Abstract
The earliest attempts at polyalphabetic encryption can be found in the work De cifris of Leon Battista Alberti (1404–1472), an essay of 25 pages he wrote in 1466 or 1467 for his friend Leonardo Dato, the papal secretary. The Latin original is reproduced in Aloys Meister, Die Geheimschrift im Dienste der Päpstlichen Kurie, Paderborn, Schöningh, 1906, pp. 125–141 (Italian translation Trattati in cifra, manuscript, about 1470).
No message is safe in cipher unless the key phrase is comparable in length with the message itself.
Parker Hitt 1914
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References
For details see Arto Salomaa, Public-Key Cryptography, Springer, Berlin 1990, pp. 44 ff.
The turnover has happened when (with a difference of 19 letters) the letters R, F, W, K, A are in the window. At Bletchley park there was a corresponding, rather silly mnemonic verse Royal Flags Wave Kings Above.
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© 2000 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
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Bauer, F.L. (2000). Polyalphabetic Encryption: Keys. In: Decrypted Secrets. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-04024-9_8
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