(12-09-2020, 12:56 AM)-JKP- Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.if you encoded a paragraph with the beginning and ending coordinates of a shape inside a monogram, the frequency distribution of each coordinate pair and its location within words, would match the distribution and location of the letters it encodes in whatever language it is.


In other words, a b c and 101-102, 54-32, 21-10  will be the same in how they will be distributed within a paragraph regardless of how you write them (letters, numbers, coordinates, unique symbols), and that gives it away. It's still a substitution cipher.

I can see that. I suppose it would fare a bit better if there were more than one way to trace a lot of the more common letters. But with any diagram, there is a limited number of ways to find and trace each letter.

Ciphers that are more difficult to break generally obscure word patterns (letter distribution and position). So... obscuring the spaces is a start, but not enough to deter a code-breaker. Medieval cipher-makers realized this and regularly began using one-to-many/many-to-one ciphers with nulls in the latter 15th century, but... this wasn't enough either.

Rotating keys were gradually added into the mix (together with other techniques). If the various parts of the document are ciphered with different keys (e.g., rotating keys), then solving one part of it does not reveal the rest (and you have to figure out where the transitions occur). This didn't stop code-breakers either, but it did slow them down.


Some of the stronger ciphers are ones where the information is ciphered and split into more than one part, with the parts physically separated. It's more difficult to pull out the information if only part of it is contained within one document. These days, electronic separation is a consideration, as well.


On an early thread, Rene posted an example of how a drawing could be used to code information in a way that may not be easy to detect. I don't know how hard it would be to find the thread, but it's worth a look (maybe Rene can remember the keywords for finding and linking it).