BOSS Cipher Tools
You can make your own cipher tools by learning to programme (and we have a great guide to getting started on the training page) but you don’t need to do that to build a usable cipher tool. You can start with the Caesar shift wheel kit in our official BOSS cryptanalyst handbook. You can upgrade that to work with affine shift ciphers.
You can even build your own Pringle Can Enigma Machine. Harry designed the first Pringle Can rotor encryption machine in 2005 to help BOSS agents crack a version of the notorious Russian Fialka cipher. We might publish more information about that case in a further training exercise later. For now we refer you to Franklin-Heath who have published full details of how to build a working Enigma machine for use in the field. You will find the instructions at their website. It is no harder to make than a Caesar cipher wheel, though it is a lot harder to use. On the other hand it gives you pretty much the full power of the Enigma cipher for the cost of a tube of Pringles, which is also useful for field rations.
In the meantime here are some online cipher tools that you might find helpful.
Frequency tables
We will start with something that is clearly not our work, though we might get round to making our own version some time. Here is a link to a page with a very useful list of frequencies that you can use to analyse cipher texts.
Morse code workbook
The official BOSS Morse code workbook available in Excel format.
Caesar cipher wheel
A simple substitution wheel for encrypting and decrypting text.
Affine cipher tool
Use the Affine cipher tool to help decrypt a type of monoalphabetic substitution cipher.
Substitution tool
This tool lets you build and test letter mappings by entering suspected ciphertext replacements.
Frequency counter
Use this tool to calculate the frequency of letters within a text with output into a graph of table.
Puzzle proof tool
Long requested, and finally here! A tool to allow you to prove to the world (or at least our Forum users) that you have solved one of the devious puzzles they have set. Paste your screen name (not your user id!) in one box, the official name of the puzzle/challenge as published by the setter in another, and your solution, following the setter’s guidelines in the final box. Press the button to produce a SHA-256 hash of this data (or at least the first half of the hash) which you can post on the forum as proof of your solution. The setter (or anyone else with a solution) can enter the same data together with their solution on the form and paste your “proof” string in the checker at the bottom of the form to see if they match, or their own id to create their own proof string. Enjoy
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