Breaking the ADFGVX Cipher: A World War I Challenge

#cryptology, #cryptography, #cryptanalysis

This short video shows how to create and break ADFGX and ADFGVX ciphers.

The ADFG(V)X cipher was invented in 1918 during WWI by German officer Fritz Nebel and also broken in 1918 by French officer Georges Painvin. These ciphers were one of the first fractionating ciphers based on substitution and transposition (see our other videos for introductions on substitution and transposition ciphers).

If you are further interested in the algorithmic background of breaking the ADFGVX and in its historic background, we recommend to read our paper about breaking ADFGVX messages from the Easter Front of Warld War I (see [1]).

You may download the latest version of CrypTool 2 from here: https://www.cryptool.org/en/ct2/downloads

[1] Lasry, G., Niebel, I., Kopal, N., & Wacker, A. (2017). Deciphering ADFGVX messages from the Eastern Front of World War I. Cryptologia, 41(2), 101-136.

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