"Hello, World" Key Equivocation

Given that the ciphertext KHOOR ZRUOG was encrypted using a Cæsar cipher, what is the key equivocation? Clearly there are 26 possible keys; here is the decryption of the ciphertext for each key:
keyplaintextkeyplaintextkeyplaintext
AKHOOR ZRUOGRTQXXA IADXPJBYFFI QILFX
ZLIPPS ASVPHQURYYB JBEYQICZGGJ RJMGY
YMJQQT BTWQIPVSZZC KCFZRHDAHHK SKNHZ
XNKRRU CUXRJOWTAAD LDGASGEBIIL TLOIA
WOLSSV DVYSKNXUBBE MEHBTFFCJJM UMPJB
VPMTTW EWZTLMYVCCF NFICUEGDKKN VNQKC
UQNUUX FXAUMLZWDDG OGJDVDHELLO WORLD
TROVVY GYBVNKAXEEH PHKEWCIFMMP XPSME
SSPWWZ HZCWOBJGNNQ YQTNF

Assuming the plaintext is ordinary English (and not a code), the only possible plaintext is HELLO WORLD and the key is D.


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Department of Computer Science
University of California at Davis
Davis, CA 95616-8562



Page last modified on 1/15/99