Innovative Enhancement Of The Caesar Cipher
Algorithm For Cryptography
Shreyank N Gowda
kini5gowda@gmail.com
AbstractThe Caesar Cipher algorithm for cryptography is one
of the oldest algorithms. Now much newer algorithms have
arrived that are much more secure, however in terms of speed of
execution Caesar cipher algorithm is still the fastest owing to its
simplicity. However the algorithm is extremely easy to crack.
This is because in this algorithm each character of a message is
always replaced by the same fixed character that has been
predetermined. To improve the algorithm and enhance it's
security feature, a few changes can be added. This paper
proposes an enhancement to the existing algorithm by making
use first of a simple Diffie-Hellman key exchange scenario to
obtain a secret key and later using simple mathematics to ensure
the encryption of data is much more safer. Once a private shared
key is obtained by making use of the Diffie-Hellman method, the
key is subject to the mod operation with 26 to obtain a value less
than or equal to 26, then the current character is taken and to
this the key value obtained is added to obtain a new character.
For any character in the 'x' position the key is simply first
multiplied with 'x' and then mod is done to obtain the encrypted
character. So 2nd character of the message is multiplied with 2,
third character with 3 and so on. This enhances the security and
also does not increase the time of execution by a large margin.
Keywords-Caesar-Cipher, Diffie-Hellman, Security
I. INTRODUCTION
Data privacy and security presently make up one of the
most important features of a person's life. One cannot
communicate securely anymore. There is always some
eavesdropper or a chance of leak of information. Cryptography
deals with helping to make data more secure.
Cryptography along with protection of data from theft or
alteration, can also be used for user authentication[1]. The
modern day cryptographic methods are of two types:
symmetric key cryptography and public key cryptography.
Symmetric key cryptography, is the method where the same
key is used for both the encryption phase and the decryption
phase. Public key cryptography is the method where only one
key is used for encryption process and another different key is
used for the decryption process.
The main advantage of symmetric key cryptography is that
it becomes much easier to take care of the key relative to public
key method. Since only one key is used for both encryption as
well as for decryption purpose it becomes easy to maintain it.
The key however should at no cost be revealed to the outside
world as it is the most important feature of this type of
cryptography.
978-1-5090-3480-2/16/$31.00 2016 IEEE
The Caesar cipher is one of the simplest and one of the earliest
known ciphers. It is a type of substitution cipher, in which
each letter in the plaintext is made to shift by a certain number
of places down the series of the alphabet. For example, a shift
of the 2 would mean A would then be replaced by the letter C,
B would be replaced by the letter D, and so on. This method is
named after Julius Caesar, the king, who it is claimed used this
method to communicate with his generals.
More complex encryption schemes have been developed in
recent times such as the Vigenre cipher[2] which employs the
Caesar cipher as just one part of the entire encryption process.
The widely known ROT13[3] 'encryption' is nothing but a
Caesar cipher with an offset of 13. The problem with the
Caesar cipher is that it offers no communication security, and
it can be easily broken.
To pass an encrypted message from one person to another
person, it is first necessary that both the parties have the 'key'
for the cipher so that the sender may then encrypt information
using this key and the receiver may decrypt it again using the
exact same key. For the caesar cipher, the key is nothing but
the number of characters to shift the cipher alphabet.
Following is an example, of how the Caesar cipher works. It is
done using a key of the value 1.
Plaintext: This is not me.
Cipher: Uijt jt opu nf.
It is easy to see, how each character in the plaintext is simply
shifted up the alphabet. Decryption is just as easy, by using an
offset of -1.
Cipher: Mjgf jt bnbajoh.
Plaintext form: Life is amazing.
Obviously if a different key is used, then the cipher alphabet
will be shifted a different amount. As can be seen the
simplicity of the algorithm makes it vulnerable to attacks,
since there is are repetitions and it becomes easy to decrypt the
encrypted information.
Diffie-Helman[4] is a method of generating a shared secret
between two parties, in such a way that the secret can't be seen
by just observing the communication. This is particularly
useful because you can use then this technique to create an
encryption key with someone, and then start encrypting your
traffic with that same key. And even if the traffic is recorded
and later analyzed, there is absolutely no way to figure out
what the key was, even though the exchanges, that created it
may have been visible.
But even though it makes use of the same important principles
as public key cryptography, it is not asymmetric cryptography
because nothing is being encrypted or decrypted during the
exchange of key. It is, nonetheless, an essential building-
block, and was in fact the foundation upon which asymmetric
