vic 0.0.1

Implementation of the pen-and-paper VIC cipher

This is a Python 3 implementation of the pen-and-paper cipher used by the Soviet spy Reino Häyhänen, codenamed “VICTOR”, in the 1950s.

If you have 3to2 from the PyPI installed you can just run make 3to2 and you will end up with a copy of the cipher implementation in the 3to2/ subdirectory converted to run under Python 2.

Usage

The vic entrypoint has two subcommands, encrypt and decrypt. To encrypt something you have to pass the following as arguments to the encrypt subcommand:

1. A 10 character key for the straddling checkerboard, with two of those characters being spaces that are used for the second and third layer of the checkerboard.

2. A 5 digit unique and random message ID.

3. A 20 character passphrase used to derive keys.

4. A date used to derive keys and to insert the message ID into the ciphertext. (DDMMYYYY)

5. A 1 or 2 digit personal identifier, unique per person.

6. A cleartext message to encrypt.

To decrypt a message you have to pass the following as arguments to the decrypt subcommand:

1. A 10 character key for the straddling checkerboard, with two of those characters being spaces that are used for the second and third layer of the checkerboard.

2. A 20 character passphrase used to derive keys.

3. A date used to derive keys and to insert the message ID into the ciphertext. (DDMMYYYY)

4. A 1 or 2 digit personal identifier, unique per person.

5. A cleartext message to encrypt.