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Double transposition

Security På svenska → Updated: 2026-10-12

Double transposition runs two rounds of columnar transposition with different keys, which makes it hard to break by hand.

The message is written into a grid, with a keyword deciding the column order. The result is then written into a second grid with another key. Each round moves letters without changing them, so the ciphertext's letter frequencies look like ordinary text.

It is one of the more durable hand ciphers and was common in military and diplomatic communication during the 20th century. A computer breaks it quickly, though, and modern cryptography has no use for it.

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