Questions tagged [pen-and-paper]

The term "pen and paper" can practically be interpreted as "using no tools like electronic devices", since it targets cryptographic functions, schemes, and procedures which can be handled by humans who have nothing more available than the option to use manual writing. So, "pen and paper" can also mean "pencil and post-it", "chalkboard and chalk", "wall and spraycan", etc.

The term "pen and paper" refers to cryptographic functions, schemes, and procedures that can be handled by humans, without access to computers or other electronic equipment. So, "pen and paper" can also mean "pencil and post-it", "chalkboard and chalk", "wall and spraycan", etc.

To explain it a bit more practically: the term "pen and paper" originates in military cryptography, where soldiers in the field can frequently find themselves in situations where they need to apply cryptography to transport messages in a secure way, but have nothing but a pencil and some paper available to do so.

On the Cryptography stackexchange, the more specific tag applies to cryptography that historically existed before computers, while the more general "pen-and-paper" tag also applies to recently-created cryptography.

The related tag can be seen as covering cryptographic systems intended to run on slow, low-memory smartcards and other constrained systems, rather than general-purpose computers.

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Is there any strong enough pen-and-paper or mind cipher?

Some ciphers are talked about at “Is there a secure cryptosystem that can be performed mentally?”, but (at the time of writing) I don't see an answer. Are they strong enough, or are non-computer ciphers more or less just a toy and one should…
Smit Johnth
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Toy encryption system that provides "hints"

I'm looking for a toy encryption system that has a specific property that when decrypting it with a key that is close enough to the key used in the encryption, it will produce some of the original plain text. The idea is to use it as a game/teaching…
AndresQ
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Are there any strong manual ciphers?

Are there any strong manual (i.e. performed only by pen and paper) ciphers for practical use? It should be: no less strong than modern cryptography algorithms used in computers, at least relatively fast/easy to encrypt/decrypt with just a pen and…
user62738
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Where can I find information on the speed of basic hand-operated ciphers?

I have a science fair project coming along, and I'd like to focus on a basic cipher (something simple, like a substitution cipher) and how I could make a similar system that would be about equally secure but would be faster to decode. Is there…
T-bone
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