XOR Cipher

XOR Encryption uses the XOR operator (Exclusive Or, symbol : ⊕) with the plain text and the key as operand (that should be binary encoded).

Example: The plain message is 1001 and the key is 10

Take the first bit (0 or 1) of the plain text and the first bit of the key and multiply then using XOR operation to get the ciphered bit.

Example: 1 ⊕ 1 = 0

The operation is repeated with the second bit of the plaintext and the second bit of the key. At the end of the key, loop back to the first bit.

Example:

XOR Decryption is identical to encryption because the XOR operation is symmetrical (reverse XOR = XOR).

Example: 1001 ⊕ 1010 = 0011 and 0011 ⊕ 1010 = 1001

dCode uses the ASCII table encoding which associates with characters (including the letters of the alphabet) a number between 0 and 128, which is then converted to base 2 (binary). It is possible to use other methods to get binary encoded text.

The truth table of the 2-parameter XOR logic function is:

A xored messaged (XOR encrypted message) has no particularities, this makes it hard to detect.

It can be presented under binary form but also as ascii text.

Data in the form of a stream is well suited to XOR encoding.

Xor decryption without key is hard. It is possible to find all or a part of the key by knowing a part of the plain text. Else, there are no practical methods other than trying all the keys.

XOR is compatible with the principle of an Autoclave ciphering.