This page allows you to encode text or decode text encrypted with the 'Mulenere cypher'.
The strength of this cypher depends on knowing an independant secret, such as a secret word, or a page from a book.
If the length of the 'secret' is as long as the length of the message itself, (or longer)
then the code that is produced cannot be cracked by statistical methods.
If the 'secret' consists of only a single letter, then the cypher becomes a variant of Caesar's Cypher,
which can easily be cracked - it is often used in Puzzle Books for exactly that reason.
Click on any of the links at the top of the page to reveal (or hide) more information about this calculator.
Definitions:
Secret
A piece of text known to both the sender and recipient of the message, which acts as the 'key' to code.
Salt
Alternative name for the secret piece of text used to encrypt the message.
Caesar's Cypher
A classical cypher that is very simple and one of the oldest known encryption methods.
It's a type of substitution cipher where each letter in the plaintext is replaced by a letter some fixed number of positions down the alphabet.
Formulae:
The Mulenere Cypher works in a similar manner to the Caesar Cypher,
but uses a different offset for every character, based on the 'secret key'.
The cypher works by converting each character (in both the 'secret' and the main text)
into a corresponding number, like so: a=1, b=2 etc.
Once this conversion is complete, the value of each character of the main text is multiplied by the value of the corresponding letter from the 'secret key',
then converted back to a character.
Instructions
Type, or Copy-and-Paste the text to be encrypted / decrypted where indicated below.
Type, or Copy-and-Paste the 'secret' into the second field.
Click the 'Encrypt' or 'Decrypt' button below the input fields.
The converted text will be displayed below.
To do further encryptions / decryptions simply change the text in the input field, and then click the 'Encrypt' or 'Decrypt' button again.