How I deciphered a Robert E. Lee letter—and a note on the power of context in short polyalphabetic ciphers. Issue 5 (2nd September 2016)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Boklan, Kent D.
• Is Part Of: Cryptologia. Volume 40:Issue 5(2016)
• Page Start: 406
• Page End: 410
• Publication Date: 2016-09-02
• Subjects: Civil War -- context -- crib -- cryptanalysis -- error exploitation -- Robert E. Lee -- short ciphertext -- Vigenère; Cryptography -- Periodicals; 652.8
• DOI: 10.1080/01611194.2016.1170424
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0161-1194

Abstract

ABSTRACT: We decrypt a message from Robert E. Lee, which is possibly too short for efficient analysis by classical cryptanalytic techniques, by exploiting the mistake of not encrypting the full contents of the message.