CLASSICAL

CRYPTOGRAPHY
 WHAT IS CRYPTOGRAPHY?
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THE DEFINITION
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It is the practice and study of techniques for secure communication in the presence of adversarial
behavior.

Basic aspects of information security include confidentiality, data integrity, authentication, etc.

A classical cipher is a cipher that was used in history. We do not use it anymore because it has
been badly broken.
SYSTEMATIC
REPLACEMENT
SUBSTITUTION
CIPHERS
 CAESAR CIPHER
SUBSTITUTION
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In Caesar cipher, each letter in the plaintext is replaced by a letter some fixed number of positions
down the alphabet.

The method is named after Julius Caesar, who used it in his private correspondence.
For example, if the key we use to encrypt is 3, then all the letters in the standard alphabet
will shift left for 3 positions.

Each letter in the plaintext will be replaced by the corresponding cipher letter. If we want
to encrypt “THE QUICK BROWN FOX JUMPS OVER THE LAZY DOG” under the
same key, we will get “QEB NRFZH YOLTK CLU GRJMP LSBO QEB IXWV ALD”.

For negative key values, it will be a right shift.

 VIGENERE CIPHER
SUBSTITUTION
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Vigenere cipher is a combination of Caesar ciphers with different key values.

We can do the encryption by converting each letter in the keyword into a value between 0 & 25,
and use the values as keys for Caesar cipher operation. For convenience, we can also just use the
Vigenere table.
For example, if our plaintext is “THE QUICK BROWN FOX” and the keyword is
“LEMON”, we first convert the keyword into numbers.

“LEMON” gives 11 04 12 14 13. Then we do Caesar cipher according to these key values.

Plaintext: T H E Q U I C K B R O W N F O X

Right Shift: 11 04 12 14 13 11 04 12 14 13 11 04 12 14 13 11

Ciphertext: E L Q E H T G W P E Z A Z T B I

So we get “ELQ EHTGW PEZAZ TBI”.

 ASCII
SUBSTITUTION
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ASCII is the abbreviation of American Standard Code for Information Interchange. ASCII code is
actually used to represent text in computers and other devices, so people do not usually consider it
as a cipher.

However, ASCII code satisfies a popular, public imagination of ciphers and coding, so it is widely
used in webpage puzzles as a substitution cipher.

Most of the time, it is in the form of binary, hexadecimal, or decimal. Hexadecimal form is more
common because it can fit into modern encryption algorithms well.
 MORSE CODE
SUBSTITUTION
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Morse code is a method used in telecommunication to encode text characters as standardized

sequences of two different signal durations, called dots and dashes, or dits and dahs.

Morse code is named after Samuel Morse, one of the inventors of the telegraph.

Nowadays, Morse code is also a toy substitution cipher which is used in many puzzles.
SCRAMBLED ORDER
TRANS-
POSITION
CIPHERS
 COLUMNAR CIPHER
TRANSPOSITION
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CIPHERS

In a columnar transposition, the message is written out in rows of a fixed length, and then read out
again column by column, and the columns are chosen in some scrambled order.

A keyword is involved to determine the length of each row, and the order of reading off columns is
the alphabetical order of each letter in the keyword.
Our plaintext is still “THE QUICK BROWN FOX” and our key is “LEMON”.

In each row we have 5 letters:

L E M O N

11 04 12 14 13

T H E Q U

I C K B R

O W N F O

Our ciphertext is “HCW TIOX EKN URO QBF”.

 RAIL FENCE CIPHER
TRANSPOSITION
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CIPHERS

Rail fence cipher is named from the way in which it is encoded. In the rail fence cipher, the
plaintext is written downwards and diagonally on successive "rails" of an imaginary fence, then
moving up when we get to the bottom. The message is then read off in rows.

A key value is used for the number of rails.

To encrypt “THE QUICK BROWN FOX JUMPS OVER THE LAZY DOG” under a key
of 3, imagine there are 3 parallel rails.

T———U———B———N———J———S———R———L———D——

— H—Q— I —K—R—W—F—X—U—P—O—E—T—E—A—Y—O —

——E———C———O———O———M———V———H———Z———G

We get “TUBNJSRLDHQIKRWFXUPOETEAYOECOOMVHZG”.
INSECURITY OF
CLASSICAL CIPHERS
ATTACKS
 FREQUENCY ANALYSIS
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ATTACKS
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Frequency analysis is the study of the frequency of letters or groups of letters in a ciphertext. The
method is used as an aid to breaking classical ciphers, especially substitution ciphers.

Frequency analysis is based on the fact that, in any given stretch of written language, certain
letters and combinations of letters occur with varying frequencies. Moreover, there is a
characteristic distribution of letters that is roughly the same for almost all samples of that
language.

If the adversary compares the frequency distribution in the ciphertext with the distribution in some
language, the relationship between substitutes and the original letters will be revealed.
 BRUTE-FORCE ATTACK
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ATTACKS
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Many classical ciphers have a small key space or message space. Hence, an adversary can just take
some time and simply guess out the correct key or plaintext by using trial-and-error method.

For Caesar cipher, the key is always within the range between 1 and 25, only a short period is
needed for finding the key by guessing.

For transposition ciphers, the adversary can rearrange the letters several times to find the correct
combination of letters and get the plaintext.

Even for the “complicated” Vigenere cipher, there is a way to break it as long as the key length is
given. You can think about it when you have time.
SPARE-TIME ACTIVITY
REFERENCE
&A
RECOMMENDED
APP
 THE GUIDES
THEDONEC
RECOMMENDED
QUIS NUNCAPP

The Guides (completed)

The Guides: Axiom (no update since 2019)

The Guides: Compendium (the storyline but not completed)

Webpage puzzle: www.lisidesign.com (a challenge)