Exercise 1: Decrypting an Unknown-Shift Caesar Cipher — Possible Solution ==================================================================== Ciphertext: WKLV LV IXQ Approach: with only 25 possible shifts, brute force is completely practical by hand — try every shift from 1 to 25 and see which one produces readable English. Shifting back by 3 (i.e. treating the ciphertext as if it were encrypted with shift +3, so decrypting means shifting each letter back by 3): W -> T K -> H L -> I V -> S L -> I V -> S I -> F X -> U Q -> N Result: THIS IS FUN Shift amount: 3 (the same shift used in this chapter's own HELLO WORLD -> KHOOR ZRUOG example). Plaintext: THIS IS FUN WHY THIS WORKS AS AN ANSWER ------------------------------ Because Caesar's keyspace is only 25 possible shifts, there was no need for frequency analysis at all here — trying every shift and recognizing "THIS IS FUN" as valid English on shift 3 is both faster and more certain than a statistical approach would be for such a short message. This is exactly the point the chapter's own warn-box makes: a 25-key keyspace is not a real defense, because brute force alone is sufficient.