Electronic Proceedings of the Twenty-fourth Annual International Conference on Technology in Collegiate Mathematics

Orlando, Florida, March 22-25, 2012

Paper S094

This is an electronic reprint, reproduced by permission of Pearson Education Inc. Originally appeared in the Proceedings of the Twenty-fourth Annual International Conference on Technology in Collegiate Mathematics, ISBN 0-321-869699, Copyright (C) 2013 by Pearson Education, Inc.

Using Graphs to Break Vigenere Ciphers

Rick Klima

Appalachian State University

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Neil Sigmon

Radford University

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ABSTRACT

This paper discusses how polyalphabetic ciphers, particularly the Vigen cipher, can be broken using graph comparisons involving certain ciphertext letter frequency distributions using Maplets. Also, we discuss how this technology can be used to teach cryptography to a general education audience and to promote a new textbook for this purpose.

Keyword(s): discrete mathematics