Gardening (cryptanalysis)
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In [[cryptanalysis]], '''gardening''' was a term used at [[Bletchley Park]] during [[World War II]] for schemes to entice the Germans to include [[known plaintext]], which they called [[crib (cryptanalysis)|crib]]s, in their encrypted messages. It is claimed to have been most effective against messages produced by the German Navy's [[Enigma machine]]s.
A well-known example involved [[Naval mine|mine]]s. If the Germans had recently swept a particular area for mines, and [[Bletchley Park]] was in need of some cribs, they might (and apparently did on several occasions) direct that the area be mined again. This would, presumably, evoke encrypted messages from the local command mentioning 'Minen' ('mines' in German) and/or the location, and perhaps messages also from the headquarters with minesweeping ships to assign to that location, mentioning the same. It worked often enough to try several times. In modern terms, this was a [[chosen plaintext attack]], because plain text effectively chosen by the British was injected into the ciphertext.
[[Category:Cryptographic attacks]]
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