Reply To: Help with hillclimb
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Maybe this is a clearer way of explaining the issue we’re seeing. Say we’ve guessed at a key length of 6.
W = wrong key letter
R = right key letter
If we start the algorithm with a starting key of “WRRRRR” then the hill climb algorithm cycles through the alphabet and eventually finds the correct first letter of the key, sees the resulting fitness is -9.6 and we’re done.
But…if we start with “RWRRRR” the algorithm starts by cycling through the alphabet for position 1 and finds that the fitness of the decrypt using “WWRRRR” is best seen and it then never manages to get back to locating “RRRRRR”
We think we somehow need to let the algorithm randomly move than one letter if it gets into a rut to get it moving in the right direction again?