Hey,
Im afraid I don’t have time at this in detail, a heads up you may be going down the wrong path – in a typical Nihilist the ciphertext consists of just numbers.
Best,
Alex
Regards
Gordon
]]>Thank you Alex! That helps a lot. Especially for the step-by-step example.
I’m being driven mad by a numeric cipher that has no delimiters, and additionally it has an uneven number of digits. That was an excellent idea of yours to adjust for the modulo encryption, thank you!
Unfortunately it’s proving resistant! Adjusting for numbers that sum >=100 wouldn’t accomodate for this troublesome string of “49020149”, if I understand your advice correctly.
I’ve been researching VIC and Nihilist ciphers (which is how I found your wonderful resource).
Do you have any suggestions or other avenues I should be exploring? I’ve been going through every classic cipher description I can find to see if I can recognise it by its distinguishing features. It’s a patristocrat numeric cipher using the dedimal set 9-0, with a total cipher text of uneven length. What ciphers could possibly produce such a result?
Thank you, Jim
]]>Yes it should. Although as with any cipher you could add a twist to alter it.
First thoughts I think you could modify this algorithm so that for numbers that sum to >= 100, instead of removing the 1 (subtracting 100) you could leave the 1 in. This would still make a valid cipher algorithm since you could still identify which digits go in what column. If the digits you are looking at are 10 or 11 then it must be one of these 3 digit numbers, so instead of taking 2 digits take 3. This would make it possible for the cipher text to have an odd number of digits.
E.g Folliwing ciphertext can be split up as so,
56107853211034
56 107853211034 <- 56 is not 11 or 10, so only take 2 digits
56 107 853211034 <- is 10 so take an extra digit
56 107 85 3211034 <- 85 is not 11 or 10, so only take 2 digits
56 107 85 32 11034 <- 32 is not 11 or 10, so only take 2 digits
56 107 85 32 110 34 <- is 11 so take an extra digit
Each block of digits can then be placed it their own column.
True, sometimes there may be some more vectors that score highly that are not the correct ones, have added a note to the page.
]]>Glad it was useful!
I have corrected the page thanks!
Alex