From 4fc2cfe227aa2f8a5052ed874139dcdc32d657d7 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: zoeyande2 <nobody@makingwithcode.org>
Date: Tue, 31 Mar 2026 19:29:44 -0400
Subject: [PATCH] Finished checkpoint 2 1. Writing my own code definitely
 helped me understand the problem better. It was kind of lucky that the most
 common character in each of the secret texts was in fact " ". It made me
 understand the work that the cipher is doing better. 2. I watched like 3
 different youtube videos about the Kasiski examination process after reading
 the wiki page. I quickly used "the" to get a difference to the next "the"
 that mapped the same as 42, so I knew the keyword had to be a multiple of
 2,3, or 7. I tried the process with 3 and got nowhere, so I tried it with 6
 on a whim. I got the first two letters of the code to be PY, then I couldn't
 figure out the third so I skipped it, and got the 4th letter to be H, so I
 made the guess that the keyword was PYTHON and I was right!

---
 answers.md        |  4 ++++
 caesar_cracker.py | 19 ++++++++++++++++++-
 2 files changed, 22 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/answers.md b/answers.md
index 45933f3..1e6fab3 100644
--- a/answers.md
+++ b/answers.md
@@ -31,5 +31,9 @@
 
 5. What is the polyalphabetic secret word?
 
+PYTHON (this literally took me so long but it was also so fun omg)
+
 6. Decrypt this message, which was encrypted using the same secret word:
    "EbZhdaV[h^bTpchhQnhig]X[VmhhRP]ftXVnRfjVY]fgtO_X]("
+
+'The treasure is a worthless ball of aluminum foil.' (anticlimatic, lol)
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/caesar_cracker.py b/caesar_cracker.py
index 0d5dcda..bdc2f7f 100644
--- a/caesar_cracker.py
+++ b/caesar_cracker.py
@@ -22,10 +22,27 @@ def crack_caesar(ciphertext):
             target = char
 
     diff = Bits(target,8).int - Bits(" ",8).int
+
     cipher = CaesarCipher(diff)
-    decryptedtext = cipher.decrypt(fulltext)
+    decryptedtext = cipher.decrypt(fulltext) #I included this part to double check that the function works
 
     return diff, decryptedtext
 
 
+def polyalpha_helper(text): #used to help crack the code!
+    groups = [[],[],[],[],[],[]]
+    for i in range(len(text)):
+        for n in range(6):
+            if i%6 == n:
+                groups[n].append(text[i])
+
+    groupmax = []
+
+    for alist in groups:
+        counter = dict(Counter(alist))
+        sorter = sorted(counter.items(), key=lambda item: item[1], reverse = True)
+        max = sorter[0]
+        groupmax.append(max)
+
+    print(groupmax)