“They Killed Kenny”: Meet The Kenny Cipher

“They Killed Kenny”: Meet The Kenny Cipher

‘Oh my God, they killed Kenny’

In Southpark, the character of Kenny is famous for dying in almost every episode. Overall, Kenny comes from a poor family and wears an orange parka with a hood that muffles his speech. Thus, all we hear are mumbles with a M, F and P sound. For this, we can create a Kenny cipher by replacing each letter with a triplet using M, F and P. This is similar to the approach of the Bacon cipher:

a   AAAAA   g     AABBA   n    ABBAA   t     BAABA
b   AAAAB   h     AABBB   o    ABBAB   u-v   BAABB
c   AAABA   i-j   ABAAA   p    ABBBA   w     BABAA
d   AAABB   k     ABAAB   q    ABBBB   x     BABAB
e   AABAA   l     ABABA   r    BAAAA   y     BABBA
f   AABAB   m     ABABB   s    BAAAB   z     BABBB

With the Bacon cipher, we only have two letters (‘A’ and ‘B’). This five of these letters will give us 32 (2x2x2x2x2) permutations. This is only enough for the lower case letters. In the Kenny cipher, we want to represent both upper and lowercase letters (and a space).

So, for a cipher with an ‘f’, ‘m’ and ‘p’, if we have three letters, there are 27 permutations (3x3x3). Now, if make the first character either upper or lower case, we will have 54 permutations (6x3x3), and which will cover all the required letters. And, so our cipher can map upper and lowercase letters, and a space, to permutations for ‘f’, ‘m’ and ‘p’, and where the first letter can the ‘f’, ‘m’, ‘p’, ‘F’, ‘M’, or ‘P’.

Now, we can lay them out for the coding of letters (notice that the upper case letters use an upper case letter at the start):

'a': "mmm", 'b': "mmp", 'c': "mmf", 'd': "mpm", 'e': "mpp", 'f': "mpf", 
'g': "mfm", 'h': "mfp", 'i': "mff",'j': "pmm", 'k': "pmp", 'l': "pmf", 
'm': "ppm", 'n': "ppp", 'o': "ppf", 'p': "pfm", 'q': "pfp", 'r': "pff",
's': "fmm", 't': "fmp", 'u': "fmf", 'v': "fpm", 'w': "fpp", 'x': "fpf", 
'y': "ffm", 'z': "ffp",
'A': "Mmm", 'B': "Mmp", 'C': "Mmf", 'D': "Mpm", 
'E': "Mpp", 'F': "Mpf", 'G': "Mfm", 'H': "Mfp", 'I': "Mff",'J': "Pmm", 
'K': "Pmp", 'L': "Pmf", 'M': "Ppm", 'N': "Ppp", 'O': "Ppf", 'P': "Pfm", 
'Q': "Pfp", 'R': "Pff",'S': "Fmm", 'T': "Fmp", 'U': "Fmf", 'V': "Fpm", 
'W': "Fpp", 'X': "Fpf", 'Y': "Ffm", 'Z': "Ffp",
' ': ["fff", "Fff"],

Now, if we have “This is some text”, we get:

T   h   i   s       i   s       s   o   m   e       t   e   x   t
Fmp mfp mff fmm fff mff fmm fff fmm ppf ppm mpp fff fmp mpp fpf fmp

If you want to try it yourself:

https://asecuritysite.com/cipher/kenny

So, can you decipher this message:

FmpmfpmppffmfffpmpmffpmfpmfmppmpmfffPmpmppppppppffm