# 1.1.1.4. Formatting Conventions¶

Before studying any encryption methods, it will be helpful to understand the formatting conventions that will be used in the course. Plaintext will be typed in lowercase monospaced letters, ciphertext will be typed in UPPERCASE MONOSPACED LETTERS, and keys will be typed in UPPERCASE MONOSPACE ITALICS.

Text Type

Formatting

Plaintext

the urge to discover secrets

Key

3

Ciphertext

WKH XUJH WR GLVFRYHU VHFUHWV

Monospaced fonts are helpful to keep text spaced uniformly so letters on different lines line up underneath each other. Uniform spacing and text alignment are helpful when looking for patterns in ciphertext. Additionally, programming environments always use monospaced fonts to keep your computer code tidy and make it easy to reference rows and character positions in the code.

Some common Monospaced fonts on your computer are: Courier New, Source Code Pro, Monaco, and Menlo.

You may have noticed in the opening activity that knowing the number of letters in each word was incredibly valuable when analyzing ciphertext. The sender of a message can improve the security of encrypted text by grouping letters into blocks of 5. The result is a ciphertext that removes all information about the length of the words in the message. This should be considered standard practice for ciphers in this course. Notice that this technique requires the recipient to correctly space out the message after decryption, but this can normally be done relatively easily by identifying words in the unspaced plaintext.

For Example:

Text Type

Formatting

Plaintext

the urge to discover secrets

Ciphertext

WKH XUJH WR GLVFRYHU VHFUHWV

Ciphertext (blocked)

WKHXU JHWRG LVFRY HUVHF UHWV

Deciphered Plaintext (blocked)

theur getod iscov ersec rets