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codebusters cheatsheet by_ Ashar and Arnav

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45 views

codebusters cheatsheet by_ Ashar and Arnav

Uploaded by

yaydos
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Caesar Cipher (VERY IMPORTANT) - Also called the shift cipher, (substitution cipher) due to it shifting the alphabet.

To encode a message using a Caesar cipher, each letter is shifted a fixed number of positions to the right/left.
To decode a message encoded with a Caesar cipher, each letter is shifted a fixed number of positions to the left/opposite.
The way you encode a message is by shifting the alphabet by a certain number. For example; if the shift is 3, then you take the original alphabet, and
move the letters by 3.
For example, A becomes D because you are shifting by 3 (letters). B becomes E, and so on.
To decode the message, the person just does the opposite and swaps the cipher for plain text.
Plaintext - The normal alphabet
Ciphertext - The alphabet after you’ve shifted it
In situations where you don’t know the key and there is a large number of letters, you can use a graph of the
number of times letters appear in your text and compare it to a graph of the number of times alphabets are used
in the English alphabet. However, this is only for long text.
In situations where there are shorter paragraphs, you have to find the number of times each letter is used in the
text and multiply it by the percentage of times that same letter appears in the English alphabet.
For example, I’d first find a key. Next, If I had a text with 3 A’s in it, I’d multiply it (the number of times it
appears in the text) by the percentage it appears in the English alphabet, which is about 8.5. I’d do that for all
the letters; if “b” came twice, multiply it by a percentage of times it appeared in the alphabet.
Once you are done with that, you add it all up using the computer (it takes a long time doing it by hand), and it
will give you a number in the hundreds. You keep shifting the key because the alphabet percentages change
and you calculate all of them. The key with the highest result is the correct key.
Quick examples:
- Key 1: HELLO-> IFMMP
- Key 5: WORLD -> BTWQI
- Key 13: SECRET -> FRPERG

Railfence cipher: It is a transposition cipher (letters moved around).


As seen in the photo, the letters start at the top left and continue going down and up the diagonal. It is important to keep in mind that in one slanted
diagonal, there are three (the top, middle, and bottom), and you continue onward. The top/bottom rail intersection
should not be used more than once.
- For example, the message “Ashar Ate That” would be encoded as “Artsaaehthta” with key 3.
- The keys are the amount of horizontal lines that go from left to right. This affects the message
because it changes the order of the letters.
To encrypt a rail fence cipher, you set the key as the horizontal lines and put the letters in a diagonal pattern.
Once done, you take the words in the top row to make the beginning jumbled words, then the next row, and so on
until you reach the last row. The total jumbled word is the encrypted word.
To decrypt a rail fence cipher, you must set up the rails and put the first few letters from the message into the
number of spaces the top row of the rail fence cipher has. You do that and fill in the next set of letters in the new row of spaces in the railfence cipher.
Note: Commas and other punctuation marks are not needed! To guess the key, you have to keep guessing. 1 rail is not practical.

Porta cipher: for a porta cipher, you will need to take into account the keyword and the ciphertext.
In this example, we will use the word porta as the keyword and YGXRC OYJVR GMQJE YWQGE HWVU as the ciphertext. Arrange the keyword on
top of the ciphertext letter for the letter shown in this picture:

After you do this you have to use the table that is provided in the test
packet. As an example, we will use the first letter of the cipher text; Y.
Since you have to use the letter directly on top of the letter you are
solving, I will also be using the letter P from porta. Find the letter from
the keyword in the leftmost column of the chart, this will be the row the
letter might be in. Now, try to find the letter you are trying to solve from
the ciphertext in the top row. If it is there, where the row the letter from
the keyword is in and the column the letter from the ciphertext meet will
be the decrypted letter. However, if the letter from the ciphertext is not in
the top row, try to find the letter in the row that the letter from the
keyword is in. When you find this, go to the letter that is on top of it on
the top row. This will be the solved letter of the ciphertext.
Aristocrats: One of the most abundant among the cryptograms. It relies on the knowledge of vocabulary and the frequency of the English letter:

For aristocrats, you need knowledge of letter frequency and knowledge of the relations of words. Here are some tips:
● the only two commonly used one-letter words are I and a, so it's usually a safe bet that any single-letter word in your puzzle can be decoded to
one of those two. In very rare cases, a puzzle may use the word O in a poetic or archaic sense
● ETAOIN is simply a mnemonic device combining the six letters that appear most frequently in the English language. The letter 'E' appears
much more frequently than any other letter in the alphabet, with 'T' the most common after that, 'A' the third most common, and so on.
● Look for three-letter words with a frequency analysis pattern of HIGH-MEDIUM-HIGH (for 'THE') and HIGH-HIGH-MEDIUM (for 'AND').
This will generally work
better for longer puzzles -
the more letters that appear
in total in a puzzle, the more
likely the statistical
distribution of letters in that
puzzle will approach the
language-wide averages
represented by ETAOIN.

Morbit and Pollux Ciphers: Classical substitution ciphers


- Morbit and Pollux ciphers are relatively easy ciphers to decode and encode.
Each letter in plaintext is replaced by another letter in ciphertext; this is called substitution, which makes the Caesar cipher similar to this cipher.
For example, if the key is 'QWERTYUIOPASDFGHJKLZXCVBNM', the letter 'A' would be encoded as 'Q', 'B' as 'W', and so on.
The algorithm is based on a combination of substitution and transposition techniques.
Pollux and Morbit ciphers are secret codes that make messages hard to understand. Pollux changes letters to other letters or symbols, while
Morbit changes the order of letters. Both ciphers are
very safe and hard to break. By learning about these
ciphers, we can make sure our messages are kept
secret and safe.

Pollux Cipher is a symmetric encryption algorithm.


- It is a substitution cipher that replaces each
letter of the plaintext with a different letter
from the key.
- The key is a permutation of the alphabet,
which determines the substitution mapping.
Encryption Process
- The plaintext is divided into blocks of fixed
size. Each block is encrypted by substituting
each letter with the corresponding letter from the key.
- The resulting ciphertext is the encrypted message.
Decryption Process
- The ciphertext is divided into blocks of fixed size. Each block is decrypted by
substituting each letter with the corresponding letter from the inverse of the key.
- The resulting plaintext is the decrypted message.
Morbit Cipher
- Morbit Cipher is a transposition cipher.
- It rearranges the letters of the plaintext to form the ciphertext.
- The key determines the specific transposition algorithm used.
Encryption Process
- The plaintext is divided into blocks of fixed size. Each block is rearranged according
to the transposition algorithm specified by the key.
- The resulting ciphertext is the encrypted message.
Decryption Process
- The ciphertext is divided into blocks of fixed size. Each block is rearranged according
to the inverse of the transposition algorithm specified by the key. The resulting
plaintext is the decrypted message.

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