Roman Numeral Rotation

[Maximus]

Following up on Josh's email about the roman numerals:  Does anyone have a good sense of how they work?  I gather that they rotate in a set pattern on a daily basis.

[udo]

How long have you been tracking them?

[bodei]

They reset each Monday, so I am gathering that they are the same each week?

[udo]

that was kind of my point! lol   

[Maximus]

I realize that my question might seem a little ridiculous.  Further reading has indeed shown me that the roman numerals do indeed rotate weekly.  So that leaves us with a total of 28 roman numerals.  I suppose the next tricky thing is figuring out which roman is first, and then deciding how they are supposed to be strung out.  In other words, is the upper-left numeral the first in the series, and do they progress in a clockwise motion?  From playing with this site I remember that on one day of the week (Sunday, by deduction), there are only three romans displayed.  And if my memory serves me correctly, the missing roman is in the lower-left hand corner.  This makes me think that I may be correct about my hypothesis regarding the clockwise nature of the rotation.  The lower-left hand corner would be the last position filled.  Does this seem reasonable, or make any sense?

[Josh]

I don't know if this has any connection...at this point, anything could mean anything, or mean nothing...but since there is one numeral missing for Sunday, there are 27 total numbers. And, assuming they do in fact equate to numbers the usual way, the highest number of the bunch is also 27. Could be anything, could be nothing. If they were meant to equate to letters, somehow, they could be based on a 26 letter alphabet, since you've got a range from 2 to 27, without all of them being used of course. Found that interesting. But good luck if anyone can make any sense of it, I never tried much except just to write all the numbers down. If I manage to eventually crack the other two codes, I'd be more motivated then. But it'd be interesting to hear everyone else's theories, as well as share some of my own.

[Maximus]

Good point about the range of numbers and the actual 'number of numbers' (27, vice my 28).  I'm going to collect them and string them together, and then I'll see if I can't make any sense out of it.  The message may be too short for frequency analysis to work well, but I'll give it a shot.

[Maximus]

Josh et al,

Just wanted to let you know that I've collected all the roman numerals and I'm working on deciphering the message.  Per Josh's earlier comment, it seems like a Caesar shift is very likely, perhaps combined with an offset of 1.

[DR]

Maximus, you are clearly well versed in cryptology.  I had to look up the term "Caesar shift."     Very interesting indeed.

[DanM]

This is the only one I've figured out so far.  You guys are headed in the right direction.  I shall say no more.

[Josh]

I don't suppose any more information is forthcoming? I wouldn't blame you. However, maybe you could at least clarify as to which of the things we mentioned was on the right track...

[DanM]

Maximus was on the right track when he mentioned a Ceasar shift.  There is a big twist to this code that has to do with language, so be warned.

[Josh]

You know, now that I think about it, the fact that they are Roman numerals might've been an indication...I mean, Caesar shift, Julius Caesar...maybe it's even in Latin. If that's the twist you mean, anyway. Thanks for the hints.

[udo]

SEE YOU NEXT WEDNESDAY LOOSERS?

WTF does that mean Dave?  j/k

Looks like it's a cypher of the English Language. Caesar shift unnecessary because you need to perform a frequency analysis, and the phrase is Latin.

Only I don't know Latin, and there's several different ways the letters can be arranged.  I think I have them the right way, but I don't know.

[Josh]

I got it. Very original cipher. Rotation is key to understanding it correctly. Knowing Latin helps too.

Now if only the other codes were so 'simple'.