When Al-Kindi first developed cryptanalysis it was groundbreaking and highly advanced for his society. Today, our society is highly intellectual and focuses on stimulating problem solving abilities in young children. With the knowledge of frequency analysis, many amateur cryptanalysts can easily employ the method to successfully decrypt text.
Society today is exposed to these necessary skills early on in development. The idea of using logic to solve puzzles, riddles and other games is common starting at a very young age. What may have been considered a significant level of scholarship when cryptanalysis was first invented is now merely accounted for as common sense.
Early on in the history of cryptography people were not accustomed to the idea of codes and secret messages. This concept was so foreign that they could not begin to understand how to solve them or decrypt them. No one paid attention to what common letters were or which letters were most frequently used in their language. Today, with basic reading and common experiences such as watching word guessing game shows, people subconsciously take note of what letters most often appear in words. When an amateur cryptanalyst approaches an encrypted message they instinctively look to substitute in “e”, “t”, or “a” for example, knowing these letters form many common words. In the past, this knowledge was not considered basic knowledge and people were unaware of this crucial information. Armed with the knowledge of frequency analysis and the logical thinking our society breeds, amateur cryptanalysts can easily use frequency analysis without prior training.
