The Proc of the 3rd Conf on Power & Telecoms 2009

The ADFGVXY-An Extension of ADFGVX Cipher

R.I. Salawu*†, S.O. Adetona† & O. Ipinnimo††
†
Electrical and Electronic Engineering Department, University of Lagos, Akoka, Lagos, Nigeria
††
Systems Engineering Department, University of Lagos, Akoka, Lagos, Nigeria
*
Electronic and Computer Engineering Department, Lagos State University, Epe, Lagos, Nigeria

Abstract— This discussion presents a 7 by 7 cipher, which is an The first information on ciphers (the scytale) in war time is
extension of the well known 6 by 6 ADFGVX cipher. It uses a 7 related to the Sparta war general Lysander. Also Caesar is
by 7 checkerboard which takes care of punctuation marks and known to have used a cipher known as Caesar‟s cipher. Also a
other symbols which are not covered by the ADFGVX cipher. cipher known as Politius square was invented in Greece. One
The ADFGVX thus becomes a special case of the proposed of the earliest books on the subject was written by Abbot J.
cipher.
Trithminus (1462-1561) in Germany. In 1566, a well-known
mathematician, G. Cardano published paper on a ciphering
Keywords-Plaintext, Ciphertext, Encryption and Decryption system he had invented- “Cardano‟s Grill”.
The scytale had been known since the war between the
I. INTRODUCTION Spartans and Athens in the 5th Century BC. It consists of a
narrow papyrus band wound around a rod (“scytale”) without
Adamu
gaps and overlapping, and the plaintext was written along the
scytale axis. After the band is unwound, a stranger unknown
Kunle Encrypt Decrypt Chukwu
to the workings of the system could only see a meaningless
sequence of letters. Next, the band is sent to the recipient who
uses a similar scytale, wounds the band on it in the same way
Secure
Channel and reads the message along the axis. In this cipher, the
plaintext is transformed by permuting the letters; hence the
Key
Source scytale cipher is a permutation cipher.
In Caesar‟s cipher, each letter of a plaintext is replaced
Fig. 1.0 The Communication Channel [1]
with the third subsequent letter in the alphabet. What is needed
is that the recipient must know the shift. This type of cipher is
The fundamental objective of cryptography or cryptology,
known as substitution cipher; and this can be easily broken;
is to enable two people say Kunle and Chukwu to
hence several types of ciphers have been developed, over the
communicate on an insecure channel in such a way that an
years and one of these is the product cipher, which is
opponent, say, Adamu cannot understand what is being said.
discussed in this contribution.
This channel could be a shaved head of a slave, talking drum,
telephone line, or a computer network. The information that
Kunle wants to send to Chukwu - the “plaintext” may be in II. ENCRYPTION AND DECRYPTION OF MESSAGE
English, numerical data or anything at all. Its structure is
The sole aim of encrypting and decrypting information is
completely arbitrary. Kunle encrypts the plaintext using a
to ensure that the sensitive information is stored and
predetermined key and sends the resulting ciphertext over the
transmitted across insecure environment so that it cannot be
channel. Adamu upon seeing the ciphertext in the channel
read by anyone except the intended recipient [5]. The
cannot decipher what the ciphertext means but Chukwu who
encryption and decryption of signals require a mathematical
knows the encryption key can decrypt it and reconstruct the
operation; the choice of the key system, either single or double
plaintext.
key; and the choice of cipher to be produced. In this
The history of cryptography is linked with diplomacy and
discussion, the double key system would be presented and the
military secretes and also covered by legends. The most
output of the cipher would be streamed. Special attention
complete history of the subject was written by David Kahn [2]
would be focused on a double key system: The product cipher.
and covers over a thousand pages on the subject. In 1944, T.A.
Soboleva [3, 4] published a monograph on the history of the
subject in Russia.

