MATH 233 SPRING 2017

SOLUTIONS TO MIDTERM PRACTICE

Classical ciphers
• An affine-like cipher given by c ≡ αx+β (mod 26) (where c is the cipher and x is plaintext) encrypts
the plaintext bad as DBH. Find another three-letter plaintext that is encrypted as DBH by this
cipher.
Solution. Since a encrypts as B, we see that β = 1. Since b encrypts as D, we see that α = 2. Thus,
adding 13 to any of the letters gives a plaintext that encodes the same way. So we can replace a
with n, b with o, and d with q. So, for example onq encrypts the same way as bad; as does oad.

• Alice and Bob are sending messages using an affine cipher. You gain access to the plain text if and
its corresponding ciphertext IZ. You then intercept the ciphertext XAP. What was the corresponding
plaintext?
Solution. If the cipher is written as x 7→ αx + β (mod 26), then we must have 8α + β = 8 and
5α + β = 25, so subtracting gives 3α ≡ −17 (mod 26), so α = 3. That means that β = 10. That
means that to decrypt we send x to 9x + 14. We see then that XAP would decrypt as not.

• Alice and Bob are sending messages using an affine cipher, and you intercept the ciphertext LQHUH.
You gain access to the decryption machine, and when you input the ciphertext AB the machine
outputs ch. What is the plaintext corresponding to the intercepted ciphertext?
Solution. Since decryption takes AB to ch, we must decrypt by sending x to 5x + 2. Thus, LQHUH
decrypts to felyl

• Suppose that we know a cipher is either an affine cipher or a 2 × 2 Hill block cipher or a Vignère
cipher with a keyword of length 2. It encrypts aarons as BESSOW . (You do not have to find the
key, just give a convincing explanation of why it must be one of the ciphers or why it must not be
either of the others.)
Solution It cannot be a 2 × 2 Hill block because if it were, then aa would be encrypted as AA. It
cannot be affine because a encrypts in two different ways. Thus, it must be Vignère. In fact, it is
not too hard to see that it is Vignère with keyword be.

• Suppose that we know a cipher is either an affine cipher or a 2 × 2 Hill block cipher or a Vignère
cipher with a keyword of length 2. It encrypts abba as as BBBA. (You do not have to find the key,
just give a convincing explanation of why it must be one of the ciphers or why it must not be either
of the others.)
Solution It cannot be affine because it encrypts a differently on the first and last letters. If it was
Vignère, it would have to be keyword ba,but that
 does not work,  so it
 must be
 a Hill
 block
 cipher.
 
1 1 0 1 1 1
In fact, one can check that the matrix is since that sends to and to
0 1 1 1 0 0

• Suppose that we know a cipher is either an affine cipher or a Vignère cipher with a keyword of length
2. It encrypts back as EBHF . (You do not have to find the key, just give a convincing explanation
of why it must be one of the ciphers or why it must not be the other.)
Solution This cannot be a Vignère cipher with a keyword of length 2 because the only possibility
would be db and that does not work on the last letter, clearly. So it must be affine. We see easily
that in fact it is affine with α = 3, β = 1.

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• Suppose that we know that Alice and Bob are using either an affine cipher or a Vigenère cipher with
key size 2. The plaintext aqua is decrypted as XVRG. Which sort of cipher is being used? (You do
not need to find the key; just give a convincing explanation.)
Solution. If it was encrypted with a Vigenère cipher with key size 2, the only possible keyword
would be xg since the first a goes to X and the fourth letter, also an a, goes to G. But then q would
go to W, not to V. So it must be a Hill cipher with key size 2.

• Suppose that we know that Alice and Bob are using either a Vigenère cipher with key size 2 or a
Hill cipher with a 2 × 2 key matrix. The plaintext aardvark is decrypted as AAXRVQLM. Which sort
of cipher is being used? (You do not need to find the key; just give a convincing explanation.)
Solution If it was a Vigenère cipher with key size 2, then the keyword would have to be aa, but
that does not work for the other letters, so it must have been encrypted with a Hill cipher.

• Same as above, but if the ciphertext had been CKTNXKTU.

Solution. Any Hill cipher of size 2 must send aa to AA, since it is linear and aa corresponds to the
zero vector. So this must be Vigenère. We can see that the key word must be ck.

• Suppose that we have an alphabet with two letters b and a. The frequency of b is .9 and the
frequency of a is .1. We see the ciphertext
ABABABABAA
What was the likely keyword? Explain your answer. (You may assume the keyword length is not
longer than 3.)
Solution. We get many more incidences with a shift of two than with a shift of 1 or 3, so it should
be a keyword of length 2. Based on frequencies, it is probably ba.
• Suppose that we devise an encryption scheme as follows. First we take our plaintext and encrypt it
using a Vignère cipher with keyword ai. Then we take the output of that and encrypt it again, this
time using a Vignère cipher with keyword epa. The cipher we obtain in this way is equivalent to a
single Vignère cipher. What is the keyword for this single Vignère cipher? (Hint: You might begin
by trying to figure out what the length is. Another hint: The beginning of this keyword is a word
that is especially relevant this week.)
Solution. We see that the cipher we obtain this way will repeat after six letters since six is the
smallest number divisible by three and two. Now all we have to do is see what happens to aaaaaa.
It encrypts under the first Vignère as aiaiai. The second Vignère then encrypts this as exampi.
(exam, then everyone’s favorite mathematical constant.)
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Modular arithmetic
• Does 20 have a square root mod 57? If so, how many does it have (Some facts: (a) 57 factors as
3 · 19, (b) 20 is equivalent to 1 mod 19 and 2 mod 3, (c) 19 − 6 · 3 = 1).
Solution. Since 2 is not a square mod 3, there are no square roots of 20 modulo 57.

