In this project, students will learn basic encryption by trying to solve an example encryption problem.


Suppose two parties agree to encrypt their communications by using a key that changes day by day.  The key is the Mth word in the Nth paragraph of that day's headline news, where M being the date of that day and N being the day of the week (with Sunday being 1, Monday 2, et. al.).  For instance, suppose today is Monday, August 24th.  The key would be the 24th word in the 2nd paragraph of today's headline news.  

For the purpose of this exercise, take the description of this lab as the headline news.  The 24th word in the 2nd paragraph would be the word 'would'.  Punctuation symbols are excluded during the counting.

Suppose today's date is Sunday, June 16th.   Find the key and then encrypt the last sentence of this description.  Explain how the encryption is done.