Category: Cryptography

Rail Fence Cipher

Cryptography is the writing and decoding of secret messages, called ciphers. Now  for governments these secret ciphers are a matter of national security. They hire special cryptanalysts who work on these ciphers using cryptanalysis. The secret is, solving substitution ciphers…

Twisted Path Cipher

In this video, I demonstrate a Twisted Path Cipher. It uses a matrix and a path in order to encode your message. The shape of the path you create within the matrix of a Twisted Path Cipher determines how difficult…

Shift Cipher

Shift ciphers were used by Julius Caesar in Roman times. A key is a number that tells you how many letters you’ll shift in the alphabet. These are fairly simple to encode and decode. However, you have to be extra…

Date Shift Cipher

The Date Shift cipher is a much harder code to break than, for example, the more simple Shift cipher. This is because the shift number varies from letter to letter, and also because it’s polyalphabetic (this means that a single…

Pig Pen Cipher

The Pig Pen cipher is of the most historically popular ciphers.  It was used by Freemasons a century ago and also by Confederate soldiers during the Civil War. Since it’s so popular, it’s not a very good choice for top…

Polybius Checkerboard Cipher

Polybius was an ancient Greek who first figured out a way to substitute different two-digit numbers for each letter. In the Polybius cipher, we’ll use a 5×5 square grid with the columns and rows numbered. Take a look at the…

Cracking Ciphers

Cryptograms are solved by making good guesses and testing them to see if the results make sense. Through a process of trial and error, you can usually figure out the answer. Knowing some facts about the English language can help…

Playfair Cipher

This is a super hard cipher to break.  It’s encoded by taking pairs of letters and numbers from a matrix. There are three rules to follow. If both letters are in the same row, then use the letters immediately to…

Telephone Cipher

Code machines – or cipher machines – can be used to encode and decode messages. One everyday example of a code machine that you can easily access is a telephone. Watch this video and I’ll show you how it works.…

Scytale

In this video I’ll show you how to use a actual cipher machine called a scytale. This was first used in ancient Greek and Roman times, most notably by the Spartans. To make a scytale, use a cylinder with a…

Secret Math Code

If only you could keep better track of big numbers, adding and multiplying your head wouldn’t be such a problem! But fear not… I have a trick that might be just the ticket for your brain! Use this secret phonetic…