What is Rot 13?

ROT13, meaning "rotate by 13 places", is a simple letter substitution cipher that replaces a letter with the 13th letter after it in the alphabet. ROT13 is a special case of the Caesar cipher which was developed in ancient Rome.

Why Rot 13?

ROT13 is a very lazy introductionary cipher that challenges often use. It has no cryptographic value other than making the text not immediately readable. Because it is a special case, it has the property that applying ROT13 to ROT13 encrypted text (called ciphertext) will result in the original message (called plaintext).

How to decode Rot 13?

ROT13 ciphertext can be decoded by hand by shifting characters by 13 letters. Its ciphertext can also be decoded at CyberChef.

Breaking similar shift ciphers?

• Automated cipher cracker at ciphertools.co.uk
• Manually trying values with this CyberChef recipe.