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TranspositionDifficulty: Medium

Skip cipher (every N-th letter)

Letters are stored at every N-th position, and after reaching the end you start again from the second slot. A scrambled text that hides your message.

Try it

27 characters

Result · Skip cipher (every N-th letter)

SSTESHCAERGCEELTFUMOBER

How it works

  1. 1Write the message in capitals without spaces and choose a number N, for example 3.
  2. 2Number the empty slots from zero. The first letter goes to slot 0, the second to slot N, the third to 2N, and so on.
  3. 3When you run past the end, go back to the start and continue from slot 1, then slot 2…
  4. 4Example with N = 2 and the text ABCDEFGHIJ: the even slots fill first, then the odd ones, giving AFBGCHDIEJ.
  5. 5To decode, read every N-th letter and jump back to the start each time you reach the end, until all letters are read.

Example

Meet at the bridge

MTRETIEHDTEGABE

Did you know

This is a transposition in the style of scout cipher games where you read every second or every third letter. The letters themselves never change, only their order, so accents survive too. The adjustable-N version here follows Radek Pelánek's Šifrátor.

Try to decode

This message is encrypted with Skip cipher (every N-th letter) using the default settings:

MTBEHREEITODALGTDE

Hint

N is small. Read every second, third… letter and start again from the second letter each time you reach the end.

Show solution

MEET AT THE OLD BRIDGE

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