DecipherTechnical reference

Ciphers

Ciphers

The cipher methods and puzzle formats you can use on Decipher.

Also found as cipher index · methods

Browse by family

Knowing the family gives you a first idea of what to look for. Caesar and general simple substitution keep monoalphabetic patterns. Vigenère, Beaufort, Variant Beaufort, and Gronsfeld leave clues about the repeating Key. Columnar transposition keeps symbol counts while moving positions. Playfair works with letter pairs, Polybius with coordinates, and Baconian with two-class groups. The Cryptanalysis section explains how to count and test those clues.Friedman, Codes and Ciphers

FamilyPages
Monoalphabetic substitutionCaesar; Simple substitution
Repeating-Key polyalphabeticVigenère; Beaufort; Variant Beaufort; Gronsfeld
TranspositionColumnar transposition
Square systemsPlayfair; Polybius
BiliteralBaconian
Presentation conventionsChallenge Formats

Sources

  1. William F. Friedman, Codes and Ciphers (Cryptology)