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A monoalphabetic cipher uses fixed substitution over the entire message, whereas a polyalphabetic cipher uses a number of substitutions at different positions in the message, where a unit from the plaintext is mapped to one of several possibilities in the ciphertext and vice versa.
Several schemes were invented by cryptographers to defeat this weakness in simple substitution encryptions. These included: Homophonic substitution: Use of homophones — several alternatives to the most common letters in otherwise monoalphabetic substitution ciphers. For example, for English, both X and Y ciphertext might mean plaintext E.
The Aristocrat Cipher is a type of monoalphabetic substitution cipher in which plaintext is replaced with ciphertext and encoded into assorted letters, numbers, and symbols based on a keyword. The formatting of these ciphers generally includes a title, letter frequency, keyword indicators, and the encoder's nom de plume . [ 1 ]
The affine cipher is a type of monoalphabetic substitution cipher, where each letter in an alphabet is mapped to its numeric equivalent, encrypted using a simple mathematical function, and converted back to a letter. The formula used means that each letter encrypts to one other letter, and back again, meaning the cipher is essentially a ...
Frequency analysis relies on a cipher failing to hide these statistics. For example, in a simple substitution cipher (where each letter is simply replaced with another), the most frequent letter in the ciphertext would be a likely candidate for "E". Frequency analysis of such a cipher is therefore relatively easy, provided that the ciphertext ...
The Polybius square is also used as a basic cipher called the Polybius cipher. This cipher is quite insecure by modern standards, as it is a substitution cipher with characters being substituted for pairs of digits, which is easily broken through frequency analysis. [2]
Classical ciphers are typically vulnerable to known-plaintext attack. For example, a Caesar cipher can be solved using a single letter of corresponding plaintext and ciphertext to decrypt entirely. A general monoalphabetic substitution cipher needs several character pairs and some guessing if there are fewer than 26 distinct pairs.
600-500 – Hebrew scholars make use of simple monoalphabetic substitution ciphers (such as the Atbash cipher) c. 400 – Spartan use of scytale (alleged) c. 400 – Herodotus reports use of steganography in reports to Greece from Persia (tattoo on shaved head) 100-1 A.D.- Notable Roman ciphers such as the Caesar cipher.