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

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

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From <strong>Julius</strong> <strong>Caesar</strong> to simple substitution 21<br />

it is very likely that it is THE so that M, J <strong>and</strong> Z are T, H <strong>and</strong> E respectively.<br />

There are several more words in which <strong>the</strong> cipher letters M, Z <strong>and</strong> J are<br />

involved including<br />

(23) MJZLZ which becomes THE?E so L is R or S,<br />

(26) MJLZZ which becomes TH?EE which gives L to be R,<br />

(42) MJZW which becomes THE? so W is M or N,<br />

(37) MJSM which becomes THAT if S is A <strong>and</strong> THIT if S is I.<br />

From <strong>the</strong>se we conclude that L is R <strong>and</strong> S is A <strong>and</strong> that W is M or N.<br />

Since word 26 has turned out to be THREE we look at word 25 to see if<br />

it could be a number; its cipher form is MTZPMQ which we know is<br />

T?E?T? in plain <strong>and</strong> looks likely to be TWENTY which, if correct, gives T,<br />

P, <strong>and</strong> Q to be W, N <strong>and</strong> Y respectively <strong>and</strong> so settles <strong>the</strong> ambiguity over W<br />

which must be M.<br />

(6) We have now identified <strong>the</strong> plaintext equivalents of nine cipher<br />

letters: J, L, M, P, Q, S, W, Y <strong>and</strong> Z which are H, R, T, N, Y, A, M, ‘space’ <strong>and</strong><br />

E. These nine letters toge<strong>the</strong>r account for over 60% of <strong>the</strong> text so we<br />

would now write out <strong>the</strong> text again with plaintext equivalents of <strong>the</strong><br />

cipher letters whenever <strong>the</strong>y are available, o<strong>the</strong>rwise using a dot (.) where<br />

<strong>the</strong> letter is not yet known.<br />

Having done this we would now be able to make some more identifications<br />

of cipher–plain pairs. Word 30, which we have partially deciphered<br />

as R..M, has a repeated letter in <strong>the</strong> middle <strong>and</strong> can only be ROOM so that<br />

cipher letter G is plain letter O. Word 50, KG in cipher is <strong>the</strong>refore .O in<br />

plain which suggests that K represents S, or possibly D, since we already<br />

know that it cannot be N or T. Words 48 <strong>and</strong> 49, MJCK <strong>and</strong> CK have partially<br />

decrypted as TH.S <strong>and</strong> .S <strong>and</strong> so lead to <strong>the</strong> conclusion that C is I.<br />

Since C <strong>and</strong> G occur 18 <strong>and</strong> 14 times respectively <strong>the</strong>y should be high frequency<br />

letters, <strong>and</strong> I <strong>and</strong> O are good c<strong>and</strong>idates, as we might have noticed<br />

earlier.<br />

Inserting I, O <strong>and</strong> S for C, G <strong>and</strong> K in <strong>the</strong> partially recovered text we<br />

have:<br />

1 2 3 4 5 6 7<br />

MJZ BLGESECNCMQ GX SP ZDZPM GIIRLLCPA CK<br />

THE .RO.A.I.IT. O. AN E.ENT O...RRIN. IS<br />

8 9 10 11 12 13 14<br />

KGWZMCWZK FRCMZ VCXXZLZPM XLGW TJSM GPZ WCAJM<br />

SOMETIMES ..ITE .I..ERENT .ROM .HAT ONE MI.HT

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