The discussion revolves around the topic of cryptography, specifically focusing on how to crack different types of ciphers as described in Simon Singh's "The Code Book." Participants express interest in various methods for breaking ciphers, including monoalphabetic ciphers and those using homophones.
Participants generally agree on the use of frequency analysis as a method for cracking ciphers, but there is no consensus on its effectiveness when homophones are involved, indicating a range of views on the topic.
Participants express varying levels of familiarity with the ciphers discussed, and the conversation includes assumptions about the reader's prior knowledge of cryptographic techniques.
murshid_islam said:i was reading simon singh's the code book. it describes different systems of cryptography. but what i wanted to know was how to 'crack' different ciphers.
can any suggest anything i can read.
thanks to anyone who can help.
finchie_88 said:what type of cipher are you talking about, the book mentions many types of cipher
finchie_88 said:Are you doing the puzzles at the back of the book? I done them
The way you solve that is to use frequency analysis on the characters in the "sample", then you can use that to guess what symbols stand for what. It helps if you look at the frequency of the characters before and after each character, since vowels are found before and after almost anything, but constanants are slightly less 'social'.
finchie_88 said:Yes, its harder than without, but you can still do it when there are homophones involved. It just requires a little guess work.