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This is
Volume
1, Issue 3 ----- March, 1997
of The KIDS MONTHLY Newsletter
Table of Contents: (You can either click on the links below, or scroll down the page, to see the articles)
HEADLINE: Codes and Ciphers
1.INTRODUCTION TO CODES AND CIPHERS
Codes and Ciphers have been used for thousands of years, but not many specifics are know about them because of their secret nature. The rest of this article gives a brief overview of Codes and Ciphers, and the last section gives the workings of two of my favorite ciphers, which are the easiest that I know of (and I should know plenty, I own the book that has been said to be the best work on cryptology (the science or study of Codes and Ciphers) that is available to the public, called "The Codebreakers" by David Kahn. It's over a thousand pages long, and is available from most public libraries, and should be available in most of the larger bookstores, although any bookstore should be able to order it for you. The last reprint was in 1996, and the book costs around US$65.00 dollars. Now, on to the fun stuff!
2.CODE, OR CIPHER?
A common question, or one that is not even thought of, is: "Is it a Code, or is it a Cipher?" I'll attempt to answer that question here. Most people use the word "Code" and the word "Cipher" just like they meant the same thing, when really, if you were being technical, a Code usually has something to do with each word, while a Cipher usually deals with each letter by itself. Usually, but not always, a Code is more safe than Cipher is to Cryptanalisis (the process of trying to find out what an encoded or enciphered message says without knowing how to solve it in the first place, like if you were sending a secret message to a friend of a secret club you had, and someone from a rival club intercepted the message, they would use Cryptanalisis to try to find out what the message said, without knowing the code/cipher to begin with), but a Code is more limited in what you can say with it, because each of the words that you are going to use has to be put together and a copy given to all the people using it, before it can be used, so only the words that are listed in the code can be used, unless the code is added to and redistributed. A Cipher, since it usually enciphers a message letter by letter, can be used to encipher anything in the language that the code is used in that can be spelled out, although some codes also have ways to encipher numbers and symbols. You can see and example of a few of my favorite ciphers (I use mostly ciphers, 'cause they are the most simple and easy to use, in my opinion, and they don't require the use of big codebooks) in the next section of this article.
3.TWO KINDS OF CIPHERS
Now that you know the difference between a Code and a Cipher, let me show you two different kinds of Ciphers. One kind of Cipher is call Transposition. With a transposition Cipher, the letters are just re-arranged. So the word BLUE could be written as LUEB or UELB or UBLE or any number of other combinations. To be useful as a Cipher, you have to use some system of transposition, otherwise the person that gets the enciphered message will not be able to decipher the message! The other kind of Cipher is called Substitution. In a substitution Cipher, letters are replaced with other letters and/or numbers instead of just being re-arranged as in a transposition Cipher. My favorite ciphers are substitution, and they are the kind that I am going to show you in the next section.
4.A FEW OF MY FAVORITE CIPHERS
One of my very favorite ciphers is what I call the "Half-and-Half" cipher, or "HaH" for short. The cipher looks like this:
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
Text is enciphered with the HaH cipher by substituting the letter above/below for the letter that you want to encipher above/below. I know this sounds very confusing at first, and I don't even know myself if what I said is correct, so an example will show you better how to use the HaH cipher: Say you want to encipher the message Come at once in the HaH cipher. You would take the first letter, C, and substitute the letter below it on the cipher alphabet, since the letter C is on the top line, so C becomes cipher letter P. We go on to the next letter of the message, O, and see that it is on the bottom line of the cipher, so we substitute the letter above it, so O becomes the cipher letter B. So far we have the first two letters of the enciphered message, they are: PB. We then continue to encipher the message; when it's done, we have: PBZR NG BAPR A lot of the time, messages are split up into groups of 4, 5, or 6 letters before they are sent, because it can be a big help for someone who is not supposed to solve the cipher to do so by knowing where one word stops and another begins. Also, instead of splitting the enciphered message up into groups of the same number of letters, they can be split up into new groups of letters that could be real words, but are fake, that sometimes fools the cryptanalyst as well. So, here is the message in groups of 5 letters: PBZRN GBAPR or, if we use four letter groups, we will have to add two nulls to the end: PBZR NGBA PRFN (nulls are letters that don't mean anything, even after they are deciphered, they are used to finish a group of letters that does not have as many as the rest of the groups). One more example with this message, this time using groups of letters that look like real words, but are not: P BZRNG BAPR. Doesn't that look like it is just three enciphered words, a one letter word, a five letter word, and a four letter word? On to the next cipher.
This cipher that I am now going to show you is what I call the Keyboard Cipher (or "KC" for short). There are many different ways to do this cipher, although here I will show you only two. Both of the ways that I'm going to show you are almost the same, with only a slight change. The first one: You must use a computer or typewriter type keyboard for this cipher, if you want most people with a keyboard to be able to decipher the message, if you tell them how, use the QWERTY type keyboard layout (with the first five keys on the top line of letters on the keyboard spell QWERTY), as it's the most common layout. To do this Cipher, just type the letter on the keyboard that you want to encipher only to encipher it, press the key to the left of the letter that you want to encipher. So in this cipher, the letter D would become F, and if the letter is at the end of a row of keys, press the first key of the next line, so P would become A. The other version of this cipher is to use the key to the right of the letter you want to encipher, instead of the key to the left of the letter, as in the example above. You can also do it in other various ways, such as using the key above or below the letter you want to encipher, or an even more complicated arrangement. Thank you for joining me here for a little bit on Codes and Ciphers, I will probably have more on Codes and Ciphers in future issues of The KIDS MONTHLY Newsletter. If you want to know more about Codes and Ciphers, see the books and sources listed in the page on this site for that purpose the "Sources and Reference List" page (click on the name to go there), once there scroll down to the listing for this Volume and Issue (Volume 1, Issue 3, March 1997). By David Szpunar, Editor-in-Chief of The KIDS MONTHLY Newsletter [To Table of Contents]
Jokes and Riddles
Why do pigs make bad drivers?
They hog the road.
(From: Marie Franks, Indianapolis, Indiana,
attitude@iquest.net)
How do you make a fine Italian wine?
Scratch his Ferrari.
(From: Andy Bright, Indianapolis, Indiana, no e-mail
address)
How does a hungry man eat a hot dog?
With relish.
Where do chickens love to vacation?
In the state of Hennessee!
Why did the man put suntan lotion on his chicken?
He liked dark meat.
5 jokes is all for this month, due to time limits, sorry; there should be at least 10 (I hope!) in the next issue.
Facts and Figures
Sorry, Facts and Figures are not in this issue, due to loss of information while updating computer systems. This section should be back in the next issue. A new addition might also be in the next issue, if it is, it will be called "Brain Drain" or something like that, you'll have to wait 'till next issue to find out what it is. Again, sorry.
Staff for KIDS MONTHLY
Editor-in-Chief: David A. Szpunar
Editor and Writer:
David I. Proctor, III
Contributing Editors:
Andy Proctor
Bryan Szpunar
Helen Szpunar
Casey Szpunar
Click here for a list of sources and references used in publishing this Newsletter
Last Revised: February 2, 1998
This issue first on the web: Friday, March 07, 1997
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The KIDS MONTHLY Newsletter
Published monthly by: David
Szpunar
Please E-mail Comments and Letters, along with your Name, E-mail address, City, and State, to KidMonth@aol.com, and Jokes and Riddles you would like to see included in the newsletter, along with your Name, E-mail address, City, and State, to KidMonth@aol.com.
© 1997-98 by David Szpunar