Nihilist cipher en · NOUN
Etymology
The cipher was originally used by Russian Nihilists in the 1880s to organise terrorism against the tsarist regime.
Meanings
- (historical) A symmetric cipher in which a Polybius square using a mixed alphabet is used to convert both the plain text and a keyword to a series of two-digit numbers, which are then summed in the normal way to get the ciphertext, with the key numbers repeated as required; (by extension) any of several improved algorithms based on this.
Forms
| Spelling | Features | Labels | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nihilist ciphers | Number=Plur | lexicographic |