You have probably seen a Barbie Typewriter in your time, but did you know they have special cipher coding mode? The toy was made by Mehano, and distributed by Mattel. One of the strange things is that it has a cryptographic function for secret writing, and has four different cipher modes. These modes are activated with a special character sequence.
The Barbie Cipher |
Theory
There are four modes that can be used for the Barbie cipher:
Mode abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456" --------------------------------------------------------- 1 icolapxstvybjeruknfhqg>FAUTCYOLVJDZINQKSEHG<.1PB5234067 2 torbiudfhgzcvanqyepskxRC>GHAPND<VUBLIKJETOYXM2QF6340578 3 hrnctqlpsxwogiekzaufydSARYO>QIUX<GFDLJVTHNP1Z3KC7405689 4 sneohkbufd;rxtaywiqpzlE>SPNRKLG1XYCUDV<HOIQ2B4JA805679-
and for special characters:
- ' ! " # % & ( ) * , . ¨ / : ; ? @ ^ _ + < = > ¢ £ § € 1 ¨ _ & m @ : " * ( # W M § ^ , ¢ / ? ! ) % X ' R + € £ = 2 § ) " j ? , m # * @ . Z £ ! W + ^ / & ( : 1 _ S % = € ' 3 £ ( m v / W j @ # ? M B € & . % ! ^ " * , 2 ) E : ' = _ 4 € * j g ^ . v ? @ / Z F = " N : & ! m # W 3 ( T , _ ' )
For "hello" using Mode 1, we get:
sabbr
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456 --------------------------------------------------------- icolapxstvybjeruknfhqg>FAUTCYOLVJDZINQKSEHG<.1PB5234067
Here is a Barbie-1 cipher:
Message: This is some text Type: barbie1 Encoding: 'Hstf tf frja hadh' Hex: 487374662074662066726a612068616468
For a Barbie-2 cipher:
Message: This is some text Type: barbie2 Encoding: 'Ofhp hp pnvi sils' Hex: 4f66687020687020706e76692073696c73
For a Barbie-3 cipher:
Message: This is some text Type: barbie3 Encoding: 'Npsu su uegt ftbf' Hex: 4e70737520737520756567742066746266
For a Barbie-4 cipher:
Message: This is some text Type: barbie4 Encoding: 'Iufq fq qaxh phcp' Hex: 4975667120667120716178682070686370