IEX CSYV LIEVX SYX GEIWEV!

I finished reading The Code Book last night. That book actually got me excited and interested in cryptology again. A little known fact about me: When I was in elementary school, I would solve cryptograms with pencil and paper for fun. They used to always have a few in this magazine I subscribed to. Anyway, Simon Singh's book actually cleared up a lot of confusion I used to have about cryptology. I now understand how the German Enigma machine works, and I have a better understanding of quantum computers. For example, I used to think a quantum bit (qubit) was simply a bit that could hold one of three values (-1,0,1) instead of two (0,1), and the benefit arises from doing computations using less CPU memory. However, a qubit is actually a bit that can hold two values simultaneously (0 and 1), meaning computations can be completed on two different numbers at the same time. Properly designed, a quantum computer can do a calculation on hundreds of numbers at the exact same time instead of one at a time. This makes cracking modern codes trivial.

Anyways, the author has a bunch of little tools (frequency analysis, etc.) on his website for cracking simple codes. He even has a bunch of stuff for deciphering Vigenere ciphers. However, I think this page or this page are better for cracking Vigenere ciphers.

P.S. The title to this post is encrypted using a very old cipher and is related to my age (modulo 26, of course!).