R.I. Salawu*†, S.O. Adetona† & O. Ipinnimo†† Page 91

 The Proc of the 3rd Conf on Power & Telecoms 2009

A. Product Cipher then the route cipher is obtained as shown in Table 2.0: where
The most frequently used product cipher is known as the letters of ADETONA are numbered in their lexicological
fractionation system, which was first used by the German order. With this done, the intermediate ciphertext is written
Army during the First World War (WW1). It is also known as into the checkerboard as shown in the order they appear.
ADFGVX cipher because it makes use of the letters A, D, F, Table 2.0
G, V and X to encrypt intermediate ciphertext.
A D E T O N A
The product cipher uses two checkerboards or keys. The
first checkerboard uses ADFGVX fractionation system, and 1 3 4 7 6 5 2
uses a 6 by 6 square matrix. The matrix is used to encrypt the F V F X G F D
twenty six (26) letters of the alphabet and 10 digits into pairs
of the letters ADFGV and X, which are arranged into rows F A A F X F G
and columns of the 6 by 6 checker board. The resulting cipher F A A G D F G
of the ADFGVX system is known as intermediate cipher text.
F A A G A F G
The final ciphertext is obtained by writing the intermediate
ciphertext into a second checkerboard. The second A A * * * * *
checkerboard is more or less a route cipher [5]. The ciphertext
obtain from this route cipher is the final cipher text which is Note: The symbol * stands don‟t care
transmitted to the recipient. In order to develop the first and
second checkerboards, keyword(s) which must be agreed upon The final ciphertext to be sent to the recipient at the base
between the sender and the receiver of the message are is then written out along the columns of the matrix as they
chosen. The two parties may agree to use either the same or appear in the numerical order as shown; first taken column 1,
different keywords for the first and second checkerboards. followed by column 2, etc.
In forming the alphabet of the ADFGVX checkerboard or FFFFADGGG*VAAAAFAAA*FFFF*GXDA*XFGG*
key, the keyword is first written, and then followed by the When the recipient (i.e. the Garrison Commander at the
other letters of the alphabets which do not appear in the base) receives the final cipher text, he or she will then decrypt
keyword in each cell of the matrix in the lexicological order. the ciphertext using the information discussed below.
The intermediate ciphertext is formed by looking at each letter The number of letters that form the words that make up the
of the plaintext in the grid formed by ADFGVX checkerboard. ciphertext must be determined first. This can be obtained
Each letter of the plaintext is converted into two letters, the using equation (1):
first letter is the row in which the plaintext letter can be found nletters _ ct
and the second letter is the column in which the letter of nword _ ct  (1.0)
original information can be located (in the form of Cartesian nletters _ kwd
coordinates) as shown in the Table 1.0. In equation (1.0), the nword_ct and nletters_ct stand for number
In Table 1.0, suppose SUNDAY is used as the keyword; S of words and letters in the received cipher text respectively;
in Sunday becomes AA, U becomes AD, N becomes AF, and whereas, nletter_kwd represents number of letters in the second
D becomes AG and so on. Suppose the signal “MORE keyword.
SOLIDERS PLS” is sent by the commander at the war (GCW) The results obtained would be used to know how to
front to the base command (BGC); the war front commander allocate numbers to each word of the cipher text; and hence
will first use Table 1 to form the intermediate ciphertext: their placement in the columns of the route cipher
FVFXGFDF AAFXFGFAAGDFGFAA GAFGAA checkerboard. The already known keyword would now be
Table 1.0 used to determine the intermediate ciphertext. The ADFGVX
A D F G V X table together with appropriate keyword would be used to
A S U N D A Y obtain the plaintext from the intermediate cipher text.
The ADFGVX fractionation product cipher discussed so
D B C E F G H
far is very good and gives a well secured message; but a closer
F I J K L M O look at Table 1.0 reveals that no provision has been made for
G P Q R T V W some special characters and punctuation marks like space,
V X Z 0 1 2 3 semi-colon, period, inverted commas, and interjection mark
and so on. The absence of these characters may affect both the
X 4 5 6 7 8 9
encrypted and decrypted messages negatively. This problem
may be solved by increasing the matrix of the checker board to
In order to develop a second checkerboard, suppose the
7 by 7 as described in the next Section.
keyword, ADETONA, is used for the second checkerboard

R.I. Salawu*†, S.O. Adetona† & O. Ipinnimo†† Page 92

 The Proc of the 3rd Conf on Power & Telecoms 2009

checkerboard depicted in Table 3.0 is employed by the GCW

to realize the intermediate ciphertext. For clarity sake, the
B. Proposed Fractionation Product Cipher: -The ADFGVXY
intermediate ciphertext obtained from Table 3.0 based on the
Cipher
message to be encrypted is presented in a tabular form in
Instead of using a 6X6 matrix, a 7X7 matrix is created as Table 4.0. In the table, PLX stands for plaintext, whereas CTX
mentioned in Section 2.1 This matrix produces 49 cells. With represents ciphertext.
these cells, 26 of them would be used to house the letters of
the alphabetical, 10 cells for numbers and the remaining 13 Table 4.0: Conversion of PLX to intermediate CTX
cells for punctuation marks. The letters ADFGVX is now PLX A D V A N C I N G
increased to ADFGVXY. CTX AX DD GA AX FD DA AA FD DV
In Table 3.0, the world ISHOLA is the keyword. The PLX A T 7 . A . M
intermediate ciphertext that Table 3.0 produces accommodate CTX YX AX FX YX VX XD AX XD FA
some frequently used punctuation marks and special PLX ! S E N D 5 0
characters; and this has a great advantage over the ADFGVX CTX YA YX AD DF FD DD YX VG GX
cipher as will be seen in the example. PLX 0 M E N
CTX GX YX FA DF FD

It is evident from Table 4.0 that the intermediate ciphertext

obtained by the GCW is:

