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Lecture 16

The document discusses the Playfair cipher, a digraph substitution cipher that employs a 5x5 grid keyed with a keyword to encrypt plaintext by substituting each pair of letters for a different pair. It describes the encryption and decryption processes which involve locating letter pairs in the grid and replacing them with the letters in the same row and column. The document also analyzes the security of the Playfair cipher, noting it is more secure than simple substitution ciphers due to the use of digraph frequencies instead of single letter frequencies.

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Shivansh Pundir
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35 views

Lecture 16

The document discusses the Playfair cipher, a digraph substitution cipher that employs a 5x5 grid keyed with a keyword to encrypt plaintext by substituting each pair of letters for a different pair. It describes the encryption and decryption processes which involve locating letter pairs in the grid and replacing them with the letters in the same row and column. The document also analyzes the security of the Playfair cipher, noting it is more secure than simple substitution ciphers due to the use of digraph frequencies instead of single letter frequencies.

Uploaded by

Shivansh Pundir
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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B.

Tech CSE/CST

Instructor:
Dr Mohammad Wazid
Associate Professor, Department of CSE
Graphic Era (Deemed to be University), Dehradun, India
Email: [email protected]
Homepage: https://sites.google.com/site/mwazidiiith/home
Playfair cipher
• The Playfair cipher is a digraph substitution cipher.
• It employs a table where letters are arranged in a 5x5 grid.
• Typically, the I/J letters are placed together.
• A key word, for example, MONARCHY is filled in first, and
the remaining unused letters of the alphabet are entered in
their lexicographic order.
Playfair cipher

Key matrix
Playfair cipher
• Encryption process:
• When the two letters are in different rows and columns, each is replaced
by the letter that is in the same row but in the other column; i.e., to
encrypt WE, W is replaced by U and E by G.
• When A and R are in the same row, A is encrypted as R and R (reading
the row cyclically) as M.
• When I and S are in the same column, I is encrypted as S and S as X.
• When a double letter occurs, a spurious symbol, say X, is introduced so
that the MM in SUMMER is encrypted as AU for MX and CL for ME.
• An X is appended to the end of the plaintext if necessary to give the
plaintext an even number of letters.
Playfair cipher
• Encryption process:
• Suppose we have to encrypt: WELCOME TO GEU
• Solution:
• First of all you have to make diagraphs from the alphabets of the plaintext
letters. Omit spaces in between the letters.
• WE LC OM ET OG EU
• Now perform the encryption using the key matrix.
• Cipher text will be: UGUENOKLNFLM
Playfair cipher
• Decryption process:
• When the two letters are in different rows and columns, each is
replaced by the letter that is in the same row but in the other
column; i.e., to encrypt WE, W is replaced by U and E by G.
• When A and R are in the same row, A is decrypted as N and R as
A.
• When L and U are in the same column, L is decrypted as E and U
as L.
• Remove the appended letter X, if you have added that in the
plaintext at the sender's end.
Playfair cipher
• Decryption process:
• Suppose we have to decrypt: UGUENOKLNFLM
• Solution:
• First of all you have to make diagraphs from the alphabets of the ciphertext
letters.
• UG UE NO KL NF LM
• Now perform the decryption using the key matrix.
• Plaintext will be:
• WE LC OM ET OG EU
• After removing the spaces: WELCOME TO GEU
Security analysis of playfair cipher
• Cryptanalysis of the playfair cipher is much more difficult than
normal simple substitution ciphers, because digraphs (pairs of
letters) are being substituted instead of monographs (single
letters).
• If we use frequency analysis of english digraphs, we can use this
information in the same way as we used the monograph
frequencies, however, there are ~600 digraphs and only 26
monographs.
• We need far more ciphertext for the digraphic system to make
reliable key choices compared to the monographic system.
• Therefore, it is more secure than other monographic encryption
schemes like, affine cipher.
Important references:
1. Textbook: Cryptography and Network Security: Principles
and Practice by William Stallings

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