Cipher tests

The strange strings of numbers that can be found when you dialed a number posted on Craigslist still remains a mystery to the entire 'geek' community. The suggestion that is could be a Blinkenlights project turned out to be incorrect, or at least not very promising to be correct so we stopped trying to apply this on the Blinkenlights project.

Currently the weather is so nice I do not want to spend to much time on updating this weblog so I want to post something I already posted on the homelandstupidity website.

I have tested and checked a couple of different ciphers to see how a key would look like. I encrypted the same text with every cipher. The clear text read: ‘This is a normal text encrypted with the secom cipher to show the people on the website what can be done using this cipher’ I have to thank Dirk Rijmenant for the valubale information and tools on his website

Please see the findings below:

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ADFGVX cipher:
“The ADFGVX cipher was the most important German Field cipher, used during World War I. It combines the fractioning of a Polybius Square with a single Columnar Transposition. Although this combination provided a powerfull encryption, Georges Painvin, a brilliant Frensh codebreaker, succeeded in breaking the German cipher. The letters ADFGVX were chosen because they were well distinguist in morse code.”

Square Key: IneversawsunlightBur
Columnar Key: ruBthgilnuswasrevenI

Encrypted message:
DFDXD XGDAF FDXFF FFDXA FGAXG ADFFG AFXFA GAADA AADGG GGGFD
AFXAA AFFAD DFFDD XADAG AFGAV AXGXD XXDAD GFGFA AAAFA DFDAD
GFADX FAFFV DFXFA AGFAA AVFFD AAADX GGXXA GDXFX VADDA FAGGF
VGGGX VAAXX AXDXF GVGAG GGXGV XXAXA FGXAA GFDDG VFAAG FDD
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Caesar Shift cipher:
The Caesar Shift cipher, also called ROT cipher, is a simple substitution cipher. It was used by Julius Caesar the encrypt messages to his commanders in the field.

Shift key: I

Encrypted message:
BPQAQ AIVWZ UITBM FBMVK ZGXBM LEQBP BPMAM KWUKQ XPMZB WAPWE
BPMXM WXTMW VBPME MJAQB MEPIB KIVJM LWVMC AQVOB PQAKQ XPMZ
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columnar transposition cipher:
To perform a single columnar transposition we write out the key as column header. The key is numbered in alphabetical order. If two letters of the key are the same, the first in the key gets the lowest number.

Columnar Key: IneversawsunlightBur

Encrypted message:
NIHSN EMLNE IPEHN IETWU EEETI XCOCP TRPND TSPAC LEEHS HYHTO
AHHWI SDOES CIOEA WSBIR HWTTT OPAHM TTEHN CEBRS TREEO TOIG
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Double Columnar Transposition:
A variant of the Single Columnar Transposition is the Double Columnar Transposition, where two columnar transpositions with two different keys is performed on the plain text. The Double Columnar Transposition was one of the strongest field ciphers, commonly used in Worl War II. If the key was used only for a limited number of messages, it provided a very high security.

1st Columnar Key: IneversawsunlightBur
2nd Columnar Key: ruBthgilnuswasrevenI

Encrypted message:
EPHTE HEEOE ITSOT TPOAI EXHWC NISAN MCYSE UCSML OHBBN CTIRW
AEHGN ELCTN DITOI TAHTH NWTES THEHI EEITE PORSE SDPOP RHWR
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Playfair:
Playfair is a digraph cipher, invented in 1854 by Sir Charles Wheatstone. We encrypt the text in groups of two letters.

Playfare key: IneversawsunlightBur

Encrypted message:
BTSGS GHAZL FUWCW EKWRH VZXGI KSEBT BTIWR TDOGR QGVIC KAGKL
BTIXR KZSRK EHTNT WGUEG WTFHB GHATV FDEVL ANEHB GNLGS ITNEZ
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Straddling CheckerBoard:
The Straddling CheckerBoard is a fractionating cipher. It breaks the letters into seperate parts by an X and Y value. This priciple is also used on the Bifid and Trifid cipher. The advantage of the Straddling Checkerboard is the way of distributing the parts. The commonly used letters have only one value, the other letters two value. This improves the resistance to letter frequency analyse. This cipher is often combined with a transposition cipher to make it stronger.

CheckerBoard Key: IneversawsunlightBur

Encrypted message:
52601 78017 84783 98284 20785 67657 86325 87774 56227 87305
26785 26678 16259 28782 50742 66878 59781 26973 78526 67874
69742 06789 37852 66787 36241 05678 73264 57825 43782 46782
29367 87210 32378 52601 78250 74266 8
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straddling checkerboard with double columnar:
The most powerfull pencil-and-paper ciphers are those who combine fractionation and transposition. In this example we encrypt with a straddling checkerboard, followed by a double columnar transposition. To decrypt the message we reverse the encryption sequence. A variant of this methode is the famouse VIC-cipher from the Russian Spy Reino Hayhanen. It resisted all cryptanalysis attemps and remained unbroken until the defection of Hayhanen in ‘57.

CheckerBoard Key: IneversawsunlightBur
1st Columnar Key: IneversawsunlightBur
2nd Columnar Key: ruBthgilnuswasrevenI

Encrypted message:
82856 89213 74328 67688 27851 78251 53677 87792 60682 92086
25486 38890 28572 62876 88712 49472 86562 65754 65589 86770
26337 77207 25307 28079 66242 38817 76487 57778 02670 62242
68612 76534 57423 57708 77615 64837 7
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Vigenère cipher:
The Vigenère cipher, invented by Giovanni Batista Belaso, is a poly- alphabetic substitution cipher. It remained unbroken for twohundred years, until Charles Babbage in 1854 found a way to retrieving the key lenght and performed multilple letter-frequency analysis on the code text. Even today, many novice crypto programmers write, without knowing, variations on the Vigenére cipher, not realizing they can all be broken with cryptanalysis, based on Babbage’s methode.

Vigenère key: IneversawsunlightBur

Encrypted message:
BUMNM JSNKJ GNWBK EMFHT ZLTOI UOIPZ NUPAK JHNWZ XUIMX FKHKO
NUPXK VIMYF VGLZA VTSEL YJSIZ JTOVV LBRZY JANCL BVDKO WAFL
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Looking at the results let me believe that non of the ciphers will be able to decode the pure message. It could however be that when we alter the original message with some algorithm that one of the ciphers might be able to decode the message.

If it is not changed in characters we might have a shot with the secom cipher, straddling checkerboard with double columnar chipher or Straddling CheckerBoard cipher. However we do not know if we possibly have to change the numbers into characters. I do however have the feeling that this might be the case and that they have to be translated using a book cipher of some sort as we can see a pattern which possibly indicates we can translate it to 3 number groups instead of 5 number groups.