cryptography was later built.
II. BACKGROUND
Before getting to the proposed algorithm, let us look at
some of the recent developments in cryptographic algorithms.
In [5] the authors presented a new symmetric key algorithm
using the extended MSA method called the DJSA symmetric
key algorithm. The advantage of the algorithm is that it is
almost impossible to break the decrypted information without
its key matrix being compromised.
In terms of the advancement or enhancement of the
Caesar's cipher algorithm, nothing much has been done. Most
new algorithms involve the change of existing algorithms by
adding efficiency.
In [6] the authors, proposed an algorithm based on Modulo
37. This algorithm makes use of two keys namely k1=positive
number, k2=negative number. Next they find the inverse of
both keys using modulo 37, giving 'K1, K2. Using these keys
encryption is done.
In [7] the author first generates the ASCII value of the
character and then converts that into binary. The 8 digit binary
number is then reversed. Any 4 digit number is then taken as a
divisor. The reversed number is divided by the 4 digit number.
The remainder is stored in the first 3 digits & the quotient in
the next 5 digits. If any of these are less then 3 and 5 digits
respectively we need to add required number of 0s (zeros) in
the left hand side. Example consider letter T and taking divisor
as 1000 we get the encrypted character as E.
Many such algorithms have been proposed. Mostly
modifying the existing algorithms. However the proposed
algorithm would always take more time in terms of execution.
This is understandable as to increase security of data more and
more complex algorithms are being developed.
The changes that have been developed are mostly done to
enhance the security of the existing algorithm, but each
modification is being done at the compromise of the speed of
execution.
In terms of the most popular encryption algorithms
presently are RSA, AES, DES and blowfish algorithms. Also
an innovative enhancement of DES called the 3-DES algorithm
exists as well.
RSA[8] is an algorithm used by modern computers to
encrypt and decrypt messages. It is an asymmetric
cryptographic algorithm. Asymmetric means that there are two
different keys. This is also called public key cryptography,
because one of them can be given to everyone.
The DES (Data Encryption Standard) algorithm is one of
the most widely used encryption algorithm in the world[9].
For many years, and among many people, "secret code
making" and DES have been synonymous.
3-DES[10] is similar to the standard DES algorithm, it is
actually the DES algorithm implemented using 3 different
keys to enhance the security level of the algorithm. The
original DES cipher's key size of 56 bits was generally
sufficient when that algorithm was designed, but the
availability of increasing computational power made brute-
force attacks feasible. Triple DES provides a relatively simple
method of increasing the key size of DES to protect against
such attacks, without the need to design a completely new
block cipher algorithm.
AES is an iterative[11] rather than Feistel cipher. It is based
on substitutionpermutation network. It comprises of a
series of linked operations, some of which involve replacing
inputs by specific outputs (substitutions) and others involve
shuffling bits around (permutations).
III. PROPOSED ALGORITHM
First a key exchange happens between the two users, say A
and B. This key exchange is a slight modification of the Diffie-
Hellman method. Following are the steps followed.
Step 1: Start
Step 2: Choose two different private keys for A and B and a
shared secret key for both A and B
Step 3: Send the value of private key multiplied with shared
key from A to B and similarly from B to A
Step 4: Multiply the obtained value with the private key to
obtain a key called the shared crypto key, let this value be
called 'z'
Step 5: Stop
As can be seen, the algorithm is similar to the Diffie-Hellman
method, however the numbers do not have to be prime in
nature and the key exchange is much more simpler.
Consider an example, Let's assume there are two users A and
B. Let's say that they share a public key is present it's value is
10. All keys do not have to be prime, as was the case of
Diffie-Hellman. The fact that the numbers are not prime
makes it even harder to factorise out the private keys for any else store x = z / k then find m = z + x and store k = m mod 26
intruder. Now consider A has a private key of 14. So A sends and shift character by k
the value 140 (private multiplied with shared) to B over the Step 5: Stop
insecure channel. Now B also has a private key, let us say 16.
So B sends 160 to A. Now A gets the value of shared crypto Figure 1 explains the full work flow of the algorithm.
key as 140 multiplied with 16 which is 2240. B
simultaneously calculates the key value as 160 multiplied with Start
14 which is the same, 2240. So now we can declare that 2240
is the shared crypto key.
Perform key exchange, store
Now that the most important part of the algorithm is done, the shared key as 'z'
exchange of keys, let us look at how using this key we modify
the existing algorithm of Caesar Cipher. For first character shift by z
mod 26 and store k= z mod 26
Let us continue with the example above, the shared key is
2240. Say we want to encrypt the word "hi".

