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Caesar's Method


Caesar's method is an encryption scheme involving shifting an alphabet (so a->c, b->d, c->e, d->f, etc., x->z,y->a,z->b). It is one of the most basic encryption methods, and is a specialized form of a transposition cipher.

Because the alphabet is rotated, the shift is consistent. A mapping of a->b,b->c, etc. is termed ROT 1 because the letters are shifted by one. Note that z would map to a due to the circular aspect of the rotation.

CaesarsMethod

Encrypting with ROT alpha and ROT beta yields the same ciphertext if and only if alpha=beta (mod 26).

ROT 13 is a popular encryption method on the Internet since it obfuscates text sufficiently to prevent accidental reading of the text. It is commonly used to list answers of puzzles, for example.

Caesar's method is a very weak encryption scheme, since there are 26 possibilities (of which one, ROT 26, is trivial). These can be easily checked by hand.


This entry contributed by Wiktor K. Macura

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Macura, Wiktor K. "Caesar's Method." From MathWorld--A Wolfram Web Resource, created by Eric W. Weisstein. https://mathworld.wolfram.com/CaesarsMethod.html

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