Summary of what's new:

• Version 10.0.0 — Major Update for the new season.
  • New cipher type: Homophonic Cipher with all standard features for Division B/C for 2027
  • New cipher type: Standard Galactic Alphabet encoder with all standard features for Division A for 2027
  • All tests include a Generate Scoresheet option, allowing for easy grading during competition
  • Tests can now be exported to LaTeX.
  • All ciphers now have a Suggest Quote button so you can pull a quote from the quote database directly from the cipher editor.
  • The Cryptarithm generator now supports square roots and cube roots.
  • Major improvements to the keyword suggesters: keywords may now include a duplicated letter (e.g. DELICIOUS), offer more variety in length, relaxed word frequency requirements, etc...
  • The Checkerboard Cipher can now suggest cribs and shows anagrams when suggesting keys
  • Sample tests from the 2025-2026 season are now available.
  • New single cipher test type for building practice tests with just one question.
  • The recommended minimum and maximum number of questions have been increased for Division A/B/C tests.
  • General improvements for quality of life and user experience, making the website more intuitive overall.
• Version 9.18.2
  • Support for Checkerboard Cryptanalysis Autosolver added.
• Version 9.17.0
  • Update for 2025-2026 season. Initial release of Checkerboard Cipher.
• Version 9.14.0
  • Lots of small bug fixes. Adrian has updated the Suggest Question logic to give you choices of generated question text.
• Version 9.9.0
  • Updates for the new season.
• Version 9.8.0
  • Font sizes for the printed tests have been increased. Additionally the Cryptarithm printout has been realigned to put the mapping matrix up to the right of the solution box. The combination of these makes it so that more often there will be two ciphers printed per page.
• Version 9.5.0
  • We added a bit more control over the generation of the Baconian symbols. You can now zoom them larger for when using emojis (or anything else that you just want to be larger). There is also now an option to generate the output as a bitmap instead of fonts for those printers that have trouble rendering some of the characters.
• Version 9.0.0 -- MAJOR UPDATE!
  • Combined with the Test Builder, all of the cipher types now provide suggested question text and score values based on the analyzed difficulty of the question.
  • Please note: if you find that the recommended scores are too high/low for a given phrase, please enter an issue at github.com/toebes/ciphers/issues. In order to not put the quote in public, you can mail it to codebusters@toebes.com referencing the issue number.
  • Ciphers now include a Quote Author field for the quote so that the recommended question text can include the source of the quote
  • The Baconian words cipher has buttons to automatically set the groupings of A/B values
  • The Baconian sequence cipher can suggest unicode combining overstrikes for the A/B text
  • Aristocrats/Patristocrats/Xenocrypts have support for suggesting K1/K2/K3 keywords
  • Aristocrats have a new dialog for finding homonyms in phrases and introducing typographical errors when creating a Misspelled cipher.
  • The Cryptorithm generator has been sped up multiple orders of magnitude when checking addition/subtraction problems.
  • The Test Builder phrase suggestion now allows for keywords to filter the quote search.
• Version 8.10.0
  • We added a new tiny answerkey option to allow printing all of the answers in only a couple of pages to make it easier when grading. The new Test Builder propagates special bonus and Xenocrypt translations.
• Version 8.9.0
  • The new Test Builder is available along with the Quote Manager. Together you can upload quotes from a spreadsheet and generate a test and automatically suggest appropriate quotes to use on the test.
• Version 8.7.0
  • Many samples have been added.
  • The summary of rules now includes Division A.
• Version 7.7.0
  • Cryptarithms and Hill ciphers now check the question to make sure that it matches the problem. A new tool has been added when creating a test to allow adjusting the question score values of the overall test to allow distribution of the last two digits of the score in order to reduce the likelihood of a tie.
• Version 7.4.0
  • Cryptarithms now have a generator which will search sets of words to give problems to choose from. As always, please report any problems at github.com/toebes/ciphers/issues.
• Version 7.1.3
  • Cryptarithms should be fully supported now. As always, please report any problems at github.com/toebes/ciphers/issues.
• Version 7.0.0
  • Addition of the new ciphers for the 2022-2023 season. As always, please report any problems at github.com/toebes/ciphers/issues.
• Version 5.8.3
  • We have pushed quite a few fixes for the integration with Scilympiad. Additionally, the user experience for uploading images of working on paper has been completed, but there still are a few things to be done before it will be turned on. As always, please report any problems at github.com/toebes/ciphers/issues.
• Version 5.6.0
  • We have added support for Railfence offsets for division C along with some new experimental support to allow for uploading pictures of paper copies of a test. We have also enhanced the baconian cipher to allow emojis and other fancy characters as well as support for spaces when generating a sequence.
• Version 5.0.0
  • This represents a major change in the underlying test model data structure which should result in significantly better performance for the server when generating/loading/scoring a test. We have tried our best to make it backward compatible with any tests previously generated on the server. If you notice any problems with the realtime tests, please report any problems at github.com/toebes/ciphers/issues.
  • Quite a few bugs have been fixed including scoring of Vigenère ciphers and better tracking which ciphers are legal for the different tests.
• Version 4.2.0
  • Implemented many of the new features for the season including the Porta Cipher, Special Bonus Questions and keyword solutions.
• Version 4.1.2
  • Implement tracking of out of browser time for when the main window is not active. It now shows a "OBT" message in the timer window tracking the total time that the window was not active. Track time changes more accurately.
• Version 4.1.1
  • Minor fix to track attempts to change the local time on the client. Updated privacy policy.
• Version 4.1.0
  • Many bug fixes for importing schedules for tests. Clean up error messages when publishing a test.
• Version 4.0.5
  • Fix elusive bug which caused the system to sometimes lose Affine answers.
• Version 4.0.4
  • Catch expired tokens which were generating odd error messages about missing id.
• Version 4.0.3
  • Eliminated caching the time calls so that local browsers on Linux wouldn't end up with an incorrect time. Major rewrite of the scoring software to be more efficient with the server.
• Version 4.0.2
  • We have cleaned up the code for settings dates for scheduled tests to prevent invalid ranges and email addressed from being entered and removed any tests which had dates which were out of range and invalid email addresses which could cause problems on the system.
• Version 4.0.1
  • Minor update to allow for UI feedback when creating/deleting tests as well as setting permissions on the tests.
• Version 4.0.0
  • This is a Major rewrite of the backend server to increase performance and number of users for the system. Please feel free to report any bugs at github.com/toebes/ciphers/issues This also includes an update to automatically delete any test taken after two weeks. As part of keeping data safe for all users, any personally identifiable information is automatically deleted when the corresponding tests are deleted. This includes any names or email addresses which are associated with a test.

