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historical_ciphers

Python package for encrypting, decrypting, and hacking historical ciphers. These are not secure for modern cryptographic purposes, obviously. They are for educational purposes, and of course for the fun and lulz.

Current implementations are done in an object oriented manner. Functional implementations are TK TK TK.

Credit where credit is due: this package draws heavily from Al Sweigart's book Hacking Secret Ciphers with Python.

Classes

Each of the classes in this module are (so far) subclasses of the Cipher class, and inherit its __init__ method and base parameters: message, ciphertext, and key. The base class also includes empty .encrypt() and .decrypt() methods, but those are present only to allow the inherited __init__ methods of subclasses automatically encrypt/decrypt a ciphertext/message if a key and a message/ciphertext are provided. So

    a_caesar_cipher = Caesar('This is a secret message', key = 9)
    print(a_caesar_cipher.ciphertext)

will not raise an AttributeError.

Hacking

The hack methods for each subclass of Cipher rely on programmatic detection of a language. At the moment, this is done by loading the dictionary file that was distributed with Hacking Secret Ciphers with Python, but that can be easily adjusted by passing a filename to the global-level load_dictionary() function. I tried to keep the name of the is_langage() function language agnostic (even though the semantics of the code is English... but them's the breaks).

Unit Testing

I've started building a comprehensive unit test script, for kicks. It currently runs through defined key values for Caesar, Transposition, and Affine ciphers; a defined range of keys and 1000 random keys for Caesar; up to the range of len(message)/2 for Transposition; and 1000 random keys for Affine.

In order to expand possible inputs or randomness for tests, I will need to write ways to handle exceptions to the expected input for each attribute. Also on the agenda are tests for the autogeneration of attributes on object instantiation/construction.

Future Plans

Want to see a curious historic cipher implemented? Let me know.