Code 66 : Rotation Cipher

Rotation Cipher

Principle

The key in a rotation cipher is composed of the block size and the rotation angle. It can be rotated to the left or to the right by 90°, 180° or 270°. If the text "KURZERTEXT" should be encoded and we have a block size of 5, then the text is assigned to blocks like this:

KURZE

RTEXT

The box is read out line by line. Each different pattern of rotation will yield a different text as result.

90° R K T U E R X Z T E

180° TEXTR EZRUK

270° E T Z X R E U T K R

90°   RKTUERXZTE    
180° TXETREZRUK
270° ETZXREUTKR

Security

Security is dependent on the block size, a very small block size is more difficult to decode than a large one. The number of possible keys however is very small, especially for short texts.

Details

The rotation cipher belongs to the class of transposition ciphers.