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Introduction
Cryptography can be hard, but when you break it down to the basic steps (transposition, substitution
etc.) it can become a lot easier. While this document wont teach you how to decode a message
encrypted in AES256, it will give you an understanding of one of its low tech predecessors
Type your keyword in the table with each letter being in a different column
Next, start entering the letters of your secret message under each column heading in the keyword
table, i.e. under the M column enter T, under the E column enter H, under the first S column enter I
and so on and so on (note: for this purpose, ignore any spaces or punctuation in your message, just
worry about the letters).
E
H
S
E
S
I
E
S
S
S
C
S
A
I
R
A
G
S
E
G
E
M
T
E
Notes
The message is now encoded and unless you know the keyword length, it will be difficult for anyone
to decode it (remember, there are techniques to do this, this is not a terribly secure crypto system).
There are ways to make this more secure, but I will cover this in a later document. A very simple
method you could apply to this would be to put the letters of the keyword in alphabetical order
before you extracted the cipher text. Then if anyone managed to get the keyword and the cipher
text, they would need to work out the keyword before the message would make any sense.
Obviously if you were going to do this you would want to pick a more complex keyword and one that
could have a number of different anagrams made from it.
If you dont have enough letters to fill all the columns of your keyword, you can add what is called
padding to your message. Padding can be any series of letters, usually the same, which wont relate
to the message but will just be used to fill out space. Commonly the letter X is used but it can be any
letter.
Exercise
Here is an exercise to test your skill. The keyword has been scrambled and there is padding used.
Good luck!
KEYWORD: CONEYPRINT
MESSAGE: ANWHE RTHUX CAOGB ITWUD UCNIA NRDTR NDATH EPTOX SOOLX DYIWD