Using the IC to break the Vigenere cipher

by fortenforge, Nov 27, 2009, 11:16 PM

So we have this ciphertext:

HQCNPXQNRHPRPGJPLOGQEVSIEILNOVQVSQTPCVUDLOGMPGZJPMNVLRFBFGZJ
HZFIHSQTFHMEVIEFESPOLGZJFWXCOHGZJHZVMIEFMPKVUYZVOAJVTRITZBLV
FACGREPLFYWIVANKYKHWICNLCZDQQTQEVTQYNBIQFFNMCKVICPVNWFTWKJMS
KTRPOFWJSNP

We want to find the key length, once we know that we can split the text into that many sections and preform frequency analysis on each of them to find the key. Now instead of finding repeated sequences, we first stack the ciphertext into columns:

HQ
CN
PX
QN
RH
PR
PG
JP
LO
GQ
EV
SI
EI
LN
OV
QV
SQ
TP
CV
UD
LO
GM
PG
ZJ
PM
NV
LR
FB
FG
ZJ
HZ
FI
HS
QT
FH
ME
VI
EF
ES
PO
LG
ZJ
FW
XC
OH
GZ
JH
ZV
MI
EF
MP
KV
UY
ZV
OA
JV
TR
IT
ZB
LV
FA
CG
RE
PL
FY
WI
VA
NK
YK
HW
IC
NL
CZ
DQ
QT
QE
VT
QY
NB
IQ
FF
NM
CK
VI
CP
VN
WF
TW
KJ
MS
KT
RP
OF
WJ
SN
P

Then we find the average of the IC's of each of the columns, if the IC is close to what the IC is of normal English text (0.067) then the key length is that number of columns. This is very intuitive because, if we have found the correct number of columns, each column would have an IC like that of a caesar cipher and the IC of a caesar cipher will always be the same as the average IC for english because the frequencies of the letters are just being shuffled around.

In this case it turns out that the number of columns is 6.
The ciphertext can then be decrypted to FILLETOFAFENNYSNAKEINTHECAULDRONBOILANDBAKEEYEOFNEWTANDTOEOF
FROGWOOLOFBATANDTONGUEOFDOGADDERSFORKANDBLINDWORMSSTINGLIZAR
DSLEGANDOWLETSWINGFORACHARMOFPOWERFULTROUBLELIKEAHELLBROTHBO
ILANDBUBBLE.

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A guide to the science of secrecy

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  • Good website!

    by bluegoose101, Aug 5, 2021, 6:28 PM

  • uh-huh, a great place here

    by fenchelfen, Sep 1, 2019, 11:30 AM

  • uh, yeah he is o_O

    by SonyWii, Oct 8, 2010, 2:11 PM

  • dude i think you're my roommate from camp :O

    by themorninglighttt, Aug 29, 2010, 10:06 PM

  • what i'm still not a contrib D:

    by SonyWii, Aug 6, 2010, 2:20 PM

  • I see what you did there

    by Jongy, Aug 1, 2010, 11:52 PM

  • omg, apparently you like cryptography; and apparently I'm not a contribb D:

    by SonyWii, Jul 26, 2010, 9:48 PM

  • Thank You

    by fortenforge, Jan 17, 2010, 6:35 PM

  • Wow this is a really cool blog

    by alkjash, Jan 16, 2010, 7:04 PM

  • Hi :)

    by fortenforge, Jan 7, 2010, 12:12 AM

  • Hi :)

    by Richard_Min, Jan 5, 2010, 9:29 PM

  • Hi :) :)

    by fortenforge, Jan 3, 2010, 10:14 PM

  • HELLO FORTENFORGE I AM THE PERSON SITTING NEXT TO YOU IN IDEAMATH

    by ButteredButNotEaten, Dec 24, 2009, 4:19 AM

  • @dragon96 Not if you celebrate Christmas with neon lights
    @batteredbutnotdefeated Sure, You are now a contributer

    by fortenforge, Dec 20, 2009, 4:39 AM

  • I too share a love for cryptography and cryptanalysis, may I be a contrib?

    by batteredbutnotdefeated, Dec 20, 2009, 2:38 AM

  • The green is too bright for Christmas. :P

    by dragon96, Dec 20, 2009, 2:12 AM

  • I thought I'd change the colors for the Holidays :lol:

    by fortenforge, Dec 13, 2009, 10:53 PM

  • hi, some "simple" cryptography here: http://www.artofproblemsolving.com/Forum/weblog_entry.php?t=317795

    by phiReKaLk6781, Dec 12, 2009, 3:46 AM

  • Yeah, that is binary, for modern cryptography, most text is converted to binary first and then algorithm's for encryption are preformed on the binary rather than the English letters. The text is converted using the ASCII table or UNICODE.

    by fortenforge, Oct 13, 2009, 10:33 PM

  • Whoa, I love your background! Is that binary?

    by pianogirl, Oct 13, 2009, 8:34 PM

  • Sure, I'll add you as a contributer...

    by fortenforge, Oct 2, 2009, 4:44 AM

  • May I make a post on one cipher I made up? (It's a good code for science people! *hint hint*)

    by dragon96, Oct 2, 2009, 4:04 AM

  • Nice blog, this is interesting... :lol:

    and guess who i am :ninja:

    by Yoshi, Sep 21, 2009, 4:02 AM

  • Thanks :lol:

    by fortenforge, Sep 17, 2009, 1:33 AM

  • Very interesting blog. Nice!

    by AIME15, Sep 16, 2009, 5:21 PM

  • When you mean 'write' do you mean like programming? Much of cryptography has to do with programming and most modern cryptographers are excellent programmers because modern complex ciphers are difficult to implement by hand.

    See if you can write a program for the substitution cipher. The user should be able to enter the key and the message. I know it is possible to do it in pretty much any language because I was able to do it in c.

    by fortenforge, Aug 7, 2009, 8:17 PM

  • Hello. I don't know much about advanced cryptography but I did write a Caeser Chipher encrypter and decrypter!

    by Poincare, Jul 31, 2009, 8:55 PM

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