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A polyalphabetic cipher is a substitution, using multiple substitution alphabets. The Vigenère cipher is probably the best-known example of a polyalphabetic cipher, though it is a simplified special case. The Enigma machine is more complex but is still fundamentally a polyalphabetic substitution cipher.
The Alberti Cipher disk. The Alberti Cipher, created in 1467 by Italian architect Leon Battista Alberti, was one of the first polyalphabetic ciphers. [1] In the opening pages of his treatise De componendis cifris [] he explained how his conversation with the papal secretary Leonardo Dati about a recently developed movable type printing press led to the development of his cipher wheel.
In cryptanalysis, Kasiski examination (also known as Kasiski's test or Kasiski's method) is a method of attacking polyalphabetic substitution ciphers, such as the Vigenère cipher. [1] [2] It was first published by Friedrich Kasiski in 1863, [3] but seems to have been independently discovered by Charles Babbage as early as 1846. [4] [5]
The tableau is usually 26×26, so that 26 full ciphertext alphabets are available. The method of filling the tableau, and of choosing which alphabet to use next, defines the particular polyalphabetic cipher. All such ciphers are easier to break than once believed, as substitution alphabets are repeated for sufficiently large plaintexts.
The idea behind the Vigenère cipher, like all other polyalphabetic ciphers, is to disguise the plaintext letter frequency to interfere with a straightforward application of frequency analysis. For instance, if P is the most frequent letter in a ciphertext whose plaintext is in English , one might suspect that P corresponds to e since e is the ...
All polyalphabetic ciphers based on the Caesar cipher can be described in terms of the tabula recta. The tabula recta uses a letter square with the 26 letters of the alphabet followed by 26 rows of additional letters, each shifted once to the left from the one above it. This, in essence, creates 26 different Caesar ciphers. [1]
Pages in category "Classical ciphers" ... Playfair cipher; Poem code; Polyalphabetic cipher; Polybius square; R. Rail fence cipher; Rasterschlüssel 44; Reihenschieber;
Polygraphic substitution is a cipher in which a uniform substitution is performed on blocks of letters. When the length of the block is specifically known, more precise terms are used: for instance, a cipher in which pairs of letters are substituted is bigraphic.