AXDDGAAXFDDAAAFDDVYXAXFXYXVXXDAXX
Table 3.0: The ADFGVXY cipher key, using DFAYAYXADDFFDDDYXVGGXGXYXFADFFD
ISHOLA as the keyword
A D F G V X Y Secondly, for GCW to obtain the final ciphertext from the
A I S H O L A B intermediate ciphertext, the route cipher checkerboard is
developed using already known keyword. This second key is
D C D E F G J K
presented in Table 5.0. Table 5.0 reveals that the final
F M N P Q R T U
ciphertext the GCW would send to BGC is:
G V W X Y Z 0 1
V 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 AXFXXADXYDAAAXFDYXF*XFDFDYFVX*DDDXAAF
X 9 . : ; „ “ ? GF*AAXVDADGF*GAYXXXDXD*DDVYXYDGA*
Y ! # , @ - *
This final ciphertext that emanates from GCW takes care
of both alphanumeric and other special characters
conveniently; and this will make the message well readable
III. LLUSTRATIVE EXAMPLE and unambiguous when BGC finally decrypts it.

A. Encryption Table 5.0: Route Cipher key

For the purpose of demonstration, It is assumed that the A D E T O N A
commander at the war front (GCW) and the base Garrison 1 3 4 7 6 5 2
commander (BGC) in the last example have agreed to adopt A X D D G A A
the proposed appellation ADFGVXY; and the two keywords X F D D A A A
ISHOLA and ADETONA for the first and second F D D V Y X A
checkerboards respectively. Suppose the GCW wants to send a X F X Y X V X
message to his BGC; which reads:
X D A X X D F
A Y A Y X A D
ADVANCING 7.A.M! SEND 500 MEN.
D F F D D D Y
Firstly, the plaintext needs to be converted to intermediate X V G G X G X
ciphertext by the GCW. The plaintext to be encrypted consists Y X F A D F F
of both alphanumeric and punctuation marks; hence the D * * * * * *
proposed ADFGVXY cipher is ideal and most appropriate for
the assignment. The fractionation ADFGVXY cipher

R.I. Salawu*†, S.O. Adetona† & O. Ipinnimo†† Page 93

 The Proc of the 3rd Conf on Power & Telecoms 2009

B. Decryption
For the BGC to decrypt the ciphertext at the base for [1]
necessary actions, the information provided in subsection IIA
of this paper should be followed. The BGC needs to convert [2]
the final ciphertext he receives to intermediate ciphertext
[3]
using the route cipher checkerboard; and intermediate
ciphertext he obtains from the route cipher to the plaintext
using the proposed ADFGVXY cipher checkerboard. [4]
In order to realize, route cipher checkerboard, the BGC
needs to employ eqn. (1) to determine the number of letters [5]
that forms each word of the final ciphertext. For example, the
[6]
nletters_ct = 70 and nletter_kwd = 7; hence using eqn. (1.0), it is
evident that each word of the ciphertext contains 10 letters; [7]
and this information would used to construct route cipher key
for determination of intermediate ciphertext. The Table 3.0, [8]
would be constructed by the BGC to finally decrypt the
intermediate ciphertext.
REFERENCES
D.R. Stinson (1995), Cryptology: Theory and Practice. CRC Press Inc.
New York 1995
Kahn David “Code breakers: The story of secret writing,” Macmillan,
New York, 1967
T.A. Soboleva (1994), “Cryptography throughout Russian History” (The
history of cryptography in Russia from the 18 th till the beginning of the
20th century), Moscow, 1994.
V.V. Yaschenko (2002), Cryptography: An Introduction American
Mathematical Society. USA 2002
R.I. Salawu and S.O. Adetona (2007), The Art and Science of Secured
Communication, The Institute of Security, Nigeria, 2007
The MathWork, Inc., (2007), Using MATLAB Natick, MA: The
MathWork Inc., 2007
D.A. Gufstafson (2002), Theory and Problems of Software Engineering,
Schaum‟s Outline Series, McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., 2002
S.O. Adetona (2009), “Messeges Secrecy In Electioneering
Environment.” Proceedings of 4th Annual National Conference of
Institute of Security of Nigeria, March 2009, Lagos, Nigeria, in press

IV. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION

In this presentation the usual fractionation product cipher
has been extended to cater for punctuation marks and other
symbols that are not covered by the ADFGVX cipher. It is
called the ADFGVXY cipher. It uses a 7 by 7 checkerboard
instead of the 6 by 6 checkerboard of the ADFGVX cipher. Its
use makes encryption and decryption more easily realizable by
the initiated. The proposed cipher is demonstrated with an
example.
It is noticed that both the usual and proposed modified
version product ciphers take too much time to realize and
actualize manually [8]. To make the encryption and decryption
of the product cipher very fast, it is therefore recommended
that customized software [6,7,8] be developed to handle both
coding and decoding of the message. This software should be
able to play dual roles and should be able to demand for
fractionation appellation, necessary keywords and the message
to be encrypted or decrypted from the users. Based on the
information provided by the user, the software package should
be able to display either the encrypted or decrypted message
accordingly. The software may be developed by making use
application packages or procedural or productivity oriented
languages [7,8].

R.I. Salawu*†, S.O. Adetona† & O. Ipinnimo†† Page 94