Tool for decrypting / coding with the Tap code/cipher, it takes his name because it consists of transmitting coordinates in a letter grid by knocking/hitting things/a wall (or producing sounds)
Tap Code Cipher - dCode
Tag(s) : Substitution Cipher, GRID_CIPHER
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Tap Code, also known as tap cipher, is an encryption method that uses sequences of taps to represent letters in a grid/matrix.
The tap code cipher uses a grid of letters, usually 5x5, containing 25 of the 26 letters of the alphabet. The letter that is omitted is often J (replaced by I) or K (replaced by C).
The coordinates (row, column) of the cells of the grid are numbered from 1 to 5 and thus any cell has an quivalent pair of digits (row, column)
Example:
\ | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | A | B | C | D | E |
2 | F | G | H | I | J |
3 | L | M | N | O | P |
4 | Q | R | S | T | U |
5 | V | W | X | Y | Z |
Each character of the plain message must be present in the grid otherwise it can not be encoded.
The principle of the tap code is to strike a number of hits corresponding to the coordinates of each character.
Example: D in position 1,4 (row 1 column 4) corresponds to 1 then 4 shots and so DCODE translates to . .... . ... ... .... . .... . .....
The decryption of the tap code requires knowing the grid and counting the numbers of tap/knock by arranging them in groups of 2 forming the coordinates (row, column) of each letter of the plain message.
Example: To decode the message .... ..... . ... ....., count the dots (the taps): 4 4 1 1 3 5, rewrite in groups of 2 (4,4) (1,1) (3,5) and translate these coordinates into letters, respectively T,A,P, so TAP is the message in plain text.
The message is composed of a single character repeated between 1 and 5 times, a separator (like /) can be used, similar to the Morse.
The message can be in the form of a sound or a or light, again repetitive.
The name tap or knock is the onomatopoeia of the noise when the code is tapped or knocked on a surface such as a wall.
By default the grid is often the same: composed of the alphabet but without the letter K or the letter J (sometimes the letter Z), testing these few grids should be enough, otherwise to use a random grid and use the mono-alphabetic substitution decryption tool.
The grid can have a different size, different content such as a mixed alphabet or even reverse the writing of the coordinates (row-column or column-row).
A 6x6 grid containing 36 characters (26 letters and 10 digits) can be used to encode alphanumeric messages containing words and numbers.
Any communication/tapping containing 6, 7, 8 or more successive taps may indicate something special, a start of a message, an end of a message, a mistake made, etc.
The code is certainly very old, but there is no specific date. It has been used by prisoners in jails for centuries.
A little more recently, this code was used during the Vietnam War by a certain Captain Carlyle (Smitty) Harris.
A source code for tap code encryption would look like // Pseudo-code
function tapCodeEncrypt(message) {
tapCodeGrid = [
["A", "B", "C", "D", "E"],
["F", "G", "H", "I", "J"],
["L", "M", "N", "O", "P"],
["Q", "R", "S", "T", "U"],
["V", "W", "X", "Y", "Z"]
]
encryptedMessage = "";
for each character in message {
for i from 0 to 4 {
for j from 0 to 4 {
if (tapCodeGrid[i][j] == character) {
encryptedMessage += (i+1)*"." + " " + (j+1)*"." + " "
}
}
}
}
return encryptedMessage
}
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Cite as source (bibliography):
Tap Code Cipher on dCode.fr [online website], retrieved on 2024-12-04,