Abstract—Security of information systems depends heavily
on the strength of the cryptosystem. Throughout the years,
several cryptosystem algorithms have been developed. These
algorithms may inherit some weakness that can jeopardize the
integrity of the data. In this paper, we present a genetic
algorithm to crack a transposition cipher that extends on the
notable research in the field and introduces new ideas including
a novel crossover function, a dictionary of the most used words
in the English language to evaluate the fitness of the keys in any
generation, a dynamic selection method, and a variable
generating number. This algorithm starts with a very small
randomly selected set of keys, and proceeds the crossover
operation on the highly fit keys to produce next generations
until a specific number of generations, the final result produces
a key that is either a perfect match to the original encryption
key or one that is very close. Our experiments and results show
mostly optimal solutions for the keys in linear time performance
which is a dramatic improvement to the brute force algorithm
that takes a factorial time to crack the key.
Index Terms—Cipher key, cryptanalysis, dictionary
matching, genetic algorithm, transposition cipher.
Omar Alkathiry is with King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
(e-mail: omar.alkathiry@gmail.com).
Ahmad Al-Mogren is with College of Computer and Information
Sciences, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia (e-mail:
ahalmogren@ksu.edu.sa).
[PDF]
Cite: Omar Alkathiry and Ahmad Al-Mogren, "A Powerful Genetic Algorithm to Crack a Transposition
Cipher," International Journal of Future Computer and Communication vol. 3, no. 6, pp. 395-399, 2014.
