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Playfair Cipher

The Playfair cipher encrypts pairs of letters instead of single letters. A 5x5 grid key table is created using the encryption key, with each letter occupying one space. Letters are encrypted based on their positions in the grid: letters in the same row are replaced by the letters to their right, letters in the same column are replaced by the letters below them, and letters of pairs forming rectangles have their positions switched. This makes the Playfair cipher more secure than simple substitution ciphers while still being relatively quick to use without specialized equipment.

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593 views4 pages

Playfair Cipher

The Playfair cipher encrypts pairs of letters instead of single letters. A 5x5 grid key table is created using the encryption key, with each letter occupying one space. Letters are encrypted based on their positions in the grid: letters in the same row are replaced by the letters to their right, letters in the same column are replaced by the letters below them, and letters of pairs forming rectangles have their positions switched. This makes the Playfair cipher more secure than simple substitution ciphers while still being relatively quick to use without specialized equipment.

Uploaded by

Mansi
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Playfair Cipher

In this scheme, pairs of letters are encrypted, instead of single letters as in the case
of simple substitution cipher.
In playfair cipher, initially a key table is created.
The key table is a 5×5 grid of alphabets that acts as the key for encrypting the
plaintext. Each of the 25 alphabets must be unique and one letter of the alphabet
(usually J) is omitted from the table as we need only 25 alphabets instead of 26.
If the plaintext contains J, then it is replaced by I.
The sender and the receiver deicide on a particular key,
Key= ‘tutorials’
We convert this key ‘Tutorials’ into 5*5 matrix
● In a key table, the first characters (going left to right) in the table is the
phrase, excluding the duplicate letters.
● The rest of the table will be filled with the remaining letters of the alphabet,
in natural order. The key table works out to be –

Process of Playfair Cipher

● First, a plaintext message is split into pairs of two letters (digraphs).


● If there is an odd number of letters, a Z is added to the last letter.
Suppose Plaintext message= “hide money”.
It will be written as −
HI DE MO NE YZ
The rules of encryption are −
1st Rule:
If both the letters are in the same column, take the letter below each one
(going back to the top if at the bottom)

T U O R I

A L S B C

‘H’ and ‘I’ are in same column, hence take letter below
D E F G H
them to replace. HI → QC

K M N P Q

V W X Y Z

2nd Rule:
If both letters are in the same row, take the letter to the right of each one
(going back to the left if at the farthest right)

T U O R I

A L S B C

‘D’ and ‘E’ are in same row, hence take letter to the right
D E F G H
of them to replace. DE → EF

K M N P Q

V W X Y Z
Rule 3
If neither of the preceding two rules are true, form a rectangle with the two
letters and take the letters on the horizontal opposite corner of the rectangle.

Using these rules, the result of the encryption of ‘hide


money’ with the key of ‘tutorials’ would be −
Cipher Text
QC EF NU MF ZV

Advantage of Playfair cipher:

Playfair cipher is also a substitution cipher and is difficult to break compared to


the simple substitution cipher. As in case of substitution cipher, cryptanalysis is
possible on the Playfair cipher as well, however it would be against 625 possible
pairs of letters (25x25 alphabets) instead of 26 different possible alphabets.
The Playfair cipher was used mainly to protect important, yet non-critical secrets,
as it is quick to use and requires no special equipment.
P.T=SACHIN TENDULKAR IS A GREAT CRICKET PLAYER
KEY=TUTORIALS
C.T=BL HQ OQ UD KF LE VD IT BL PB DL IA IT AQ DU MB BV GU

P.T=CLOUDS ARE HIGH IN THE SKY

KEY=DECEPTIVE
DECPT

IVABF

GHKLM

NOQRS

TUWXY

C.T= PK NW TN BQ VO GN GV SD OV QM ZY
PK NW TN BQ VO GN GV SD OV QM ZU

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