
ADFGVX Cipher
The ADFGVX Cipher was a field cipher used by the German Army on the Western Front during World War I. ADFGVX was in fact an extension of an earlier cipher called ADFGX. Invented by Colonel Fritz Nebel and introduced in March 1918, the cipher was a fractionating transposition cipher which combined a modified Polybius square with a single columnar transposition. The cipher is named after the six possible letters used in the ciphertext: A, D, F, G, V and X. These letters were chosen deliberately because they sound very different from each other when transmitted via Morse code. The intention was to reduce the possibility of operator error.
Let's examine the way cipher works using an example. Our message is "I am going." First we must clean and process the message: "iamgoing". It should contain only digits and latin letters in lowercase. All other characters (such as punctuation) are skipped. Then we fill the "adfgvx" table with our secret alphabet "dhxmu4p3j6aoibzv9w1n70qkfslyc8tr5e2g".
\ A D F G V X \------------ A| d h x m u 4 D| p 3 j 6 a o F| i b z v 9 w G| 1 n 7 0 q k V| f s l y c 8 X| t r 5 e 2 g
Using this square, the message is converted to fractionated form (row-column):
i a m g o i n g FA DV AG XX DX FA GD XX
Then, a new table is created with a key as the heading. Let's use 'cipher'...
CheckiO Extensions allow you to use local files to solve missions. More info in a blog post.
In order to install CheckiO client you'll need installed Python (version at least 3.8)
Install CheckiO Client first:
pip3 install checkio_client
Configure your tool
checkio --domain=py config --key=
Sync solutions into your local folder
checkio sync
(in beta testing) Launch local server so your browser can use it and sync solution between local file end extension on the fly. (doesn't work for safari)
checkio serv -d
Alternatevly, you can install Chrome extension or FF addon
checkio install-plugin
checkio install-plugin --ff
checkio install-plugin --chromium
Read more here about other functionality that the checkio client provides. Feel free to submit an issue in case of any difficulties.