Question

What will be the ciphered text if route cipher is used for encrypting the plain text “SANFOUNDRY” with a number of columns given to be 5 and route of reading is down the columns?

(a) SUANNDFROY

(b) SORAFUDYNN

(c) SNAUDNORFY

(d) SANFOUNDRY

The question was posed to me during an online exam.

The origin of the question is Cryptography in portion Cryptography of Data Structures & Algorithms II

Answer 1

The correct choice is (a) SUANNDFROY

The explanation is: For encrypting a plain text using route cipher we use a table having 5 columns as shown below. Then we read down the columns to cipher the plain text.

S

A

N

F

O

U

N

D

R

Y

So the ciphered text becomes “SUANNDFROY”.