Daily

The Daily Cipher

One Enigma message a day. The key is published — working it out is the point. Type the plaintext when you have it, or open the working Enigma I model and run the ciphertext through it.

Cipher no. 6

sent 2026-10-09 · 12 letters

QQESZ YDMZL RU

Rotor order (Walzenlage)
IV · III · II
Reflector (Umkehrwalze)
UKW-C
Ring setting (Ringstellung)
M N O
Start position
A B C
Plugboard (Steckerbrett)
CD EF GH

To solve it properly, set the rotors, rings, start position and plugs above on the Enigma I model and paste the ciphertext in. It decrypts with the same settings it was encrypted with — that is the reflector's doing, not a shortcut.

How the puzzle works

Each day's message was enciphered on the real Enigma I machine, using the rotor order, ring settings, start position and plugboard printed above. Those settings are published on purpose. The challenge is not to guess the key — it is to operate the machine, and in doing so to feel why it was trusted and why it failed.

The answer is not in this page. Only a SHA-256 hash of it is, so you cannot read the solution out of the page source or the JavaScript. Your guess is hashed in your own browser and compared there — nothing is sent to a server, and there is no account to make and no message to submit. Your streak lives in this browser's local storage and nowhere else.

A letter never enciphers as itself. Whichever key you press, the lamp that lights is never that letter — at any setting, on any machine ever built. It falls out of the reflector wiring, and it is the property that let Marian Rejewski reconstruct the whole machine from intercepted traffic in 1932. If a day's plaintext guess includes a letter in the same position as the ciphertext, you can rule it out immediately.

One setting is worth watching as you work: the middle rotor double-steps. It is carried when the right rotor is at its notch or when the middle rotor is itself at its notch, so it can advance on two consecutive keypresses. Most descriptions call the rotors an odometer, and that is close but wrong.

For who built the machine, who broke it, and where the surviving ones are, read Where Is the Enigma Machine Now?.

The queue

Every puzzle in the queue, oldest first. The plaintext is not listed — these are the ciphertexts, and each one carries the settings it was sent from.

  1. No. 1 · 2026-10-0413 letters

    AECFN JUYGL KLF

    I II III · UKW-B · Ring AAA · Pos AAA · No plugs

  2. No. 2 · 2026-10-0510 letters

    HSBEG KHXNW

    II IV I · UKW-B · Ring BBB · Pos QRS · Plugs AB CD

  3. No. 3 · 2026-10-066 letters

    OJYZU M

    III I V · UKW-C · Ring AAA · Pos XYZ · Plugs AM FI NV

  4. No. 4 · 2026-10-0712 letters

    FFRRE WTVQD NP

    I II III · UKW-B · Ring AAA · Pos ADV · No plugs

  5. No. 5 · 2026-10-088 letters

    XWNOJ XFG

    V II IV · UKW-B · Ring ZZZ · Pos MNO · Plugs AB

  6. No. 6 · 2026-10-09 · today12 letters

    QQESZ YDMZL RU

    IV III II · UKW-C · Ring MNO · Pos ABC · Plugs CD EF GH

  7. No. 7 · 2026-10-1014 letters

    PVSAR TIRUF LVQO

    II V III · UKW-B · Ring AAA · Pos DEF · Plugs AZ BY

  8. No. 8 · 2026-10-1114 letters

    RFHRF ZMEUZ RCZN

    III IV I · UKW-B · Ring QQQ · Pos PQR · No plugs

  9. No. 9 · 2026-10-1210 letters

    WFUDV RYJMS

    I V II · UKW-C · Ring AAA · Pos STU · Plugs AB CD EF

  10. No. 10 · 2026-10-1311 letters

    PPQMD AWOND X

    V I IV · UKW-B · Ring HHH · Pos GHI · Plugs QW ER

  11. No. 11 · 2026-10-1413 letters

    YPISM MOOGU FKV

    II III V · UKW-C · Ring AAA · Pos JKL · Plugs AB CD EF GH

  12. No. 12 · 2026-10-1513 letters

    EIPCS STBMF WJZ

    IV II I · UKW-B · Ring CCC · Pos VWX · Plugs AB

  13. No. 13 · 2026-10-1611 letters

    CZIKE LFEPX A

    I III IV · UKW-C · Ring AAA · Pos YZA · Plugs NV PS

  14. No. 14 · 2026-10-1715 letters

    XHZLK XHTLH UONQZ

    III II V · UKW-B · Ring DDD · Pos BCD · No plugs

A note on the machine settings above: they are the ones the message was sent from, so they are also the ones that decrypt it. Enigma is a broken cipher and this is a museum exhibit, not a way to keep a secret — never use it for anything that matters.