SOME OF HISTORY'S MOST FAMOUS CODES & CIPHERS

How did people in the past encrypt their messages?

SCYTALE CIPHER

It is a tool used to perform a transposition cipher, consisting of a cylinder with a strip of parchment wound around it on which is written a message.

The ancient Greeks, and the Spartans are said to have used it to communicate during military campaigns.

CAESAR CIPHER

The Caesar Cipher, also known as a shift cipher, is said to be one of the oldest and simplest forms of encrypting a message.

Used by Roman legions to disguise their messages, this method uses the substitution of a letter by another one further in the alphabet.

PIGPEN CIPHER

This is an example of a substitution cipher where the alphabet is arranged into grids, and the corresponding lines around each letter are used to represent cach letter.

It is said to have been used by the Freemasons, a secret society in the 18th century, to keep their records of history and rites private, and for correspondence between Jodge leaders.

SMOKE SIGNALS

Native American smoke signals allowed quick visual communication over long distances. Translations were often agreed in advance on a case-by-case basis to keep messages secret

FLAG SEMAPHORE

Flag Semaphore is the telegraphy system conveying information at a distance by means of visual signals with hand-held flags, rods, disks, paddles, or occasionally bare or gloved hands.

THE GREAT PARIS CIPHER

The Great Paris Cipher featured 1400 numbers, these either represented words or coded phrases which meant other words, adding another layer of complexity to the code. It was famously used by Napoleon.

MORSE CODE

This method of translating letters into dots & dashes allowed for early telegraph systems to communicate through the use of electric sounds. It was invented by Samuel Morse during the 1830s.

ENIGMA CODE

This encryption machine was used by the Germans during WWII to transmit coded messages. They use a series of mechanical wheels and switches allowing billions of ways to encode a message - for a time it seemed unbreakable. Alan Turing's efforts to crack the illusive cipher led to the origins of modern computing

PUBLIC KEY

Public Key became a popular method to protect one's privacy during the 1970s. The premise is to have one or more trusted parties digitally sign documents certifying that a given cryptographic key belongs to a particular user or device.