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Frequency distribution for plaintext and its repeated-key Vigenère cipher Figure 1: Relative frequency of occurrence of letters in this section and hence in any simple substitution cipher of the text and in a Playfair cipher. A Vigenere cipher table displays the alphabet in both the top row and left column, with rows shifted to create a grid for encryption and decryption. Highlighted letters illustrate how to use the table. An explanation and example using the words cipher, key, and plaintext appears to the right.
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Frequency distribution for plaintext and its repeated-key Vigenère cipher
Frequency distribution for plaintext and its repeated-key Vigenère cipher The most frequent plaintext letter is assigned a value of 100 and the remaining plaintext and ciphertext letters are given values from 0 to 100 relative to their frequency of occurrence. Thus, the most frequent letter (1 on the horizontal scale) has a value of 100, while the next most frequent letter (2) has a value of about 78, and so forth. The Vigenère ciphertext has a remarkably less-telling distribution, although not as pronounced as the completely flat random polyalphabetic cipher.

In cryptology, plaintext refers to the original, intelligible form of data before it is encrypted or after it has been decrypted. This is the information that is intended to be kept secret.12

When plaintext is transformed into an unreadable format using an algorithm and a secret key, it becomes ciphertext. The process of converting plaintext to ciphertext is called encryption. The reverse process, converting ciphertext back into readable plaintext, is called decryption. This ensures that only authorized individuals with the correct key can access the original information.2

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  1. plaintext
  2. cryptology - The fundamentals of codes , ciphers , and authentication

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