Why we pivoted then
F10.1 and F10.2 are closed. Chaocipher's free cipher wheel is blocked by cost. F10.3 (decks of cards) is blocked: the methods date from 1999-2000, and a free deck far exceeds what the known letters can fix. F11 is eighth in the ranking, after F10; the ranking is unchanged.
What happened before
- 0187: in Chaocipher both wheels move by where the carved letter sits on the cipher wheel, so the carved text alone drives them. From any cipher wheel mixed from a dictionary word (208,651), the known letters leave 11 checks on the plain wheel. None fits K4 or a scrambled copy, and every planted text was found.
- 0188: in Wheatstone's cryptograph the hand's steps inside each known word are known. Not even an inner ring in any order fits K4 or the copies.
- F10.3 blocked without a run.
The change we believe is needed
- F11 next, in its table's order: F11.1 strip ciphers with published alphabets (M-94's 25 discs, the Jefferson wheel), F11.2 a poem code (double transposition keyed from memorised text), F11.3 the CIA's Polish key box, F11.4 Friedman's keyed alphabet box.
- F11.1 needs the published disc alphabets. Where they are not in the repository, the item is blocked until they are supplied, rather than trusting an unchecked copy.