An Exercise In Detecting Patterns
On the evening of Monday August 28th the links to two ciphertexts will appear on this page.
The first of these ciphertexts is to be broken by everyone in the course. The first student to email me the correct plaintext of this ciphertext 
will receive an extra 5 points on their second exam (if this individual has a score above 95% on the exam, the 5 points will be awarded as an addition to the first exam). One student may "earn" the extra 5 points in this manner. Alternatively you may choose to work together on this project, but only 5 extra points are available per course section (e.g., you could allocate 2 of the points to one individual and the remaining 3 points to another individual in the same section). No other points will be awarded; time stamps on your email will determine the order of arrival.
The second ciphertext is optional. It will be more difficult to decipher. If you are the first student in your section to email me the correct plaintext before the last day of class you will receive an additional 5 points on either (but not both) of your exams. Once again, you may divide the 5 points up among different individuals as you wish.
Both ciphertexts are in the English language. Punctuation has been stripped out of the texts but the word spacing has been left intact.
Submissions containing the entire plaintext of either message should be mailed to:
The subject line should read: Crypto Challenge
If you are the first to succeed in deciphering either ciphertext you will be invited to share with the class the steps you took in order to arrive at the correct plaintext.
Ciphertext # 1
Ciphertext # 2