Codebreaking is the process of deciphering a code. During World War II, the Polish Cipher Bureau and British code breakers at Bletchley Park broke German air and naval messages using an Enigma machine.
When you think of spies and code breaking, what comes to mind? You may think nifty gadgets, foreign travel and being shaken not stirred, but you should also consi흥신소 der maths.
Origins
Codebreaking involves the deciphering of encrypted messages or systems. It is used in a variety of applications including intelligence gathering, cybersecurity and espionage.
The theory behind codebreaking is that a scrambled message has a hidden pattern or structure to it. This hidden pattern can be discovered by analyzing the message and looking for repetitions or other patterns. Once the hidden pattern is revealed, the original message can be read.
During World War II, cryptanalysts at Britain’s Bletchley Park broke the German military’s secret communications using the Enigma machine and other devices. The meticulous work of these men and women allowed the Allies to keep more troops out of harm’s way, and ultimately contributed to America’s victory in the war.
One of the most interesting stories of American code breaking during WWII centers around the mysterious Virginia D. Aderholt. She was the first American to know that World War II had ended. Her team of Army and Navy cryptanalysts had been monitoring intercepted messages as the war neared its end. They were waiting to hear confirmation of Germany’s surrender and a final message from the Japanese government agreeing to an unconditional surrender.흥신소
However, the most critical piece of information was in a message from the German high command sent by radioteleprinter using the Lorenz system. This message contained the location of German U-boats in the Atlantic and could allow the Allies to sink them before they reached their targets. Tommy Flowers, a post office research engineer working on switching electronics, designed the machine that would eventually be known as Colossus to help decipher these messages. The British called the machine Tunny, a play on words for sawfish since their radio signals were characterized by a “sawtooth” wave shape.
Al-Kindi
Al-Kindi is often called the father of Arab and Islamic philosophy. He was also an accomplished mathematician and astronomer. He was a polymath, meaning he was good at multiple subjects and did research in them. He worked on mathematics, philosophy, music, medicine, and theology – the study of God, revelation, religion, and prophets. He was also skilled at calligraphy, which is the art of writing in beautiful designs.
He was born in 801 C.E in Kufa, Iraq which was a world center of learning at that time. His full name was Abu Yusuf Yaqub ibn Ishaq as-Sabbah al-Kindi. He was descended from the Kinda tribe which had united a number of other tribes and was at its peak in power during the 5th century.
During his lifetime, he was employed by the Abbasid Caliphs to translate Greek philosophical and scientific texts into Arabic. He became familiar with and was influenced by the ideas of Aristotle, Plato, Porphyry and Proclus. Al-Kindi synthesized, adapted and promoted Hellenistic and Peripatetic philosophy in the Muslim world.
The theory that he developed was based on the assumption that there are brief moments in history when nature lifts its veil and allows the human intellect to witness the majesty of divine creation. This knowledge is then passed on to future generations. Al-Kindi also believed that there were certain mathematical and astrological patterns in the world that could be identified and interpreted.
Frequency Analysis
Frequency analysis is a way of examining the characteristics of a set of data, whether it be numbers, words or letters. It is based on the fact that certain letters appear more frequently than others in any given stretch of written language, and that there is a characteristic distribution for these letters (and combinations of them).
The cryptanalyst simply takes advantage of this knowledge by examining ciphertext for the common letter patterns found in normal English text. This can be done quickly, since the use of computers allows for a high-speed examination of large amounts of ciphertext in a relatively short amount of time.
Using frequency analysis, the cryptanalyst can try to find common pairs of letters or digraphs that appear frequently in normal English (SS, EE, TT and FF are the most common doubles). He also can look for other “personality traits” that may be present, such as the letter “e”.
It is possible to break simple substitution ciphers using frequency analysis alone. It is important to keep in mind that this type of attack can be countered by using a cipher that hides the characteristics of the plaintext language, as described in Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Gold-Bug” and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes story “The Adventure of the Dancing Men”. This type of cipher is called a lipogram.
Substitution Ciphers
Substitution ciphers are one of the most simple methods of encryption. They involve replacing letters in a plaintext message with other letters. They are not very secure, and they are easy to crack by frequency analysis. Nevertheless, they are still used for many purposes today. For example, they are sometimes used in computer programs to hide content from automatic tools (e.g., search engines). The ROT13 cipher is an example of a simple substitution cipher.
The theory of substitution ciphers was elaborated on by Al-Qalqashandi, who published the first known work on the subject in 1355. He introduced the concept of polyalphabetic substitution ciphers, in which each plaintext letter is assigned more than one replacement character. The methodology of these ciphers was later improved by Johannes Trithemius, who published his Steganographia in 1467. This was the first publication to describe a tableaux-based substitution cipher, in which each plaintext letter is replaced by a different letter based on its position in the tableaux.
This type of cipher is less vulnerable to frequency analysis because the key can be any permutation of the alphabet. However, it is still not strong enough to protect against other forms of attack. For example, it can be broken by a simple algorithm, based on calculating the probabilities of the most common letters. In addition, it can be broken by a brute force approach, which would require an enormous amount of time to calculate all the possible keys.