Alberti cipher

Abstract: This project was initiated as a continuation of the Morelli, Walde and Servos International Journal on Artificial Intelligence Tools article, "A Study of Heuristic Approaches for Breaking Short Cryptograms," forthcoming in 2004. My study is an investigation into the expanded use of Genetic Algorithms in decryption, particularly with the polyalphabetic Alberti Cipher. The Alberti Cipher was created by Leon Battista Alberti in 1467, and is considered in many ways to be the backbone of modern encryption. Alberti, a Renaissance Man to rival Da Vinci, created the first polyalphabetic cipher. Polyalphabetic ciphers encrypt using more than one alphabet and cannot be solved by letter frequency analysis. So, for a given letter, say 'e' it would be replaced by different letters each occurrence. This differs from simple substitution cipher where a given letter always receives the same substitute, because each consecutive letter in the Alberti cipher is encrypted using a different alphabet than the one proceeding it.