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Conference rusure::math

Title:Mathematics at DEC
Moderator:RUSURE::EDP
Created:Mon Feb 03 1986
Last Modified:Fri Jun 06 1997
Last Successful Update:Fri Jun 06 1997
Number of topics:2083
Total number of notes:14613

332.0. "Anyone for Cryptanalysis?" by SPEEDY::BRETT () Mon Sep 16 1985 14:54

The following piece of text is from the journal "Cryptologia" (to reduce
the temptation to look it up, I won't give the issue...)

It is the enciphering, via a vigenere cipher, of a normal english message.

I include it here in case there are any readers of this notes file who care
to try their hand at it.    

	ATFCX DAAIT OLPYD NPDSG
	DYIRW TNIXE IQGPQ SXCEB
	DQAKP YTFPE HCHSO SAOSF
	PCERW PAAIT OLPYD NPDSG
	DYODW TSRXX EYIAE PXWOD
	QPILV UUBVP DLDET MWLVC
	ATVCS ZLGKP RUTYD CAWHM
	AXEQ

/Bevin

APPENDIX: VIGENERE ENCIPHERING

A caesar substitution is one where a simple shift of the standard alphabet
is used to encipher the message.  The alphabet is not scrambled.
For example...

	plain text letter	ABCDEFGHIJKL...
	cipher equivalent       DEFGHIJKLMNO...

	which would map         jail  --> MDLO

A vigenere encipherment uses a series of caesar substitutions, the first
of which is applied to the first letter of the text, the second to the second
etc. restarting after some number of them.  For example, a period 2 vigenere
might be...

	plain text letter	ABCDEFGHIJKL...
	cipher equivalent_1     DEFGHIJKLMNO...
	cipher equivalent_2     BCDEFGHIJKLM...

	which would map         jail  --> MBLM
                                    

The problem therefore is to find the period and the amount of slide
each caesar substitution has
T.RTitleUserPersonal
Name
DateLines
332.1--UnknownUser--Tue Sep 17 1985 16:390
332.2BEING::POSTPISCHILTue Sep 17 1985 16:396
Re .1:

I don't think you read all of .0!


				-- edp
332.3TURTLE::GILBERTTue Sep 17 1985 23:146
re: .-1
	Oops, I'd mistaken the "more..." as the "End of note".

re: .0
	I have a solution!  To prove this, without giving too much away:
	the string "ea" appears in the plaintext exactly twice.