You could do worse than taking a look at our beginner’s guide, the BOSS Cryptanalyst Handbook. it introduces some of the basic ciphers and methods to crack them. Once you are confident you could take a look at some of the other material in our Library.
If you are running a codes and ciphers club and are looking for activities, we have six Powerpoint decks with some ideas that introduce the basics and you can download them here:
- The Caesar shift cipher and pattern detection
- Frequency analysis
- The affine shift cipher
- Breaking the affine shift cipher using modular inverses
- The keyword cipher
- Cracking a keyword cipher using frequency analysis and cribs
Finally, if you have spent the last few days immersed in all of this trying to get to grips with the strange world of ciphers, and if you really need a day off and something a little different, then check back here tomorrow for the Sunday Puzzle. Each week I will post one of my favourites for you to try. If you would like to recommend anything to add to our resources or a puzzle you think the CC community might love, then let us know over in the T.E.M.P.E.S.T. Forum.
Have a great weekend,
