Crypto story

By-Aemen Jawairia

Hebrew, official language of Israel, is an evolved from of the Egyptian hieroglyphics. They used
to carve these signs on wood on brick blocks. This asserts that the Hebrew alphabets are but the signs,
such as the Mountain resembles the mem in Hebrew. It was the class of Hebrew language in 2006 and
we were discussing the distinct features of Hebrew script. The discussion got more intriguing and
deviated from Hebrew to the papal conspiracies of medieval era.
Religion, politics and secret writing share a long history. It used to transmit secret orders,
conspiracies, hiding facts and information or sometimes aimed at revealing certain interpretations of
religious text. Such as the Atbash cipher which was a substitution cipher -where a letter is substituted
with the other such as alef is substituted with tav- used to interpret torah.
This science of hiding a message or rewriting an information in order to fulfill the afore
mentioned purposes, is called cryptography. Which is used, in modern times, in the diplomatic enclaves
secret societies, government agencies etc. Codes, ciphers, encrypted messages travel all around the
world to pass important information within the groups or agencies such as CIA, RAW, ISI, Embassies,
Taliban’s etc. Every diplomat has to go through a crypto-drill before being appointed to a particular
country/so that he/she can interpret the message correctly. Sometimes this is done by the team associated
with them with the help of cryptic machines like enigma or computers, in modern times.
In times before Christ, secret writing or cryptography was an art developed and used by every
nation. Egyptians had their own techniques, Babylonians, Assyrians and Greeks also developed their
own methods. Where Egyptians carved their messages in a sign language on the wooden blocks or discs,
Greeks used wax tables to hide their messages. Greeks advanced to more gruesome methods involving
tattooing messages into the scalps of the slaves. Once an unfortunate messenger’s hair had grown back
and assuming he didn’t die of blood poisoning in the meantime, he would be sent on his way to deliver
the message in person. The intended receiver of the message would get the messengers head shaved
again to read the message. This process was lame, slow and predictable in nature thus Greeks developed
stenography, the art of short hand writing, in order to hide the fact that there was any message at all.
Romans, however, advanced as the fighting in farming place. He used Greek and Latin to create ciphers.
While creating codes and ciphers were customary, Muslins were the first ones to decipher them.
Crptanalaysis-cipher cracking technique-emerged in the golden era of Islamic civilization, after 750 CE.
Dictionares, encyclopedias, text books of cryptography were published in order to equip Muslims and all
the seekers with the skill to crack the codes. The first cryptanalysis was given by Abu Yusuf Yaqub ibn
Ishaq alsabbah Al-kindi. Muslims figured out the frequency. Thus the letter A occurs with a frequency
of 8.0, E with a frequency of 12.5 which is the highest. In order to make this idea eligible to the common
man they emphasized on the language learning and the importance of words in any language. As the 18 th
century passed by, cryptology was on its head. Monks, papal advisors, diplomats and civil servants were
code breakers as well. Later technology triggered the cryptology revolution. Despite of the fact that
many historical ciphers remain unsolved like the voynich manuscript, cryptology revolution. Despite of
the fact that many historical ciphers remain unsolved like the voynich manuscript, cryptologist advanced
and during the civil war, World War 1 and 2 cryptic messages were a norm. To understand the making
of a cipher during 19th century here is an example from a message sent by Abraham Lincoln. The plain
text which is the original message, reads as follows:
“For colonel Ludlow:
Richard and brown, correspondents of the tribune, captured at Vicks burg, are detained at
Richmond. Please ascertain why they are detained and get them off if you can. The president.4:30 pm.”
 The code system used replaced VENUS for Colonel, Wayland for captured, odor for Vicksburg,
Neptune for Richmond, and ADAM for president of USA and NELLY for the time. Later 5 more words
were added to make it more complex. They were kissing, Turning, Times, Belly Commissioner. Now
the final coded message was as follows:
GUARD ADAM THEM THEY AT WAYLAND BROWN FOR KISSING VENUS
CORRESPONDENTS AT NEPTUNE ARE OFF NELLY TURNING UP CAN GET WHY
DETAINED TRIBUNE AND TIMES RICHARDSON THE ARE ASCERTAIN AND YOU FILLS
BELLY THIS IF DETAINED PLEASE ODOR OF LUDLOW COMMISSIONER
Can you guess it? Neither could I.
Cryptology, now, shifted its course from religious arenas to the political battle fields. Spies,
agents and military personnel used it quite often as a mean of secure communication. Cryptography did
not remain just a word game rather a signal to trigger a bomb, target killing and coded conversations
such as a message deciphered by Verona cryptanalysts towards the end of 1946 listed the names of the
scientists involved in Manhattan atomic bomb project. This enabled soviets to develop their own
weapons more powerful than their enemies. This triggered the chilling relations between the two
superpowers.
Some of the code names and real names of the persons and places used in World War 2 are as
follows:
Real name Code name
President Roosevelt KAPITAN
San Francisco ENORMOZ
Us war department BABYLON
Ciphers which remained a challenge till World War II were Playfair, Diagraphs, and Elgar’s
Enigmas. The enigma machine was invented which was the only reliable code breaker machine till the
electronic revolution started. Computer took place of telegrams emerged as a challenge to the
cryptographic history. It remains the only undrinkable means of ciphering and deciphering the codes n
ciphers in the shortest time span. Now that we see codes, ciphers all around us from a box of chocolate
to the diplomatic communication, I wonder if the time of code breakers has ended and we the human
race will no longer be humans but coded entities. God knows a time will come when we will be known
by our codes and ciphers rather than qualities traits and names. The question is; will we ever be humans
than or just walking and talking machines??