Having had some time to read and think a bit, one question I have is; how long does it take to break a cipher? I would suspect that a practised cryptoanalyst could crack one with a computer PDQ. With that in mind..

I would like to test some of you cryptos, if you are game. I will provide a cipher, via email for anyone to break, unless the moderator suggests I just post the blocks here. I will send it in blocks of around 15 words, maybe more, maybe less, for as long as it takes for participants to break it. No fancy encryption here, just paper and pencil stuff. I will use the same cipher technique all the way through and I will post it after the fact, if there is any interest.

My questions would be, how long did it take? How did you do it? If you use some proprietary tool that is hush hush, you will obviously not be able to answer that last one in detail, but maybe you could tell me, by computer or by hand. What was your aha! moment? When did you know you had the key and why?

David Davis
Toledo, OR 97391