Cipher workbench
Every lock in here was made to be opened.
Three tools the Archive's readers use to break what they find. Everything runs in your browser.
Caesar shift
Move every letter
Each letter slides a fixed number of places down the alphabet. The oldest cipher in the book, and still the first one people try.
A1Z26
Numbers to letters
A is 1, Z is 26. Spies have hidden words in plain sight this way for a century. So have radio stations.
Book cipher
The Beale method
Each number points to a word in a key text. Take the first letter. The key below is the opening of the Declaration of Independence, the same key that broke the second Beale cipher.