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Pigpen cipher
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The pigpen cipher (sometimes called the masonic cipher or Freemason's cipher) is a simple substitution cipher exchanging letters for symbols based on a grid. The use of symbols is no impediment to cryptanalysis however, and cryptanalysis is identical to that of other simple substitution schemes. The example key shows one way the letters can be assigned to the grid.
The scheme was developed and used by the Freemasons in the early 1700s for record-keeping and correspondence (Newton, 1998, p. 113). In this form, a simple code word is used and the letters entered at the beginning, then the other letters filled in behind with no doubling up. The first letter uses the plain symbol, the second letter uses the dotted symbol.
Using the example key, the message "X marks the spot" is rendered in ciphertext as:
- A gravestone with a pigpen inscription
- The Elian Script is a variation of this cipher, used as art.
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Classical cryptography
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| Ciphers: ADFGVX | Affine | Alberti | Atbash | Autokey | Bifid | Book | Caesar | Four-square | Hill | Keyword | Nihilist | Permutation | Pigpen | Playfair | Polyalphabetic | Polybius | Rail Fence | Reihenschieber | Reservehandverfahren | ROT13 | Running key | Scytale | Smithy code | Solitaire | Straddling checkerboard | Substitution | Tap Code | Transposition | Trifid | Two-square | VIC cipher | Vigenère |
| Cryptanalysis: Frequency analysis | Index of coincidence |
| Misc: Cryptogram | Bacon | Polybius square | Scytale | Straddling checkerboard | Tabula recta |
| History of cryptography | Cryptanalysis | Cryptography portal | Topics in cryptography |
| Symmetric-key algorithm | Block cipher | Stream cipher | Public-key cryptography | Cryptographic hash function | Message authentication code | Random numbers |
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