import string LOWERCASE_OFFSET = ord("a") ALPHABET = string.ascii_lowercase[:16] def b16_encode(plain): enc = "" for c in plain: binary = "{0:08b}".format(ord(c)) enc += ALPHABET[int(binary[:4], 2)] enc += ALPHABET[int(binary[4:], 2)] return enc def shift(c, k): t1 = ord(c) - LOWERCASE_OFFSET t2 = ord(k) - LOWERCASE_OFFSET return ALPHABET[(t1 + t2) % len(ALPHABET)] flag = "redacted" key = "redacted" assert all([k in ALPHABET for k in key]) assert len(key) == 1 b16 = b16_encode(flag) enc = "" for i, c in enumerate(b16): enc += shift(c, key[i % len(key)]) print(enc)