    The mobit and pollux scoring algorithm has been updated. The answer letter needs to be under at least one of the morse digits and that ONLY one answer letter can be under the digits for a morse character

• Version 3.0.1
  • Support for Microsoft Azure Authentication.
• Version 3.0.0
  • Support for interactive online testing!
• Version 2.3.4
  • Fix the menu so that it show properly on wide screens
• Version 2.3.3
  • Cleanups on pigpen, Vigenère and generic aristocrat pages.
  • Fixed issues #144 and #145.
• Version 2.3.2
  • Fix Issue #136 Provide decryption matrix for Hill 3x3 decode questions.
• Version 2.3.1
  • Fix Issue #134 Trim leading X characters from Morse Code.
• Version 2.3.0
  • Add space for the Morbit cipher answers. Improve Morbit auto-solver to handle four morse characters next to an unknown.
• Version 2.2.2
  • Add support to decode 3x3 matrices for the Hill Cipher.
• Version 2.1.1
  • Add support for custom header page. Add tracking of editing and prompting when leaving page so that changes aren't lost.
• Version 2.0.0
  • New Cipher types: Morbit/Pollux/RailFence
    Division B
    Division C
    and Tap Code
    Division A
    . Add support for type of event to the test type for validating Cipher usage.
• Version 1.4.5
  • Stabilize the code combo for RSA question so that it doesn't change when editing. Updated Vigenère so that it proprerly displays lower case key strings.
• Version 1.4.4
  • Fixed formatting of Hill Cipher encodes (Issue #112).
• Version 1.4.3
  • Fixed "No Editor" error when saving and restoring a Xenocrypt.
• Version 1.4.2
  • Added the Modular Multiplicative inverse of 25 to the tables on the printed test.
• Version 1.4.1
  • Added ability to duplicate tests from an existing test.
• Version 1.4.0
  • Top margins on printed pages have been increased.
  • Navigation for previous and next questions have been added to the top of question pages.
  • The PigPen cipher has been added for B events.
  • Hill Ciphers now correctly generate the answers for any 2x2 matrix which has a determinant of 25.
  • The year now displays as 2019 for printed tests.
• Version 1.3.7
  • Updated the solution text for the extended Euclidean Algorithm for some fo the RSA problems at RSAEncrypt.html.
• Version 1.3.2
  • The offset for Caesar ciphers has been fixed (for an offset of 1, A should map to B)
  • A new page has been added for bulk analyzing quotes at QuoteAnalyze.html.
• Version 1.3.1
  • Download a zip file of the site for offline use. Check out the "Help"; "About" dialog on the Test Manager or Question Manager pages.
• Version 1.3.0
  • Event leaders can find guidance about how to write test questions at: Test Guidance. The page is also accessible under the "Help" menu on the Test Manager or Question Manager pages.