Editing Vigenère cipher (section)

===Gronsfeld cipher===

Despite the Vigenère cipher's apparent strength, it never became widely used throughout Europe. The Gronsfeld cipher is a variant attributed by [[Gaspar Schott]] to Count Gronsfeld (Josse Maximilaan van [[Gronsveld]] né van Bronckhorst) but was actually used much earlier by an ambassador of Duke of Mantua in 1560s-1570s. It is identical to the Vigenère cipher except that it uses just a cipher alphabet of 10 characters, corresponding to the digits 0 to 9: a Gronsfeld key of 0123 is the same as a Vigenere key of ABCD. The Gronsfeld cipher is strengthened because its key is not a word, but it is weakened because it has just a cipher alphabet of 10 characters. It is Gronsfeld's cipher that became widely used throughout Germany and Europe, despite its weaknesses.