Rail Fence Cipher
The Rail Fence cipher is a form of transposition cipher that gets its name from the way in which it is encoded. In the rail fence cipher, the plaintext is written downwards on successive "rails" of an imaginary fence, then moving up when we get to the bottom. The message is then read off in rows. For example, using three "rails" and a message of 'WE ARE DISCOVERED. FLEE AT ONCE', the cipherer writes out:
W . . . E . . . C . . . R . . . L . . . T . . . E . E . R . D . S . O . E . E . F . E . A . O . C . . . A . . . I . . . V . . . D . . . E . . . N . .Then reads off:
WECRL TEERD SOEEF EAOCA IVDEN(The cipherer has broken this ciphertext up into blocks of five to help avoid errors.)
Read more about this topic: Transposition Cipher
Famous quotes containing the words rail, fence and/or cipher:
“For this is the mark of a wise and upright man, not to rail against the gods in misfortune.”
—Aeschylus (525–456 B.C.)
“Does Job fear God for nothing? Have you not put a fence around him and his house and all that he has, on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. But stretch out your hand now, and touch all that he has, and he will curse you to your face.””
—Bible: Hebrew, Job 1:9-11.
Satan to God.
“It is not an arbitrary “decree of God,” but in the nature of man, that a veil shuts down on the facts of to-morrow; for the soul will not have us read any other cipher than that of cause and effect. By this veil, which curtains events, it instructs the children of men to live in to-day.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)