Earlier this week an official Twitter account for the US National Security Agency sent out a cryptic tweet containing strings of apparently random characters.
Was it some sort of high profile hack? An accidental leak of national secrets? Or just Crypto, the NSA cat, taking a stroll across the keyboard of the agency's social media manager. The internet had to find out.
tpfccdlfdtte pcaccplircdt dklpcfrp?qeiq lhpqlipqeodf gpwafopwprti izxndkiqpkii krirrifcapnc dxkdciqcafmd vkfpcadf. #MissionMonday #NSA #news
After a bit of squinting at the screen and reading the message backwards some bright spark decided to run the message through an online cryptography program known as quipqiup.
Feeding the characters into this and running it through a few substitution ciphers (where the letters of the alphabet are simply swapped around) revealed the rather disappointing message: "Want to know what it takes to work at NSA? Check back each Monday in May as we explore careers essential to protecting our nation."
