Confederate Cipher Disk Simran, Lovjoat, Arshdeep, Zohaib TEAM
SALL-E
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History Cipher Disks were invented by Leon Battista Alberti, a
famous Italian philosopher and architect in 1467. Fundamentally,
involving two rotating rings that line up two different letters or
numbers which ciphers the text. (Cipher meaning a method of
altering the plaintext) Used during Civil War At the rear of the
disc is the text Richmond, VA, the home town of the
confederacy.
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History Cont. Vigenre Cipher was simple enough to use to be a
field cipher. Used during the American Civil War (1861-1865) The
war between the North (Union) and the South (Confederates) Union
usually cracked the confederates messages.
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Creator Francis LaBarre, a gold and silver worker Based on the
Vigenre Cipher A mechanical wheel cipher consisting of two
concentric disks, each with the 26 letters of the Latin alphabet,
that was used for the encryption of messages.
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Purpose The disk was used for encryption of secret messages of
the Confederacy during the American Civil War (1861-1865)
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Key Short key phrase said in a private previous conversation A
polyalphabetic cipher disk that was a combination of the Caesar
Cipher and the Vigenre Cipher
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Examples R is the default adjustment letter and key number
1212, the inner disk turns so that R and the number 1212 coincide
The signal adjustment 2212, 3, 1122, 333, indicates W was
adjustment letter, and 1122 the key number completing the cipher
combinations (W coincides with 1122) -Note: 2212 being W in the
non-ciphered code
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Only five are known today in existence.
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The Navajo Code Talkers
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History Philip Johnston realized that the Navajo languages was
very complex and was not written down. The code was used for troop
movements, tactics, order, and transmit info, with the use of
native dialects over radios and telegraphs. The language was
primarily used during WWII, Korean war, and was retired after the
Vietnam war. On May 1942, 29 recruits attended boot camp and was
the first group that made the code.
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Creator Philip Johnston proposed the idea to use the Navajo
language as code during WWII Chester Nez, last of the original
Navajo Code talkers of WWII dies at 93.
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Purpose During WWII the allies needed an encryption they
realized that Navajo language was very difficult The navajos would
say random words and then write their english equivalent and would
use 1 st letter to make a word.
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Examples wol-la-chee ( a nt), tse-nill ( a xe) tsah ( n eedle)
be-la-sana ( a pple) ah-keh-di-gini ( v ictor) Tsah-ah-dzoh ( y
ucca) Besh-lo (iron fish) meant submarine Dah-he-tih-hi (humming
bird) meant fighter plane
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How the Code was Broken Most letters had more than one Navajo
word representing them. Not all words had to be spelled out letter
by letter. developers of original code assigned Navajo words to
represent about 450 frequently used military terms that didnt exist
in Navajo language