Cipher 101 Tutorials

Baconian Cipher Tutorial

Beginner 20 minutes

What is the Baconian Cipher?

The Baconian cipher is a method of steganography (hiding a message) created by Francis Bacon. It uses a binary encoding (two distinct values, traditionally 'A' and 'B') to represent letters of the alphabet.

The Baconian Alphabet

Each letter is represented by a sequence of five 'A's and 'B's. Here is the standard mapping:

A: AAAAA, B: AAAAB, C: AAABA, D: AAABB, E: AABAA, F: AABAB, G: AABBA, H: AABBB, I/J: ABAAA, K: ABAAB, L: ABABA, M: ABABB, N: ABBAA, O: ABBAB, P: ABBBA, Q: ABBBB, R: BAAAA, S: BAAAB, T: BAABA, U/V: BAABB, W: BABAA, X: BABAB, Y: BABBA, Z: BABBB

Practice Time!

Let's encrypt "HELLO" using the Baconian cipher.

H -> AABBB

E -> AABAA

L -> ABABA

L -> ABABA

O -> ABBAB

So, "HELLO" becomes "AABBBAABAAABABABABB".