Decrypting classical cipher text using Markov chain Monte Carlo

作者：Chen Jian; Rosenthal Jeffrey S^*

来源：Statistics and Computing, 2012, 22(2): 397-413.

DOI：10.1007/s11222-011-9232-5

• Cryptography
• Code breaking
• Substitution cipher
• Transposition cipher
• Substitution-transposition cipher
• Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithm

We investigate the use of Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods to attack classical ciphers. MCMC has previously been used to break simple substitution ciphers. Here, we extend this approach to transposition ciphers and to substitution-plus-transposition ciphers. Our algorithms run quickly and perform fairly well even for key lengths as high as 40.

• 出版日期2012-3