Labs / Computer Science
Caesar Cipher Cracker
Drag the cipher wheel to shift every letter of your message by the same amount — that is a Caesar cipher, the code Julius Caesar used. Then load a secret and try to break it: the histogram compares the coded letters against how often each letter really appears in English, and the “likely key” is the shift that makes them line up.
shift 3χ² –likely key –
What to try
- With shift 3, which plaintext letter turns into “E”? Can you read the mapping straight off the wheel?
- Load a Secret and slide the shift by hand. How does the histogram change as the coded text starts to look like real English?
- Why does the tall “E” spike in the English overlay give away the key so quickly? What if a message had no letter E at all?
- Press Brute-force 26. Which shift gives the smallest χ² score, and is it always the true key for short messages?
- A shift of 26 leaves the text unchanged — so how many genuinely different Caesar keys are there, and why does that make this cipher easy to crack?