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Code and ciphers: Julius Caesar, the Enigma and the internet

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2<br />

From <strong>Julius</strong> <strong>Caesar</strong> to simple substitution<br />

<strong>Julius</strong> <strong>Caesar</strong> <strong>ciphers</strong> <strong>and</strong> <strong>the</strong>ir solution<br />

In <strong>the</strong> <strong>Julius</strong> <strong>Caesar</strong> cipher each letter of <strong>the</strong> alphabet was moved along 3<br />

places circularly, that is A was replaced by D, B by E ... W by Z, X by A, Y<br />

by B <strong>and</strong> Z by C. Although <strong>Julius</strong> <strong>Caesar</strong> moved <strong>the</strong> letters 3 places he<br />

could have chosen to move <strong>the</strong>m any number of places from 1 to 25.<br />

There are <strong>the</strong>refore 25 versions of <strong>the</strong> <strong>Julius</strong> <strong>Caesar</strong> cipher <strong>and</strong> this indicates<br />

how such a cipher can be solved: write down <strong>the</strong> cipher message<br />

<strong>and</strong> on 25 lines underneath it write <strong>the</strong> 25 versions obtained by moving<br />

each letter 1, 2, 3, .... , 25 places. One of <strong>the</strong>se 25 lines will be <strong>the</strong> original<br />

message.<br />

Example 2.1<br />

The text of a message enciphered by <strong>the</strong> <strong>Julius</strong> <strong>Caesar</strong> System is<br />

VHFX TM HGVX<br />

Decrypt <strong>the</strong> message.<br />

Solution<br />

We write out <strong>the</strong> cipher message <strong>and</strong> <strong>the</strong> 25 shifted versions, indicating<br />

<strong>the</strong> shift at <strong>the</strong> left of each line (see Table 2.1), <strong>and</strong> we see that <strong>the</strong> cipher<br />

used a shift of 19, for <strong>the</strong> cipher text is shifted 7 places to give <strong>the</strong> plain<br />

<strong>and</strong> this means that <strong>the</strong> plaintext has to be shifted (26�7)�19 places to<br />

give <strong>the</strong> cipher. It looks very likely, on <strong>the</strong> assumption that no o<strong>the</strong>r shift<br />

would have produced an intelligible message, that we have correctly<br />

decrypted <strong>the</strong> message <strong>and</strong> so <strong>the</strong>re is no point in writing out <strong>the</strong> remaining<br />

lines. This assumption of uniqueness is reasonable when <strong>the</strong> cipher<br />

message is more than five or six characters in length but for very short<br />

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