I started messing with the "Rail Fence", I think that is what it is called. Where every other letter is moved to a lower string, then the lower string is moved to the end of the top string. This would break up the basic word patterns, 'qu', 'ee' etc. but it is easy to solve.

I got the idea to move the lower string a fixed number of spaces and reinsert it. This made me think of doing this more than once. The key would be some repetative number and that made me think of a phone number.

So, using a phone number as the key, i.e. 555-1212, split the message off into some number of staggered strings, two is the classic. Now move the bottom string five spaces left or right and reinsert it into the message string. Do it again using the phone number as the spacing guide.

David Davis
Toledo, OR 97391