Phillips
History
The Phillips cipher system was devised by the British during the First World War. It is based on a Polybius square whose rows, columns or both are reordered to form 8 different squares.
Description
The plaintext is enciphered using each square in turn for groups of 5 letters, for a 5x5 Polybius square, producing an overall period of 40. To create the cipher a 5 x 5 square matrix is filled with a keyed alphabet using all the letters of the alphabet, with J being replaced by I. If a 6 x 6 square matrix is selected the letters of the alphabet and numbers 0-9 are used with A followed by 1, B by 2, C by 3 and so on up to J followed by 0. A keyed alphabet is created from a key word, with repeated letters being omitted, followed by the unused letters of the alphabet in alphabetic order. For example the key word PATIENCE is reduced to PATIENC when repeated letters are removed. Appending unused alphabet letters produces the keyed alphabet:
PATIENCBDEFGHKLMOQRSUVWXYZ
The keyed alphabet is written into the matrix #1 horizontally and each row, or column, is numbered 1 to 5. Matrix #2 is formed from the first matrix by moving row 1 down a row, or column 1 to the right one place. The same row is moved down again to form matrices #3, #4 and #5. Matrix #6 is formed by moving the top row, numbered 2, down a row and again for Matrices #7 and #8. It should be noted that matrices #1 and #5 are the same as are matrices #2 and #8.
1 P A T I E
2 N C B D F
3 G H K L M
4 O Q R S U
5 V W X Y Z
#1
2 N C B D F
3 G H K L M
4 O Q R S U
5 V W X Y Z
1 P A T I E
#5
2 N C B D F
1 P A T I E
3 G H K L M
4 O Q R S U
5 V W X Y Z
#2
3 G H K L M
2 N C B D F
4 O Q R S U
5 V W X Y Z
1 P A T I E
#6
2 N C B D F
3 G H K L M
1 P A T I E
4 O Q R S U
5 V W X Y Z
#3
3 G H K L M
4 O Q R S U
2 N C B D F
5 V W X Y Z
1 P A T I E
#7
2 N C B D F
3 G H K L M
4 O Q R S U
1 P A T I E
5 V W X Y Z
#4
3 G H K L M
4 O Q R S U
5 V W X Y Z
2 N C B D F
1 P A T I E
#8
Encryption is performed by locating a plaintext letter in the first matrix and substituting it with the letter diagonally below and to the right of it. If a plaintext letter is on the bottom row the cipher letter is taken from the top row and if it's on the right column the cipher letter is taken from the left column. After every 5 letters the next matrix is used and returning to matrix #1 after matrix #8.
Example
Key: PATIENCE
Plaintext: The things that come to those who wait, may be the things left by those who got there first.
#1 #2 #3 #4 #5 #6 #7 #8
theth ingst hatco metot hosew howai tmayb ethet
DRNDR MAQZL TRSKW OVYAY RWZNT BWTKM LOKEY GLRGL
hings leftb ythos ewhog otthe refir st
RFHQZ UGPLI FSTWZ VBRAQ WDDRN YGOMY FL
Solving
Solving methods: Hill Climbing and Dictionary keyword search.
In the Setup drop down menu the type needs to be selected; Row, Row-Column or Column.