想去美國(guó)國(guó)安局上班？先破解這條密碼

The NSA recruiting Twitter account sent out a confusing message on Monday morning. While some thought the account had been hacked or a mess of typos had been actually tweeted, the message was actually a cryptogram:

周一早上，美國(guó)國(guó)家安全局的官方招募推特賬號(hào)發(fā)布了一條讓人不解的消息。有的人還以為是這個(gè)賬號(hào)被黑客入侵或者是出現(xiàn)了亂糟糟的打字錯(cuò)誤，但實(shí)際上這是一條密碼：

tpfccdlfdtte pcaccplircdt dklpcfrp?qeiq lhpqlipqeodf gpwafopwprti izxndkiqpkii krirrifcapnc dxkdciqcafmd vkfpcadf. #MissionMonday#NSA#news

— NSA (@NSACareers) May 5, 2014

For a pro, this is actually a relatively easy code to figure out. It translates to:

對(duì)于一個(gè)專業(yè)人士而言，這條密碼其實(shí)挺容易解出，翻譯過(guò)來(lái)就是：

"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."

“想知道怎樣才能在美國(guó)國(guó)家安全局工作嗎?記得5月的每個(gè)周一來(lái)看我們發(fā)布的消息，我們會(huì)帶你探究那些對(duì)于保護(hù)我們國(guó)家至關(guān)重要的職位。”

The tweet is a substitution cipher, in which each letter is swapped for another. In the code, each 'word' is twelve letters long, unless there is punctuation. This suggests that the spaces in the tweet do not matter, only the letters determine the code. This is one of the oldest (and easiest to solve) cryptograms, a necessity to decipher for any potential NSA cryptographer. If you couldn't figure it out, global communications surveillance probably isn't a good career path for you。

這則推特消息是一個(gè)替代密碼。每一個(gè)字母都被另一個(gè)替代。在代碼中，每一個(gè)“單詞”都長(zhǎng)達(dá)12個(gè)字母，除非是中間有標(biāo)點(diǎn)隔開。這就暗示著消息之間的空格并不重要，只有字母才能決定密碼內(nèi)容。這是最古老的加密方式之一(也是最容易破譯的)，任何一個(gè)有潛力成為美國(guó)安全局加密高手的人都必須會(huì)破譯。如果你不能破解的話，全球通訊監(jiān)控的工作可能就不是適合你的職業(yè)道路了。

An NSA spokesperson told NBC News that the coded tweet is "part of recruitment efforts to attract the best and the brightest." If you've ever dreamt of doing puzzles for the government, now is your chance to apply。

美國(guó)國(guó)家安全局的官方發(fā)言人對(duì)NBC新聞?wù)f道，這則加密的推特消息是他們“嘗試吸引最優(yōu)秀和最聰明的人來(lái)應(yīng)聘的辦法之一”。如果你曾經(jīng)夢(mèng)想要為美國(guó)政府做解密工作的話，現(xiàn)在就有機(jī)會(huì)來(lái)申請(qǐng)了。