buttcrack. Cipher Wiki

Morse code

From the Buttcrack Cipher Wiki — the free field guide to classical ciphers

Morse code — Dots and dashes per letter, with spacing carrying the boundaries.

Dots and dashes per letter; spaces between letters, ' / ' between words.

A worked example§

Encrypting a sample with the cipher itself, at build time:

MEET ME BY THE OLD CLOCK TOWER AT DAWN

No key — the transformation is fixed.

produces the ciphertext

-- . . - / -- . / -... -.-- / - .... . / --- .-.. -.. / -.-. .-.. --- -.-. -.- / - --- .-- . .-. / .- - / -.. .- .-- -.

This example is generated by running the cipher when the page is built, and the round trip is checked, so it always matches what the solver does.

How it is broken§

A code, not a cipher: recognise the two symbols and decode. Puzzles usually strip the spacing to make the boundaries ambiguous.

History and context§

Samuel Morse and Alfred Vail, 1830s-40s. Vail reportedly set the code lengths by counting type in a printer's case, which is why E is a single dot — frequency analysis put to constructive use.

See also§

Bacon cipher · Bacon (letter case) · A1Z26 (numbered alphabet) · Polybius square · Tap code · NATO phonetic alphabet

Browse every cipher in the Codes and alphabets family, read the history of codebreaking, or return to the wiki main page.

Frequently asked questions§

How is the Morse code broken?

A code, not a cipher: recognise the two symbols and decode. Puzzles usually strip the spacing to make the boundaries ambiguous.

What key does the Morse code use?

none. There are 1 possible keys.

How much ciphertext do I need?

At least 4 characters for this solver to attempt it; short messages can be readable and still not be proof.

Can I break a Morse code on this page?

Yes — the browser solver on this page handles it directly. Paste the ciphertext into the solver and press the button.

Categories: Codes and alphabets | Breakable in the browser | Cipher wiki
The facts in this article are generated from buttcrack's cipher registry when the site is built, so they describe the implementation you can run on this page. Registry-generated content is checked against the code; the history is editorial.

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It tries: Caesar, Atbash, ROT13, affine, Trithemius, rail fence, single-byte XOR, periodic Vigenère-family ciphers, autokey, selected encoding layers (such as Base64, hex, binary, decimal ASCII, Morse, and reverse), and—only with 60+ A–Z letters—statistical substitution.

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