This is
a Flash
utility to build single- or double-key Vigenere
tables in English or Cyrillic. It is a work-in-process, so may well change
from day to day, but for now it is functional with what it does so far,
so I am making it public.
To test this utility,
you may wish to generate the table that is on the Kryptos
sculpture in Langley, Virginia, or the one on the Cyrillic
Projector sculpture in Charlotte, North Carolina. I also have included
here the keywords that are needed to actually solve parts 1 and 2 of the
Kryptos sculpture's code.
Keyword1
Keyword2
Kryptos
Table
KRYPTOS
(blank)
Cyrillic
Projector Table
TEHЬ
(blank)
Part
1 of Kryptos
KRYPTOS
PALIMPSEST
Part
2 of Kryptos
KRYPTOS
ABSCISSA
Quickstart:
Click on
the purple "Generate line" button several times to build
a Vigenere table with the existing keys
To generate
a table with different keys, please type whichever key you want
into the boxes
To create
a single-key table, erase keyword2
To type
in Cyrillic, click on the green "Generate Cyrillic Keyboard"
button, and then you can click on the characters to build a word
which you can copy/paste into the appropriate keyword box
You shouldn't
need any special fonts on your computer to see the Cyrillic characters
or generate the tables while using this utility online via the
web. BUT, in order to copy/paste to your own system, you *will*
need a Cyrillic font installed, otherwise pasting the text will
probably just result in gibberish on your end. There are several
fonts which will work fine (and several Cyrillic fonts which won't!).
One font in particular that will work is ER
Kurier KOI-8.
Known bugs/issues:
This page does not do
any automatic encoding or decoding (yet) -- it simply generates a Vigenere
table. Future versions will have decoding functionality
On some computers, the
English/Cyrillic dropdown box will occasionally go into permanently selected
"grey" mode. While in this mode, attempting to type a keyword with
the letters "C" or "E" into one of the keyword boxes will
probably force the language to change back and forth to Cyrillic or English,
accordingly. Until I upload a fix, the way to deal with this is either to
end your keyword with an extra C or E to force the language back to whatever
you want, and then backspace over the letter once it's toggled, or to use
your mouse to click in one of the text boxes and see if you can force the
"focus" to change in that way.
Generating the Cyrillic
Keyboard will not automatically switch the language to Cyrillic. To use one
of the keywords that you "type" with the keyboard, copy it to the
clipboard, ensure that the language box is toggled to Cyrillic, and then paste
the clipboard into the appropriate keyword box
This page is not now,
and never will be, a language translator. Toggling back and forth between
languages will not show you the "Russian/English equivalent" of
whatever was previously in the box. The keyword boxes are simply filled in
with some commonly-used keywords to save time. If you're looking for a translator, try here or here.
I am aware of the issues involved with KOI-8 and 1251 fonts. For now, this utility uses KOI-8 because it provided the best adaptability between various applications I was using. It may switch to 1251 in the future (or I may provide a toggle). If you have an opinion on the matter, please let me know.