Given that the ciphertext KHOOR ZRUOG was encrypted using a Cæsar cipher, what is the key equivocation? Clearly there are 26 possible keys; here is the decryption of the ciphertext for each key:
key | plaintext | key | plaintext | key | plaintext |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
A | KHOOR ZRUOG | R | TQXXA IADXP | J | BYFFI QILFX |
Z | LIPPS ASVPH | Q | URYYB JBEYQ | I | CZGGJ RJMGY |
Y | MJQQT BTWQI | P | VSZZC KCFZR | H | DAHHK SKNHZ |
X | NKRRU CUXRJ | O | WTAAD LDGAS | G | EBIIL TLOIA |
W | OLSSV DVYSK | N | XUBBE MEHBT | F | FCJJM UMPJB |
V | PMTTW EWZTL | M | YVCCF NFICU | E | GDKKN VNQKC |
U | QNUUX FXAUM | L | ZWDDG OGJDV | D | HELLO WORLD |
T | ROVVY GYBVN | K | AXEEH PHKEW | C | IFMMP XPSME |
S | SPWWZ HZCWO | B | JGNNQ YQTNF |
Assuming the plaintext is ordinary English (and not a code), the only possible plaintext is HELLO WORLD and the key is D.
Department of Computer Science
University of California at Davis
Davis, CA 95616-8562