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The Vigenère cipher is simple enough to be a field cipher if it is used in conjunction with cipher disks. [13] The Confederate States of America, for example, used a brass cipher disk to implement the Vigenère cipher during the American Civil War. The Confederacy's messages were far from secret, and the Union regularly cracked its messages.
A polyalphabetic cipher is a substitution, using multiple substitution alphabets. The Vigenère cipher is probably the best-known example of a polyalphabetic cipher, though it is a simplified special case. The Enigma machine is more complex but is still fundamentally a polyalphabetic substitution cipher.
In cryptanalysis, Kasiski examination (also known as Kasiski's test or Kasiski's method) is a method of attacking polyalphabetic substitution ciphers, such as the Vigenère cipher. [1] [2] It was first published by Friedrich Kasiski in 1863, [3] but seems to have been independently discovered by Charles Babbage as early as 1846. [4] [5]
An autokey cipher (also known as the autoclave cipher) is a cipher that incorporates the message (the plaintext) into the key. The key is generated from the message in some automated fashion, sometimes by selecting certain letters from the text or, more commonly, by adding a short primer key to the front of the message.
In 1553, an important extension to Trithemius's method was developed by Giovan Battista Bellaso, now called the Vigenère cipher. [3] Bellaso added a key, which is used to dictate the switching of cipher alphabets with each letter. This method was misattributed to Blaise de Vigenère, who published a similar autokey cipher in 1586.
Another example of a polyalphabetic substitution cipher that is much more difficult to decode is the Vigenère square, an innovative encoding method. With the square, there are 26 different cipher alphabets that are used to encrypt text.
Polyalphabetic substitution cipher: a substitution cipher using multiple substitution alphabets (e.g., Vigenère cipher and Enigma machine) Polygraphic substitution cipher: the unit of substitution is a sequence of two or more letters rather than just one (e.g., Playfair cipher)
Simple ciphers were replaced by polyalphabetic substitution ciphers (such as the Vigenère) which changed the substitution alphabet for every letter. For example, "GOOD DOG" can be encrypted as "PLSX TWF" where "L", "S", and "W" substitute for "O".