Hi, I\'m having some trouble with decrypting this ciphertext problem here: j r g

Question

Hi, I'm having some trouble with decrypting this ciphertext problem here:

j r g d g i d x g q a n n g z g t g t t s i t g j r

a n m n o e d d i o m n w j r a j v k s e x j m d x

k m n w j r g m t t g d t g o g n j a j m z g o v g

k i n l a q g t j a m n x m s m j j r g k o j t g n

w j r g n j r g v a t t m g t a w a m n o j j r g w

i z g t n s g n j i b a b g u  

I tried to solve it, but it just ended up with another unreadable result. I am new to decrypting and any pointers as to how I could determine what kind of cipher it is and how I could solve it would be great. Thank you for your time.

Explanation / Answer

Hi,

To decrypt the cipher text, the cipher text should be in proper format.

For example, in whatever you have given here, please confirm whether there are spaces in between the letters and you have 6 lines exactly. If this happens to be in single line and because of copy-paste here, if its different here then to decrypt the text becomes difficult. Remember even a space between the letters matters a lot.

Decrypting is a difficult task, and for assignments they would normally specify the encryption mechanism like if its Vigerie Cipher OR Substiution Method etc.. If any information is available, it would be helpful in decrypting the same.

If you are dealing with historic ciphers, or pre-computer-era-ciphers which is essentially the same, the only proper way is to learn how each of them has been identified and attacked. All historic ciphers exposed some statistical properties of the plaintext in the ciphertext. By identifying these properties through statistical analysis in the ciphertext you can get an idea what cipher was used and maybe even mount an attack straight away. Some historic ciphers used very short key lengths, which you can easily bruteforce on a computer.

On a properly implemented modern cipher (padding, block mode of operation, etc.), say, 65536 bytes of ciphertext, at least since Lucifer and DES will look almost the same and very, very close to random binary data, to the point that you would never guess which is which, even after looking at terabytes of unknown ciphertexts.

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