So first we perform a mod operation of 2240 with 26. We get Is the full
an output of 4. So the letter 'h' is replaced by shifting 4 in the message Yes
Stop
series of alphabet. Hence 'h' is replaced by 'i'. over?

Next we divide the key by the value we previously obtained

i.e 4 and add the quotient of this division to the key again. So
quotient of 2240 divided by 4 is 560. No

Adding 2240 with 560 we get 2800. 2800 mod 26 gives us 18.
So 'i' is replaced with 'a'. So the encrypted word becomes "ia". Is
character Yes Replace blank space
There is one exception which has to be handled. If the key blank with kth alphabet
space?
mod 26 is zero we add 1 to the key. Another exception to be
considered is the use of a blank space.

In this algorithm if a blank space is encountered it is replaced No

by the previous value of the mod function as that number in
Store x = z/k, then m=z+x
the series of the alphabet.
and k=m mod 26, then shift
character by k and move to
So if after "hi" there is a space, using above example the space next character
is replaced by 18th character in the alphabet which is 'r'.

Figure 1. Flowchart of algorithm

Now let us look at the algorithm step by step to get a better
understanding.
IV. EXPERIMENTAL ANALYSIS AND RESULTS
To determine how efficient, the algorithm could be, it is
Step 1: Start
tested against two of the most common encryption algorithms,
Step 2: Key Exchange takes place and shared crypto key say the AES and DES algorithms. Table I shows the time needed
'z' is obtained for execution for all 3 algorithms in terms of the encryption
Step 3: For first character shift by z mod 26, store k = z mod part for files of different sizes.
26 TABLE I. Comparison of time for encryption
Step 4: Now for second character onwards repeat the Size of
Time of Encrpytion
following till the end S.No File
(kB)
if character is space replace by kth character of alphabet Proposed AES DES
 Size of
Time of Encrpytion ACKNOWLEDGMENT
S.No File
(kB) Proposed AES DES Any achievement, be it scholastic or otherwise does not
1. 5 0.114 0.739 0.765
depend just on the individual efforts of a person but also on the
guidance, encouragement and cooperation of intellectuals, elders
2. 10 0.501 1.794 2.165 and friends. A number of personalities, in their own capacities
3. 20 2.014 3.768 3.956 have helped me in carrying out this project work. I would like to
take this opportunity to thank them all.
I would like to thank the Head Of Department, Computer
Table II shows the comparison for the decryption part of Science And Engineering, Dr. Shoba G for invaluable advise and
the algorithm. guidance during this work along with all the faculty members of
TABLE II. Comparison of time for decryption the department.
I would also like to thank my parents and brother along
Size of with my friends for their constant support.
Time of Encrpytion
S.No File
(kB) Proposed AES DES
REFERENCES
1. 5 0.125 0.747 0.785

2. 10 0.564 1.998 2.215
3. 20 2.098 3.782 3.971
As can be seen from the results the proposed algorithm is
giving a significantly faster speed of execution for much
smaller files than that would be used for real time
execution.
CONCLUSION
A cryptographic algorithm is considered efficient enough only
when it has enough guarantee given in terms of security of
some data. But while security does it matter, the time of
execution is also equally important since it should not take too
much time to execute a particular algorithm. The proposed
algorithm as can be seen from the results, provides much
better results than the ones that have are most widely used.
Also it is an advance of the standard Caesar cipher by
providing more security and also ensuring character such as
blank space is also hidden. It maintains the essence of the
Caesar cipher algorithm in the sense that it ensures quick
encryption and provides greater security which is an added
bonus.
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