from string import ascii_letters def encrypt(input_string: str, key: int, alphabet=None) -> str: """ encrypt ======= Encodes a given string with the caesar cipher and returns the encoded message Parameters: ----------- * input_string: the plain-text that needs to be encoded * key: the number of letters to shift the message by Optional: * alphabet (None): the alphabet used to encode the cipher, if not specified, the standard english alphabet with upper and lowercase letters is used Returns: * A string containing the encoded cipher-text More on the caesar cipher ========================= The caesar cipher is named after Julius Caesar who used it when sending secret military messages to his troops. This is a simple substitution cipher where very character in the plain-text is shifted by a certain number known as the "key" or "shift". Example: Say we have the following message: "Hello, captain" And our alphabet is made up of lower and uppercase letters: "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ" And our shift is "2" We can then encode the message, one letter at a time. "H" would become "J", since "J" is two letters away, and so on. If the shift is ever two large, or our letter is at the end of the alphabet, we just start at the beginning ("Z" would shift to "a" then "b" and so on). Our final message would be "Jgnnq, ecrvckp" Further reading =============== * https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caesar_cipher Doctests ======== >>> encrypt('The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog', 8) 'bpm yCqks jzwEv nwF rCuxA wDmz Bpm tiHG lwo' >>> encrypt('A very large key', 8000) 's nWjq dSjYW cWq' >>> encrypt('a lowercase alphabet', 5, 'abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz') 'f qtbjwhfxj fqumfgjy' """ # Set default alphabet to lower and upper case english chars alpha = alphabet or ascii_letters # The final result string result = "" for character in input_string: if character not in alpha: # Append without encryption if character is not in the alphabet result += character else: # Get the index of the new key and make sure it isn't too large new_key = (alpha.index(character) + key) % len(alpha) # Append the encoded character to the alphabet result += alpha[new_key] return result def decrypt(input_string: str, key: int, alphabet=None) -> str: """ decrypt ======= Decodes a given string of cipher-text and returns the decoded plain-text Parameters: ----------- * input_string: the cipher-text that needs to be decoded * key: the number of letters to shift the message backwards by to decode Optional: * alphabet (None): the alphabet used to decode the cipher, if not specified, the standard english alphabet with upper and lowercase letters is used Returns: * A string containing the decoded plain-text More on the caesar cipher ========================= The caesar cipher is named after Julius Caesar who used it when sending secret military messages to his troops. This is a simple substitution cipher where very character in the plain-text is shifted by a certain number known as the "key" or "shift". Please keep in mind, here we will be focused on decryption. Example: Say we have the following cipher-text: "Jgnnq, ecrvckp" And our alphabet is made up of lower and uppercase letters: "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ" And our shift is "2" To decode the message, we would do the same thing as encoding, but in reverse. The first letter, "J" would become "H" (remember: we are decoding) because "H" is two letters in reverse (to the left) of "J". We would continue doing this. A letter like "a" would shift back to the end of the alphabet, and would become "Z" or "Y" and so on. Our final message would be "Hello, captain" Further reading =============== * https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caesar_cipher Doctests ======== >>> decrypt('bpm yCqks jzwEv nwF rCuxA wDmz Bpm tiHG lwo', 8) 'The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog' >>> decrypt('s nWjq dSjYW cWq', 8000) 'A very large key' >>> decrypt('f qtbjwhfxj fqumfgjy', 5, 'abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz') 'a lowercase alphabet' """ # Turn on decode mode by making the key negative key *= -1 return encrypt(input_string, key, alphabet) def brute_force(input_string: str, alphabet=None) -> dict: """ brute_force =========== Returns all the possible combinations of keys and the decoded strings in the form of a dictionary Parameters: ----------- * input_string: the cipher-text that needs to be used during brute-force Optional: * alphabet: (None): the alphabet used to decode the cipher, if not specified, the standard english alphabet with upper and lowercase letters is used More about brute force ====================== Brute force is when a person intercepts a message or password, not knowing the key and tries every single combination. This is easy with the caesar cipher since there are only all the letters in the alphabet. The more complex the cipher, the larger amount of time it will take to do brute force Ex: Say we have a 5 letter alphabet (abcde), for simplicity and we intercepted the following message: "dbc" we could then just write out every combination: ecd... and so on, until we reach a combination that makes sense: "cab" Further reading =============== * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brute_force Doctests ======== >>> brute_force("jFyuMy xIH'N vLONy zILwy Gy!")[20] "Please don't brute force me!" >>> brute_force(1) Traceback (most recent call last): TypeError: 'int' object is not iterable """ # Set default alphabet to lower and upper case english chars alpha = alphabet or ascii_letters # The key during testing (will increase) key = 1 # The encoded result result = "" # To store data on all the combinations brute_force_data = {} # Cycle through each combination while key <= len(alpha): # Decrypt the message result = decrypt(input_string, key, alpha) # Update the data brute_force_data[key] = result # Reset result and increase the key result = "" key += 1 return brute_force_data def main(): while True: print(f'\n{"-" * 10}\n Menu\n{"-" * 10}') print(*["1.Encrypt", "2.Decrypt", "3.BruteForce", "4.Quit"], sep="\n") # get user input choice = input("\nWhat would you like to do?: ").strip() or "4" # run functions based on what the user chose if choice not in ("1", "2", "3", "4"): print("Invalid choice, please enter a valid choice") elif choice == "1": input_string = input("Please enter the string to be encrypted: ") key = int(input("Please enter off-set: ").strip()) print(encrypt(input_string, key)) elif choice == "2": input_string = input("Please enter the string to be decrypted: ") key = int(input("Please enter off-set: ").strip()) print(decrypt(input_string, key)) elif choice == "3": input_string = input("Please enter the string to be decrypted: ") brute_force_data = brute_force(input_string) for key, value in brute_force_data.items(): print(f"Key: {key} | Message: {value}") elif choice == "4": print("Goodbye.") break if __name__ == "__main__": main()