3.4 The following ciphertext was generated using a simple substitution algorithm

Question

3.4 The following ciphertext was generated using a simple substitution algorithm.

Decrypt this message.

Hints:

As you know, the most frequently occurring letter in English is e. Therefore, the first or second (or perhaps third?) most common character in the message is likely to stand for e. Also, e is often seen in pairs (e.g., meet, fleet, speed, seen, been, agree, etc.). Try to find a character in the ciphertext that decodes to e.

The most common word in English is “the.” Use this fact to guess the characters that stand for t and h.

Decipher the rest of the message by deducing additional words.

Explanation / Answer

'8' comes maximum times i.e, 34

Replacing 8 with e.

The most common word is ';48'/'*4e' which is equal to "the".

Therefore the decipher message will be:

A good glass in the bishop's hostel in the devil's seat forty-one degrees and thirteen minutes northeast and by north main branch seventh limb east side shoot from the left eye of the death's head a bee-line from the tree through the shot fifty feet out

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