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

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50<br />

chapter 4<br />

(iii) Use a hexagon. In <strong>the</strong> example in Table 4.14 each row or column<br />

contains an even number of letters starting with 2 <strong>and</strong> increasing by 2 each<br />

time, up to some limit. The length of <strong>the</strong> longest row is repeated <strong>and</strong> <strong>the</strong>n<br />

<strong>the</strong> lengths decrease steadily to 2. O<strong>the</strong>r designs may be used.<br />

Table 4.14<br />

A B<br />

C D E F<br />

G H I J K L<br />

M N O P Q R<br />

S T U V<br />

W X<br />

This offers <strong>the</strong> same advantage as <strong>the</strong> diamond box. In this case <strong>the</strong> transmitted<br />

text when <strong>the</strong> key is 2-5-4-1-6-3 is<br />

BEJPU XGMLR ADIOT WCHNS FKQV.<br />

Irregular transposition boxes<br />

There are many o<strong>the</strong>r possibilities, including ‘incomplete’ rectangles<br />

with columns of different lengths, all of which add to <strong>the</strong> security of <strong>the</strong><br />

transposition system. In <strong>the</strong> case of Example 4.1 a transposition box of 35<br />

cells need not consist of 5 columns of 7 letters, or of 7 columns of 5 letters,<br />

but might have 5 columns of different lengths, such as 10, 4, 11, 7, <strong>and</strong> 3,<br />

so that <strong>the</strong> 35-letter message of <strong>the</strong> example would be entered as shown in<br />

Table 4.15, in which case <strong>the</strong> cipher message would be<br />

EGBRT IODAL EMNLF ATENH RILNE WEIYE VTITY.<br />

Table 4.15<br />

3 1 5 2 4<br />

M E E T I<br />

N G W I L<br />

L B E O N<br />

F R I D —<br />

A — Y A —<br />

T — E L —<br />

E — V E —<br />

N — T — —<br />

H — I — —<br />

R — T — —<br />

— — Y — —

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