Each plaintext letter is replaced by a different cipher text letter not equal to itself. The name "Aristocrat" probably originated from members of the American Cryptogram Association.
Solution Methodologies:
Letter Frequency:
Certain letters in English (all languages for that fact) occur more frequently than others.
For example, the letters E and T will often be the two most statistically frequent letters found in random samples of 100 letters and the letter Z the least frequent.
That the frequency count of any particular letter can have a wide variance in any given 100 letter sample prevents us from relying totally on letter frequencies as a soul method of analysis.
It has been shown that where text has been purposely manipulated, i.e., removing the word THE from a sample, will dramatically reduce the frequencies of E, T and H.
The Statistics button on the cipher view screen will bring up a screen with all the relevant statistics of the current cipher being analyzed.
The statistics for each category are divided between the actual ciphertext letter frequencies in a given cipher and the expected letter counts
based on the total number of letters and what might be expected based on statistical analysis of other samples. The results are sorted from highest
to lowest with only the most significant higher values being shown. These expected frequencies are derived from various sources and my own research.
- Letter Frequencies - actual count of each ciphertext letter in the cipher
- Expected Letter Frequencies - the expected statistical letter frequencies based on sample size
- Initial Frequencies - count of those letters appearing at the beginning of each word
- Expected Initial Frequencies - the expected statistical initial letter counts
- Terminal Frequencies - count of those letters appearing at the end of each word
- Expected Terminal Frequencies - the expected statistical terminal letter counts
- Digraphic (Two letter) Frequencies - count of the two letter combinations
- Expected Digraphic Frequencies - The expected statistical two letter counts
Word Pattern:
Consider the ciphertext segment: GTCG, if the ciphertext letter G has a high frequency of occurrence in the cryptogram
then the plaintext solution might be THAT. Of course one must judge the validity of any pattern substitution based on the context of other patterns
and the actual letter frequencies, since there are about 117 words that could satisfy this pattern.
Guessing - Trial and Error:
Using word patterns and letter frequency analysis together is a great way to find an opening solution in a cryptogram.
Using trial and error is often the only way to solve a cryptogram.
Credits:
Thanks to the folks at Obsidian Dawn, www.obsidiandawn.com, for their great Runes brushes used in several of the graphics.
Developer:
Ross Inglish
http://www.rossinglish.com
