for these states:

GA IL MD NJ SC ME LA SC NJ GA CT NJ CT NH MS MA

04 21 07 03 08 23 18 08 03 04 05 03 05 09 20 06

Convert each number into a letter (A=01) and leaving numbers as-is according to the passcode format:

dugchwrh3deceit6

0078 (U+flip)

00780131027901dd
028c006f02540073
01310070028c0131
027e006400730250
0287006200620073

U+ is a common notation for UTF-16 characters. Treating each block of 4 hex characters as UTF-16

U+0078 U+0131 U+0279 U+01dd U+028c U+006f U+0254 U+0073 U+0131 U+0070 U+028c U+0131 U+027e U+0064 U+0073 U+0250 U+0287 U+0062 U+0062 U+0073

x ı ɹ ǝ ʌ o ɔ s ı p ʌ ı ɾ d s ɐ ʇ b b s

Reading the code upside down gives us the following text:

sqqtaspjivdiscoverix

Which should be the passcode:

sqqtaspj4discover9

But it doesn’t seem to be valid.

eexd (A key)

eexdvtkerayvihhxxgvbwbstil

A key means to use the key A. Vigenere autokey with the key A gives us:

eaxgpegythreedetectionfour

eaxgpegy3detection4

hteu (nevE)

hteuhixf3divfbckla6

nevE is Even reversed. Reading the code while alternating between the forward/reverse:


hteuhixf3divfbckla6
6alkcbfvid3fxihueth


Less cluttered:


h e h x 3 i f c l 6
_a k b v d f i u t


haekhbxv3difficult6

fcrn (Word with friend)

fcrnaewj73rdlaw6

toe39function83ygz

Borrowing the keyword from the other code in the picture:

fcrnaewj7function6

cduq (Shifty sub)

cduqvruo(6*

The hint implies to use the shift key with the characters:

CDUQVRUO9^8

^ is a glyph for die

CDUQVRUO9DIE8

imkk (Fair play)

imkkpcbvohpceawqcqazcp

Fair play can be interpreted as playfair, a cipher. Using playfair decrypt:

goddneawninedevraseven

goddneaw9devra7

4SIM (. … .-. . …- . .-.)

4SIMERTXE5QHROSKAQ

The morse code in the hint is esrever, which is reverse reversed.

Converting the code into morse:

....- ... .. -- . .-. - -..- . ..... --.- .... .-. --- ... -.- .- --.-

Reversing the entire morse string and converting it back into text:

YNKSORHY5EXTREMIS6

Note that each letter in EXTREMIS has a symmetrical morse code.
./-..-/-/.-././--/../...

utee (inalenRfe)

uteefskndsr2vs3i

inalenRfe is an anagram of Railfence, trying out a few rails should show us that 3 rails with an offset of 2 gives us a passcode format:

vfussktn3desire2

adk6 (Up and to the right)

adk61g55uxszfj5gq

Looking at a US Qwerty keyboard, we shift each key up and to the right:


1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0
q w e r t y u i o p
a s d f g h j k l
z x c v b n m
1 2 3 4 5 6 7


wromxynn8destiny2

3vx0 (Bash64)

3vx07y0y817vu4w20x2z0y37z72v

Bash64 is a portmanteau of atbash and base64, applying atbash to the original string (letters and numbers)

6ec92b9b182ef5d79c7a9b62a27e

Converting hexadecimal to base64:

bskrmxgu9deception4=

bskrmxgu9deception4