Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

Unless they simply took random letters from some other text to get their spaces, in which case you'd get the correct frequency, in a sufficiently large text, with no meaning.


My initial thought was that they were inserted as a diversion to those who thought a simple frequency analysis would break what appeared to be a simple substitution cipher. Whereas in practice, the 'expected' substitutions yield gibberish, and the actual message is encoded using poly-alphabetic substitutions to throw off simple attacks.




Consider applying for YC's Fall 2026 batch! Applications are open till July 27.

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: