Cipher Box

”Cryptography” derives from the ancient Greek, meaning ”hidden writing”. The earliest record of hidden language coding is thought to be from approximatley 4000 years ago, in the form of non-standard, coded heiroglyphs discovered on the wall of a tomb in ancient Egypt. Fast forward two thousand years to the time of Julius Caesar, who utilized one of the best known ciphers still in existence. Modern cryptography, relying on polyphonic ciphers, began around 1500, and a few hundred years later, encryption led to the Enigma Machine used after World War I, which Alan Turing famously cracked. The future belongs to quantum encryption, and only AI may stand a chance at breaking such a code.

Which brings us back to Hungarian puzzle designer Tamas Vanyo, who has been exploring the possibilities of AI inspired puzzle boxes lately. His newest creation combines ciphers and clues with a hidden movement mechanism requiring numerous steps to allow the box to be opened. Like some of these recent explorations into AI design concepts Tamas has been playing with, this box is personalized, but discovering that extra detail requires cracking the code!

”The idea for my latest box fits in with my previous games: I combined one of my interests with the visual world created by the AI image generator. I have loved ciphers since I was a child, I made them myself, and later I read several books about their development from simple letter substitution coding to the public key encryption used today, and even quantum cryptography. I was also very interested in the matter as a programmer, one of my favorite websites is https://ciphereditor.com/ and its counterpart is https://cryptii.com/ . It is worth playing around with the different algorithms here, and maybe it can even help you decipher my box ;-)

In addition to my own imagination and carpentry skills, the image generated by the AI also helped in creating the box. It suggested such and similar visuals, which I naturally imagined further, and also included the box closing mechanism. The letter decoration suggested itself, as did the secret texts, and this is how the final form of the box was born. This could just be a nicely decorated box where the goal is to take the top off.

But it could also be a box full of secret clues where the letters and numbers make sense, either by simply reading them together or by revealing a cryptic text. The latter was my goal, the letters that can be read together will reveal a meaningful web address where the solutions are described in detail. I also thought a lot about the box closing mechanism”, which Tamas hints at through clues on the box that explain, in a cryptic way, how to decipher other cryptic texts on the box, how to open the box, and also lead to key components of the solve. It’s an entire cryptic ecosystem!

Like most of his other AI boxes so far, the piece is more artwork than challenging puzzle, although the Cipher Box is more difficult to solve than prior boxes, and presents a greater challenge than what at first might appear to be a recognizable mechanism.

A lot of meticulous woodwork was required during the making. The surface of each panel may seem random, but I tried to create an arrangement that in the end gives something extra compared to the plain elements. The small labyrinths on the panels, the contrasting colors of the wood (beech, walnut and cherry), the oak and acacia for the frame, the connected path of the holes, the printed and engraved letters are all part of a larger visual concept. Two of the boxes were made, both containing a personal message. The other copy is mine :-)”

Cipher cocktail by Sam Johnson — Cipher by Sam Johnson

To toast the Cipher Box I found an apropos cocktail by bartender Sam Johnson which can be found in the pages of Death & Co Welcome Home, 2021, although he originally created the drink for the bar in 2019. Deconstructed, it is at heart an Old Fashioned, but with so much complexity you might be forgiven for misinterpreting the code here. Rather than sticking to a single base spirit as with most OF’s, the drink relies on a 3:1 split of whiskey to cachaca, the South American cane sugar spirit. Right off the bat this introduces something very interesting to the drink.

Cipher cocktail Sam Johnson — deciphering the cipher

The modifers here are also highly unusual. Rather than the typical sweetener in an OF, such as brown sugar, Johnson uses coffee liqueur, and then further alters the flavors with yellow Chartreuse, a potent and unusual choice. The overall effects and flavors are strong and interesting. A dash of absinthe is a classic trick to breath an herbal note into the sensory experience, but the Redeye bitters (a small batch craft bitters from Miracle Mile) is a very unique creation made with fat-washing and espresso ground filtering. It’s unlikely to find any substitute for that but the subtleties may also be lost in this drink. I used something more convenient. Don’t ever let one missing clue stop you from decoding an interesting drink! Cheers!

Cipher Box puzzle Tamas Vanyo and Cipher cocktail — crack the code on this pair of conspirators

Cipher by Sam Johnson

1 ½ oz single malt whiskey

½ oz aged cachaca

¼ oz coffee liqueur

¼ oz yellow Chartreuse

1 dash Redeye bitters

1 dash absinthe

Stir ingredients with ice and strain over a large cube. Orange twist.

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