Bacon's Cipher Encryption and Decryption

What is Bacon's Cipher?

Bacon's Cipher is a cryptographic method invented by Francis Bacon in the 16th century. It maps each letter to a string of five characters, where each character can be represented by one of two styles or characters. Using this method, plaintext is converted into seemingly meaningless text, and only those who know the meaning behind the characters or styles can decode it.

The basic principle of Bacon's Cipher is that each letter is represented by a sequence of five characters, and each character can be one of two possible options (such as A and B, dots and dashes, regular and italic fonts, etc.). During encryption, each letter of the plaintext is converted into a string of five characters. During decryption, groups of five characters are mapped back to letters based on the mapping. The cipher traditionally uses a 24-letter alphabet, excluding the differentiation between I and J and U and V.

24-Letter Alphabet Mapping Table

26-Letter Alphabet Mapping Table