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Keyword cipher

Write a keyword, drop its repeated letters and run the rest of the alphabet after it. That is your cipher alphabet.

Any word or phrase with at least one letter.

Result

The link opens a page that reads it. Without the key, your friend has to crack it. The message travels after the # in the link, which a browser never sends to our server.

Keyword cipher chart

Every letter, A to Z with the keyword KRYPTOS.

Where it comes from

Write a keyword, drop its repeated letters, and run the rest of the alphabet after it: that is the new alphabet. This dossier uses KRYPTOS, the word on the sculpture outside the CIA's headquarters, whose first solved panel begins with the line you will decode.

A message worth knowing: Between subtle shading. The opening words of the first solved panel of Kryptos, the sculpture outside CIA headquarters. Kryptos itself uses a harder method; this is its keyword in a simpler cipher.

Learn it by heart

This is the cipher desk from Covert Mail, our free app for learning codes. The app teaches Keyword cipher a few characters at a time, plans practice around the ones you miss, and keeps an archive of famous real messages to unlock. It is coming soon to the App Store and Google Play.

Coming soon to the App Store and Google Play

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