![]() ![]() For example, using the phrase "hello world and a series of three rails, the result (for a linear descent) would be HLODEORLWL. ![]() He or she then writes out the second line and the third line. In order to encode the text, the user takes the letters in the top line, or rail, and puts them together. In a rail fence cipher, the writer takes a message and writes it into descending lines or "rails." The rail fence cipher is sometimes called a zig zag cipher if the writer uses a zigzag or W pattern to represent text. These types of ciphers date back to the American Civil War, where soldiers would use the code to send encrypted messages. Transposition ciphers like the rail fence cipher are relatively weak forms of encoding, and can easily be broken, especially with today’s technology. This type of cipher is often called a transposition cipher, because letters are simply transposed in terms of their placement. The letters at the head of the columns are then cut off, the ruling erased and the message of dots sent along to the recipient, who, knowing the width of the columns and the arrangement of the letters at the top, reconstitutes the diagram and reads what it has to say.In a rail fence cipher, letters are not changed, but only switched around regarding their positioning in the message. A dot is made for each letter of the message in the proper column, reading from top to bottom of the sheet. It is "written by ruling a sheet of paper in vertical columns, with a letter at the head of each column. However, it may also refer to a different type of cipher described by Fletcher Pratt in Secret and Urgent. ![]() The term zigzag cipher may refer to the rail fence cipher as described above. As a result, the rail-fence cipher is considered weak. It is not strong as the number of keys is small enough to brute force them. The message is written in a zigzag pattern on an imaginary fence, thus its name. Therefore the number of usable keys is low, allowing the brute-force attack of trying all possible keys. The Rail fence cipher (also called zigzag cipher) is a transposition cipher. Let N, the length of the ciphertext, are not usable, since then the ciphertext is the same as the plaintext. (Note that spaces and punctuation are omitted.) Then read off the text horizontally to get the ciphertext: RUN AT ONCE.' with 3 "rails", write the text as: The ciphertext is then read off in rows.įor example, to encrypt the message 'WE ARE DISCOVERED. In the rail fence cipher, the plaintext is written downwards diagonally on successive "rails" of an imaginary fence, then moving up when the bottom rail is reached, down again when the top rail is reached, and so on until the whole plaintext is written out. ![]()
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