Fractionated Morse Cipher

The fractionated morse cipher is a cipher that encodes a plaintext into morse code and “fractions” it up into groups of three to encode it!

Let’s walk through an example.

Encoding

First, you must have the plaintext and a morse code encoder:

Plaintext:

Hello World

Morse Code Encoder:

Convert the plain text into morse code using the morse code decoder.

It should look like this:

•••• • •–•• •–•• ––– / •–– ––– •–• •–•• –••

Now, encode the plaintext into morse code and put Xs in between each letter, and XXs between each word.

It should look like this:

••••X•X•–••X•–••X–––XX•––X–––X•–•X•–••X–••

Now, you will need the grouping chart for this part of the encoding.

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Now, split up the morse encoded plaintext and split it up into groups of three.

••• •X• X•– ••X •–• •X– ––X X•– –X– ––X •–• X•– ••X –••

To encode now, find the values on the chart and translate them with the alphabet on the top row.

For example:

••• = A

•X• = G

It should look like this when you finish:

AGTCDHOTQODTCJ

That is the encoded message for this example!

How do you decode the message though?

Decoding

To decode you need the encoded message, the grouping grid, and the morse code encoder sheet.

First look at the encoded message and use the grouping grid to decode the message to get morse code.

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For example:

A = •••

G = •X•

It should look like this when you finish:

••• •X• X•– ••X •–• •X– ––X X•– –X– ––X •–• X•– ••X –••

Now remove the spaces to get:

••••X•X•–••X•–••X–––XX•––X–––X•–•X•–••X–••

Finally, decode the message using the morse code encoder sheet to get the flag! Make sure to look at the Xs and the XXs!

HELLO WORLD

That is the flag for this example!

Now go try and solve some of these challenges!

Happy decoding!