Tag Archives: Classical Cryptography

Known Plaintext Attack – Worked Example

Over the past few days we’ve been working on this puzzle: VKMHG QFVMO IJOII OHNSN IZXSS CSZEA WWEXU LIOZB AGEKQ UHRDH IKHWE OBNSQ RVIES LISYK BIOVF IEWEO BQXIE UUIXK EKTUH NSZIB SWJIZ BSKFK YWSXS EIDSQ INTBD RKOZD QELUM AAAEV MIDMD GKJXR UKTUH TSBGI EQRVF XBAYG UBTCS XTBDR SLYKW AFHMM TYCKU JHBWV TUHRQ XYHWM IJBXS LSXUB BAYDI OFLPO XBULU OZAHE JOBDT ATOUT GLPKO FHNSO [...]

This post is part of a series of 47 posts which begins with The Caesar Shift, the latest post in the series is Letter Groups.

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Once we have the key length, then what? – A worked example

In previous posts, we saw how we might establish the length of the key used to encode a periodic cipher, such as Vigenère or Beaufort. I showed two methods, the Index of Coincidences and the Kasiski/Kerckhoff. This is the cipher we’re trying to solve: VKMHG QFVMO IJOII OHNSN IZXSS CSZEA WWEXU LIOZB AGEKQ UHRDH IKHWE OBNSQ RVIES LISYK BIOVF [...]

This post is part of a series of 47 posts which begins with The Caesar Shift, the latest post in the series is Letter Groups.

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Kasiski/Kerckhoff Attack – A worked example

Previously I discussed how to attack a repeating key (e.g. Vigenère or Beaufort) using a method called ‘Index of Coincidences’ I’d also like to demonstrate the ‘Kasiski/Kerckoff’ attack. This article was brought forward due to a comment on the Index of Coincidences article. In preparing this article, I used a javascript tool. Let’s look once again at the [...]

This post is part of a series of 47 posts which begins with The Caesar Shift, the latest post in the series is Letter Groups.

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Index of Coincidences – A worked example

This article discusses the Index of Coincidences, the first step to cracking Vigenère and Beaufort, or any other cipher where a repeating key is applied letter by letter.

This post is part of a series of 47 posts which begins with The Caesar Shift, the latest post in the series is Letter Groups.

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Pigpen

The Pigpen Cipher is a simple monoalphabetic substitution which has persisted over the centuries. For example, Freemasons used it in the 18th century to secure their records. Pigpen is trivial to read if you know the key, and easy to decipher if you don’t. The Pigpen is so called because the key looks like an aerial view [...]

This post is part of a series of 47 posts which begins with The Caesar Shift, the latest post in the series is Letter Groups.

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Posted in Classical Cryptography | Also tagged , | 2 Comments
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