  Mystery
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...cryptography is about communication in the presence of adversaries.
Ron Rivest
Few false ideas have more firmly gripped the minds of so many intelligent men than the one that, if they just tried, they could invent a cipher that no one could break.
David Kahn
BTW, I learned a lovely new acronym today: "Law Enforcement Agency Key" -- LEAK.
Charles H. Lindsey
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My Oxford dictionary proclaims that cryptography is "the art of writing or solving codes and ciphers." Detective fiction authors such as Edgar Allan Poe, Agatha Christie, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle have implemented ciphers in their stories. If used wisely, cryptograms, or texts written in code, can ensnare readers.
About a month ago, I picked up a slim book by Martin Gardner that explains in detail how to write and solve a variety of ciphers. The first half of the book unveils monoalphabetic ciphers - those that substitute one symbol per letter. They have mysterious names like The Rail Fence Cipher, The Polybius Checkerboard, and The Pigpen Cipher. It is surprising; the book also points out the wide range of people who have dabbled in this disguised form of communication over the centuries - authors, politicians, mathmeticians, children, free masons, soldiers. Today the need for secrecy and security has increased cryptography's use as computers and electronic financial transactions become more popular.
I believe that is what draws me to ciphers - they're a versatile tool for mystery authors. One could delve into Eygptian heiroglyphics, or write of WWII correspondence. An author could mimic Dan Brown's use of scrambled messages from the dead or show a Tom Clancy Net Force-esque character determinedly decrypting computer code. Or come up with something new...there are so many directions in which one can go.
If you are interested in adding cryptograms to your latest story, I have a couple suggestions. First, do not make the mystery too easy or too difficult. Base the level of difficulty on your target audience. Obviously you would produce an easier cipher for a young adult book. If you make your code too difficult for adults, they may throw down the story in frustration. And remember to toss around an adequate number of clues.
Second, provide a clear explanation during that "aha!" moment of your story. Let your readers know they were right in guessing the key to the cipher was in that magazine the guy with the sunglasses kept in his oversized trench coat pocket. And JKOEZAUC was the code name of "Mr. Question," the informant. This will make your readers feel brainy. 
Are you up for a challenge?
One of the easiest ciphers to write and solve is the one Julius Caesar used for his secret government messages. It's called the Shift Cipher.
Basically, you type out the alphabet:
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
And then your key is knowing how many letters to shift, thereby substituting one letter for another. For instance, let's say that your detective and his assistant decide to communicate secretly during an undercover assignment. Before going incognito, the detective tells his sidekick to shift thirteen letters when given a cipher.
Later, the detective sends his Watson this message:
ZRRG NG EVGM ZVQAVTUG
The associate knows the key is to shift the alphabet, starting at the fourteenth letter:
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z A B C D E F G H I J K L M
Comparing the bottom row to the top, he sees that A=N, B=O, Z=M, R=E and so on. The decoded message can now be read:
MEET AT RITZ, MIDNIGHT
There was no comma in the original message - when using code, you might want to stay away from punctuation, unless you are using punctuation symbols to represent other letters or numbers.
Another way to make the cipher more menacing would be to break it up into equal chunks, like this:
ZRR GNG EVG MZV QAV TUG
That looks pretty misleading, right?  It appears more fragmented, but it says the same thing.
Want to try another? Read the following and then send me your answer. If your answer is correct, you will be rewarded. 
Mark climbed down the treehouse's rope ladder, the morning dew making his hands slick. It had been ten years since he last visited the treehouse behind Simon's house. Now twenty-three, Mark felt older, wiser, and more determined than ever to find out what exactly had caused Simon's death.
He may have found a clue - a hasty scrawl written on lined paper and shoved under a loose floorboard.
Gingerly uncrumpling the aged paper, Mark shivered under a canopy of dripping tree leaves. He couldn't believe he was here, doing this. The memory of Simon had dragged Mark back into this town he left so long ago...could he really be holding the answer?
Orange beams of daybreak burst through swaying foilage as Mark contemplated the paper. There was a definite cipher...now, what shift key had they been using in July of 1996?
Oh, yeah...his age at that time.
Mark's eyes clouded as he unscrambled this cipher:
FG RIR FNV QURF ERNYY L TBAAN XV YY ZR GUV FGV ZR
 Thanks for reading! I'll be back next week with another installment of cryptography. |
Some "for fun" picks this time around:
What's the word?
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#1112203 by Not Available. |
What do YOU think about this opinion piece?
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#1108246 by Not Available. |
Remember, one doozy of a cipher actually is DNA.
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#1042163 by Not Available. |
What month is it?
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#775394 by Not Available. |
Bet you did not know this code!
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#207621 by Not Available. |
Feel like taking a crack at a code contest? Check this out!
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Mystery: January 10, 2007 Issue [#1485]
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