class String
def what_does_it_say?
decipher(find_shift)
end
def most_occurant_letter
letter_occurances = Hash[*(’A’..’Z').collect{|l| [l, 0]}.flatten]
self.upcase.chars.each{|c| letter_occurances[c] = letter_occurances[c] + 1 if letter_occurances.has_key?(c) }
letter_occurances.sort_by{|pair| pair.last}.last.first
end
def find_shift
most_occurant_letter[0] - ?E
end
def decipher(shift) # Character shift yanked from http://agorf.gr/code/rcipher.rb.txt
upcase.chars.collect{|c| c =~ /[A-Z]/ ? ((c[0] % ?A - shift) % 26 + ?a).chr : c }.join
end
end

cypher = ‘FDYDQ,WKHDUFKHU’VFKLOG;FXULRXP,EULJKW–BRXUTXLFHJLOGSLYRWVDQGOHDSVOLNHDGDOFHU. WKHNHBWRSUHVHUYLQJFXULRXPLWB’VOLJKWLVWRORYHWKHTXHVWLRQDVPZFKDVWKHDQVZHU’

puts cypher.what_does_it_say?

http://www.mikedidonato.com/2008/04/23/code-2/

This excel program could help you solve one of the steps, but the algorithm is more complicated than a simple find and replace, so I wouldn’t recommend plugging it in and giving it a shot.

That code is very hard.

I’ve taken to working on the mathematical Car Talk puzzlers in excel as well. I’m having mixed results getting to the answer but mostly due to my understanding of the problem.