CIPHERNAUT
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Cipher catalogue
GraphicDifficulty: Hard

Vector cipher

Letters drawn from lines in a 3x3 dot grid - rotated, inverted, or two letters stacked in colour.

Try it

27 characters

Result · Vector cipher

e67 e73 e13 ef9 e73 d08 / f94 e73 e67 e67 ef4 e37 e73 / e50 e97 ef9 / d08 2f4 e73 / e13 213 297 ef7

How it works

  1. 1Each letter is built from lines between neighbouring points of a 3x3 grid. There are 12 possible segments (6 horizontal, 6 vertical) and every letter uses its own set.
  2. 2The picture is then disguised: rotated a quarter turn, drawn as its missing lines only (inverse), or two letters in a row are put into one grid.
  3. 3For the overlay, colours tell them apart: only the first letter = blue, only the second = amber, both = green. A word with an odd length gets an X at the end.
  4. 4To decode, rotate the picture back (or fill in the missing lines) and recognise the letter. The faint dots help you find your way around the grid.

Example

HI

Did you know

You know letters made of line segments from calculator displays, where digits are built from seven segments. Here there are twelve segments and they make up the whole alphabet. The idea of a vector cipher with rotation, inversion and colour overlays is inspired by the Cipher tool by Radek Pelanek; the line font is our own, so the letter shapes may differ from his site.

Try to decode

This message is encrypted with Vector cipher using the default settings:

Hint

Tilt your head a quarter turn to the right, or turn the paper. The letter S needs three horizontal lines.

Show solution

SECRET

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