Four-square Cipher - Using Four-square

Using Four-square

The four-square cipher uses four 5 by 5 matrices arranged in a square. Each of the 5 by 5 matrices contains the letters of the alphabet (usually omitting "Q" or putting both "I" and "J" in the same location to reduce the alphabet to fit). In general, the upper-left and lower-right matrices are the "plaintext squares" and each contain a standard alphabet. The upper-right and lower-left squares are the "ciphertext squares" and contain a mixed alphabetic sequence.

To generate the ciphertext squares, one would first fill in the spaces in the matrix with the letters of a keyword or phrase (dropping any duplicate letters), then fill the remaining spaces with the rest of the letters of the alphabet in order (again omitting "Q" to reduce the alphabet to fit). The key can be written in the top rows of the table, from left to right, or in some other pattern, such as a spiral beginning in the upper-left-hand corner and ending in the center. The keyword together with the conventions for filling in the 5 by 5 table constitute the cipher key. The four-square algorithm allows for two separate keys, one for each of the two ciphertext matrices.

As an example, here are the four-square matrices for the keywords "example" and "keyword." The plaintext matrices are in lowercase and the ciphertext matrices are in caps to make this example visually more simple:

a b c d e E X A M P f g h i j L B C D F k l m n o G H I J K p r s t u N O R S T v w x y z U V W Y Z K E Y W O a b c d e R D A B C f g h i j F G H I J k l m n o L M N P S p r s t u T U V X Z v w x y z