Leon Battista Alberti was an Italian renaissance man who created the first polyalphabetic cipher. The device consists of two disks where only one rotates while the other remains static. Each disk contains an alphabet on the outer part of the ring. The outer disk is usually lined with a 20 letter alphabet along with the numbers 1-4 leaving out the letters J, H, K, W, Y, and U. Whereas the inner disk contains a randomized alphabet which leaves out the letters u, w, and j but includes the symbol &. In order to decode a message that has been enciphered with the Alberti method you must know the index letter. After that you look at the message and the first letter is the one that corresponds to the index letter. While decoding the message if a letter corresponds to a number 1-4 then you rotate the wheel so that, that letter now will correspond to the index letter. In rotating the disk multiple alphabets are utilized. Since Alberti thought the letters J, H, K, W, Y, and U superfluous it makes it difficult to encode modern messages so in order to use the code you substitute letters such as L for J and use common sense while deciphering the message. Try to decode the below text.
Index Letter: G
lcxgrgfolrbiimsccirilznt&txxoaodpodxrenaxavfagakkpgehxailaymhmffarangmbmnmgttyxxgkpvpzzy
plain text: creme brule can never be jello you could never be jello I have to be jello youre never gonna be jello
ReplyDeleteThis one took me a while to figure out because I constantly mistook the I on the Cipher Disk for a 1!! That was also a problem when I was enciphering my own message!!
yes. It took 15 minutes for me to figure it out. Because I made a mistake in rotating the disk at the second time changing the corresbonding letter.
ReplyDeleteI really like the way you presented the background information! Since your text is already deciphered I won't go through the trouble of doing it again... but what does your code mean? Is it a quote or something? It's funny but I don't get it :)
ReplyDeleteI'm glad that you liked the way I presented the information, and it is a quote from a movie. The quote is from "My Best Friend's Wedding" with Julia Roberts it's one of my favorite movies and I thought that this quote would add humor.
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