• Does 39 have a square root mod 57? If so, how many does it have? (39 is equivalent to 1 mod 19
and 0 mod 3).
Solution. There must be two since 1 has two square-roots modulo 19 and 0 has one square root
modulo 3. In fact, we see that 39 must square to 39. The other square root is −39 which is 18.

• Does x2 ≡ 8 mod 13 have a solution? Show your work. (Do it by checking all possibilities only if
you have to – there is a better method that would work on larger primes.)
Solution. A necessary criteria for a to have a square root is that a(p−1)/2 ≡ 1 (mod p). Since
p = 13 in this case we need to calculate 86 ≡ −1 which shows that 8 has no square root modulo 13.

• Find a positive integer x less than 11 such that 5322 ≡ x (mod 11)
Solution. Since φ(11) = 10, we obtain that 5320 is 1 modulo 11, by Fermat’s little theorem (or
Euler’s theorem). So we obtain 52 modulo 11 which is 3 modulo 11.

• Let φ be the usual Euler φ function. Find φ(12).

Solution. Since φ(4) = 2 and φ(3) = 2, we obtain 4. We might also note that these correspond
exactly to 1, 5, 7, and 11.

• True or false and explain: aφ(12)+1 ≡ a (mod 12) for all positive integers a. (Hint: It is enough to
check things modulo 3 and 4 by the Chinese remainder theorem.)
Solution. When we check modulo 4, we see that in fact 25 is 0 modulo 4 not 2 modulo 4, so this
must be false. (It actually works fine modulo 3.)

• How many integers n with 0 ≤ n < 100 are there with the property that gcd(100, n) = 1? Explain
your answer.
Solution. This is just φ(100) which is 20 · 2 (from (52 − 5) · (22 − 2)), so 40.

• Calculate d = gcd(341, 1043) and find integers x, y so that d = 342x + 1043y (Bézout identity ).
Find all of the solutions of 341x = 1 (mod 1043). Solution. We use the Euclidean algorithm.
1043 = 342 · (3) + 17
342 = 17 · (20) + 2
17 = 2 · (8) + 1
Unwinding this gives
1 = 17 − 2 · (8) = 17 − (342 − 17 · 20) · 8
= 17 · 161 − 342 · 8 = (1043 − 342 · 3) · 161 − 342 · 8) = 1043 − 491 · 342
The inverse of 342 ≡ −491 ≡ 552 (mod 1043) which solves the congruence equation. There is only
one solution.
Odds and ends
• Suppose the function f is defined by

f (00) = 0; f (01) = 1; f (10) = 1; f (11) = 0.

True or false and explain: we have f (a ⊕ b) = f (a) ⊕ f (b) for all a, b (where a and b are each two
bits).
Solution. Yes, this is true. We first note that since f (00) = 0, we have f (00 ⊕ b) = f (00) ⊕ f (b) for
all b. Then, checking through f (a ⊕ b) where a, b range over 01, 10, and 11, we see that f (a ⊕ b) =
f (a) ⊕ f (b) for all a, b.

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• Suppose the function f is defined by

f (00) = 1; f (01) = 0; f (10) = 1; f (11) = 0.

True or false and explain: we have f (a ⊕ b) = f (a) ⊕ f (b) for all a, b (where a and b are each two
bits).
Solution. This is false. For example f (10 ⊕ 11) = f (01) = 0 but f (10) ⊕ f (11) = 1 ⊕ 0 = 1. There
are several other examples too.

• In an attempt to increase security, Bob decides to double encrypt his message by using one affine
cipher to encrypt, then another affine cipher to encrypt a second time. First, he encrpyts by sending
x to 3x + 1. For the second cipher he encyrpts by sending x to 5x + 11. This turns out to be exactly
the same as doing a single affine cipher encryption of x 7→ αx + β for what α and β (each between
0 and 25)?
Solution. Let us write the first encryption as f and the second as g. Then
g(f (x)) = g(3x + 1) = 5(3x + 1) + 11 = 15x + 16

• In an attempt to increase security, Alice decides to double encrypt her message by using a one
Vignenère cipher to encrypt, then another Vignenère cipher to encrypt a second time. For the first
cipher she encrpyts with keyword cat. For the second cipher, she encpryts with keyword dog. This is
the same as doing a single Vignenère cipher encryption with what three-letter word (note, the three
letters you get might not be real English word).
Solution. Since c corresponds to 2, a corresponds to zero, t corresponds to 19, and d corresponds
to 3, o corresponds to 14, g corresponds to 6, we see that key word corresponds to 5 then 13 then
25 so the key word is f oz.