Poly-alphabetic substitution: Vigenère

RootMe Challenge: Polyalphabetic substitution: Vigenère: We need your expert opinion on this document. This is an old letter, and it appears that it is important for the pirates that we are searching for. Your mission is to decipher the text and give us the full name of the author (example : “John Doe”).

Solution

I used Vigenere Hack which tells me the Key/Password is most likely THEMENTOR. Using that I got a halfway readable text. Obviously the latter part has another Key/Password. Not needed, I recognise the text.

The Conscience of a Hacker (also known as The Hacker Manifesto) is a small essay written January 8, 1986, by a computer security hacker who went by the handle (or pseudonym) of The Mentor, who belonged to the second generation of hacker group Legion of Doom.

The Manifesto was written after the author’s arrest, and first published in the underground hacker ezine Phrack.