Codes & Ciphers

By Sahithi Lingampalli & Maya Krolik

Edited by Taruni Manam & Kavya Gurunath, Layout by Aathmika Radhachandran

Code breaking: it is a thing of our childhood dreams and war-based action movies in which a character skims a whole page of random symbols, letters, or numbers and immediately knows all of the secrets. And while this fantasy is far from realistic, there are some codes out there that have seen their rise and fall and have been used by the small handful that were fluent. Here are four different codes for the average lock-picker, spy, assassin, FBI agent, and reader.

Morse

Out of all known codes, morse code is notably the most famous and well known, but it has fallen out of use with the invention of phones and the internet. It was developed by Samuel Morse who used it to revolutionise the use of the telegram, which was already invented nearly 20 years earlier in 1816 by Francis Ronals. What made Morse code special is that unlike prior ideas of using 26 separate wires for each letter, Morse developed an alphabet that allowed for quicker and more efficient communication (see the chart attached for the breakdown of how exactly Morse code works). Morse Code has been used for the last 160 years, and continues to be relevant not only in games, but also in aviation and in guiding boats.

Caesar

When you hear “Caesar” the first thing, rather, person, you think of, would be Julius Caesar. Contrary to popular belief, Julius Caesar did not invent the Caesar cipher, but he did inspire the creation. According to history, Caesar used a shift of 3 letters in all his military documents, to protect his messages. For example, the letter A would be D, B would be E, and C would be F! Back when Caesar used the cipher, it was thought to be reasonably secure since only a few of his enemies were literate, and even less would consider that the message might have been encrypted! Nowadays, it is one of the easiest ciphers to crack, considering there are only 25 possibilities for what the message can be, and only one of them will make sense!

Braille

Braille is a system of raised dots, with each cell representing one letter. It is intended for visually impaired or blind people, to use their fingers to read. Non-visually-impaired people can also read braille, with their eyes! Braille was invented by Louis Braille, a blind person. In that time, printing books with raised text was a very expensive and laborious process, and Braille wanted to find an easier way to read the books that he loved. Thus, braille was born! It was a lot cheaper to print books, and braille started becoming more widespread in the world! Now, it used almost everywhere to help as many visually-impaired people as possible.

Pigpen

Other names of this old cipher include masonic cipher, napoleonic cipher, and tic-tac-toe cipher. This code system is thought to have been created by secret religious cults in the middle ages. Some even claim that the Knights Templair used this elusive code. It does not have many modern uses other than being a point of interest for code geeks and has appeared in some video games, including Assassin’s Creed II. Here is how it works: take the letter “A,” look at the key and trace the border of the box/triangle around the letter and add a dot or not depending on if there is one in the box. N becomes a box with a dot and t becomes a “greater than” sign without a dot (see example for ANT below).

Now that you have learned these codes, try to decode the following phrases. Solutions below!

Code: ⠼⠓⠼⠁⠏⠏⠽ ⠝⠼⠑⠺ ⠎⠼⠉⠼⠓⠕⠕⠇ ⠽⠼⠑⠼⠁⠗

Code: -- --- ・ - ・ ・・・ ・ - ・ - ・ --- - ・・ ・

Code: dffhvv judqwhg

Answers

Happy new school year

Morse code

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Resources

Braille

What Is Braille? (n.d.). Retrieved September 09, 2020, from https://www.afb.org/blindness-and-low-vision/braille/what-braille

The History of Braille [Your Braille Resource]. (2019, June 27). Retrieved September 09, 2020, from https://brailleworks.com/braille-resources/history-of-braille/

Morse

Morse code. (2020, August 27). Retrieved September 09, 2020, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morse_code

Electrical telegraph. (2020, September 04). Retrieved September 09, 2020, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrical_telegraph Caesar:

Caesar Cipher

Caesar Cipher. (n.d.). Retrieved September 09, 2020, from https://www.cs.mcgill.ca/~rwest/wikispeedia/wpcd/wp/c/Caesar_cipher.htm

Pigpen

Pigpen cipher. (2020, July 22). Retrieved September 09, 2020, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigpen_cipher Batt, S. (2017, October 01). Pigpen Ciphers. Retrieved September 09, 2020, from https://www.kidscodecs.com/pigpen-ciphers/