Came here after Leminno video about Kryptos. Nice video! And the puzzle was fun, althought at first I didn't know what to do with the fact that last row is incomplete. But when you think about it, it becomes more or less obvious.
I see lots of explanations on the famous WWII enigma cipher, but less so the older ciphers that very complex idea was built on the shoulders of, leaving a lot unsaid
First, I've watched a countless (but countable) number of math(s) videos on RU-vid over the years and I'm thrilled the algorithm finally landed me here. I've also done the deep dive into Enigma and, even more interesting, Colossus, the Tiltman break, Tommy Flowers, and all that. I've also seen how the Playfair cipher was used by the Brits in WWII, whose cracking by the Germans was ultimately discovered by Enigma after much damage to northern shipping (they has lost access to Naval Enigma, and regaining that is a story in and of itself), and how the cracking of Italian merchant shipping and low-level Luftwaffe messages using those (Playfair?) and similar ciphers was even more responsible for disrupting Rommel's supply chain in North Africa than Bletchley Park. With that overly long preface, my question has to do with the American Civil War. Grant's, Sherman's, and Horace Porter's memoirs often point out that they had cracked Lee's communications, particularly around Petersburg and Richmond later in the war, hinting at the idea that there were several individual telegraph operators who got really good at it. I've not been able to find any direct information about the ciphers used and whether the CSA had cracked any Union communications, so I'm wondering about that. Love this channel!!!
in my opinion , its because when we write the arranged cipher text it dont have gaps in between , i mean i dont have a proof or evidence "why" since she didnt have the time to explain , but you can observe it logically .
when you divide by 6 you get 3 remainder 4? what are you dividing? assuming you are dividing 22 by 6, this is giving us 3.6. could you clarify this part as as you stated it gets tricky but you dont explain the workings of this very clearly
Idea on how to crack: Separate the outputs into columns. You won't know which column goes where, but you can do frequency analysis on them. You should see a different frequency pattern for the rows and the columns, since they're generated from a fundamentally different mapping of the inputs. Now, pair different row and column groups up, and consider their frequency when put into letters. Comparing the different frequencies of these, you should find a set of frequencies that all match with each other, these are the frequencies of the actual letters. You can now do a simple frequency analysis on this frequency to reverse the polybius square.
