Codes and Ciphers :: Beale Cipher
A beale cipher is a modified Book Cipher. Instead of replacing each word in the secret message with a number, you replace each letter in the secret message with a number.
The letter by letter method makes it easier to encode a message with unusual words that may not appear in the book. With this method, each letter in the secret message is replaced with a number which represents the position of a word in the book which starts with this letter. For example, if we are enciphering the word "attack" we would start with the letter A. We would find a word in the book that started with A. Lets say that the 27th word was "and". The letter A is now translated to 27. An encoded message may look something like this.
713 23 245 45 124 1269 586 443 8 234
It should be noted that for enhanced security, the same number should not be used for the same letter throughout the secret message. Because you have a book, you can pick multiple numbers for each letter and use them interchangeably.
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