In my computer security class today we were surprised by a pop quiz. 
It was a single sided piece of paper and at the top was a message that had been enciphered with a Caesar Cipher. Our quiz was to, in less than 20 minutes, decipher the message! Well I haven't even read that chapter yet (yeah, I know...) and was freaking out. Making matters worse the instructor misspelled "Casar" and I thought it was something else!
Had I known that it was Caesar I might have actually gotten part of it done because I actually studied Caesar and Vigenre Ciphers as background (i.e. what was done in the past) for my thesis paper last year (it was on WWII codes and ciphers)... anyway I was completely flustered and couldn't figure it out and when the time was up he asked if anyone got it, but only one person got part of it or no one got it (hard to tell from eavesdropping form the back of the room), so he let us take it home!
I like take-home quizzes!
He did warn us that the one would be harder (different cipher I guess). I guess that means I need to make up my own quizzes and practice doing them in under 20 minutes!
It was a single sided piece of paper and at the top was a message that had been enciphered with a Caesar Cipher. Our quiz was to, in less than 20 minutes, decipher the message! Well I haven't even read that chapter yet (yeah, I know...) and was freaking out. Making matters worse the instructor misspelled "Casar" and I thought it was something else!
Had I known that it was Caesar I might have actually gotten part of it done because I actually studied Caesar and Vigenre Ciphers as background (i.e. what was done in the past) for my thesis paper last year (it was on WWII codes and ciphers)... anyway I was completely flustered and couldn't figure it out and when the time was up he asked if anyone got it, but only one person got part of it or no one got it (hard to tell from eavesdropping form the back of the room), so he let us take it home!
I like take-home quizzes!
He did warn us that the one would be harder (different cipher I guess). I guess that means I need to make up my own quizzes and practice doing them in under 20 minutes!