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Ancient Cryptography » Ancient Texts » D'Agapeyeff Cipher » alexndr dagpeyf

Author Topic: alexndr dagpeyf  (Read 1966 times)

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Knox

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alexndr dagpeyf
« on: December 05, 2012, 11:54:47 PM »

I have no skill or background to do serious analysis. I hope this is not too naive.

What is the purpose of 000? It seems to me that obvious nulls would have been enciphered.

I figured that if there is fractionation, I don't have a prayer so I ignored that and replaced the pairs of digits with letters according to their frequency rank. I tried "transposing" (Excel-speak) the 14x14 grid so all the least frequent letters would be on the last row. Then re-arranging the columns so the suspected nulls would be together at the end of the row. The six columns that do not have those numbers can then be worked separately from the eight that do. This substantially lowers the possibilities for people who know what they are doing; I don't. Then I proposed to look for likely strings by individually re-arranging the two parts. But if we dismiss the suspected nulls from the CT alphabet, there are not many letters left. Twelve, if I remember. Too many geminates/doubles. Could it be that four digits (two of my letters) represent a single letter of the plaintext? Fractionation at that level is possible by separation of the two pairs (or two letters). I left it there and noticed the word "Alexander" has seven distinct letters and "Dagapeyeff" has seven distinct letters. That seemed to be my only chance (one in a gazillion?) so I continued.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7  1 2 3 4 5 6 7
a l e x n d r  d a g p e y f
1 4 3 7 5 2 6  2 1 5 6 3 7 4

Reverse Alexander half
1 - 1
4 - 2
3 - 3
7 - 4
5 - 5
2 - 6
6 - 7

Reverse d'agapeyeff half
2 - 1
1 - 2
5 - 3
6 - 4
3 - 5
7 - 6
4 - 7

Eight suspected nulls instead of seven or less is a problem. Which null stays with the left half?

Maybe each quarter is separately transposed so the one lower frequency letter is still at the end of one of the 7x7 grids.

. d a g p e y f
a . . . . . . .
l . . . . . . .
e . . . . . . .
x . . . . . . .
n . . . . . . .
d . . . . . . .
r . . . . . . .

  and however that re-arranges columns and rows.


Maybe the 14x14 grid should have been rotated instead of "transposed".

I really don't know how to do any effective work in this likely blind alley. Anyway, I hope this ramble is something a little different, recognizing that other people are likely to have the same ideas I do.