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AY Honors/Cryptography/Answer Key

2026-03-30T20:07:34Z

RABaker96:

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Cryptography is the science or process of encoding and decoding messages to allow more secure transfer of information.


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Codes use symbols to replace the original message. These may include images, numbers, colors, etc. In many codes, the entire word can be represented by a symbol or another word.

For example, if we see a traffic light, each color represents a word or phrase, with a specific meaning: red=stop, amber=caution, green=go. The color denotes a word, and is thus a code. At sea, ships may use flags and pennants as part of the International Code of Signals, each flag representing a letter, number, word, or phrase.

[[File:ICS-flags.png|frame|center]]

In wartime and in secret government communications, code words may be used to obfuscate the actual meaning. During World War II, for example, the U.S. Navy used code words to represent locations or activities, so if the message was intercepted, the enemy would not know what or where they were talking about.

For example, the word "BALSA" in a message meant "Midway Island," "WOODBANK" meant "Paris, France," and "RANCID" translated to "Greenland."


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A Cipher encrypts a message at the level of individual or small groups of letters, rather than replacing entire words. It is created (and solved) using an algorithm. A simple classic cipher, for example, is the Caesar cipher, where the alphabet is shifted a certain number of spaces to encode and decode the message. The example below is a Caesar cipher with a key of 3 (ie each letter is shifted 3 places). The algorithm could be written as (P)+X=(C), where "P" means the plain text letter, and "C" means the new cipher text letter, and "X" is the number of spaces to shift the letter. A 3 shift Caesar cipher, as below, adds 23 places (26 letters in the alphabet -3 shifted spaces) to get us our encoding, but we "subtract" three letters from the encoded message to solve for the original.

[[File:A 3 key Caesar cipher.png|frame|center]]

Using this cipher, we could encode the word "Ranger" as OXKDBO, the word "Voyager" as SLVXDBO

Another simple classic cipher is the Atbash cipher, where the code is the alphabet in reverse.

[[File:Atbash cipher.png|frame|center]]

Using this cipher, we could encode the word "Companion" as xlnkzmrlm, the word "Guide" as tfrwv

Ciphers can be even more complex (and often are, particularly when using machines and computers). The Enigma machine of World War II used several mechanical elements to encode via a polyalphabetic cipher, meaning that in the enciphered text, a single letter may have different unencrypted meanings, based on where it was and how the algorithm encoded it.


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Steganography is the process of hiding data/information inside other data, for example hiding textual information in an image file, subtly changing fonts, or using invisible ink.

A simple two-part invisible ink can be created with things you likely already have in your house. The ink is made from a mixture of 1TBSP Baking Soda mixed in 1/2C water. Write the message with this ink on the paper. When first trying it out, use cotton swabs, but later you can experiment with finer brushes. Once the message is written, allow the paper to dry.

[[File:Ink1.jpg|frame|center|Making the Invisible Ink]]
[[File:Ink2.jpg|frame|center|Write the message and allow to dry]]

To reveal the invisible message, mix 1tsp turmeric with 1/2c rubbing alcohol to make the reagent. Then paint the reagent over the paper. Be careful, as it is easy to stain your fingers and the table a lovely yellow.

[[File:Ink3.jpg|frame|center|Mix the reagent.]]
[[File:Ink4.jpg|frame|center|Use the reagent to reveal the message]]


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Plain Text refers to the unencrypted information prior to encoding


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A key is the information necessary to encrypt and decrypt a particular message. In a Caesar cipher, it is the number of letters to shift.


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A public key is part of a two-key encryption/decryption model, where one key is private, and another is publicly available. Public Key Cryptography is also called Asymmetric Cryptography, and is a way of transmitting secure messages via the internet/email, where even if intercepted the message cannot be decrypted.


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A one way function is a model of encrypting information where it is relatively easy to convert the data one way, but much more difficult to reverse the process. In some computer applications, this one way function results in a hash value, allowing secure storage of sensitive information or passwords. If someone breaks into the database, they can only recover the hash value, which obscures the original information.


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Transposition is a classic cipher that moves the position of letters in a word or phrase, rather than replacing them. At its simplest, this could involve just shifting things around (Hello Friend might be encoded as Olleh Dneirf). Other forms include a rail fence ciphers as shown below, which write the words in a zig-zag pattern and then encode across the rows.

[[File:Rail Fence Cipher - 2 lines.png|frame|center]]

A two-line rail fence cipher, to encode "Pathfinders Strong." Once entered into the blocks, we would then send the encoded message as "PTFNESTOGAHIDRSRN"

[[File:Rail Fence Cipher - 3 Lines.png|frame|center]]

A three-line rail fence cipher, to encode "pathfinders strong." Once entered into the blocks, we would send the encoded message as "pfetgahidrsrntnso"


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A traditional Polybius Square is a 5X5 grid with the alphabet filling in the square (English alphabet needs a larger square, or combines two letters, such as I and J or U and V of C and K). Each square is then given a 2 digit code as per its column and row number.

[[File:Polybius Square.png|frame|center]]

Using the square above, we would encode the word "Pathfinder" as: "53 11 44 32 12 42 33 41 51 24"


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In a square cipher, the letters are placed in a grid, and encoded against another grid. A common square grid is a four square grid, made up (as the name implies) of four 5X5 grids. The upper left and lower right are a regular alphabet, the upper right and lower left may have a code word (in this case Pathfinder Strong is the code word - the code word is written in the squares first, then the grid is finished with the rest of the alphabet).

[[File:Four square cipher.png|frame|center]]

To encode a message, it is first broken into two-letter segments. So pathfinder becomes pa th fi nd er (if there were an odd number of letters, you would use an x to fill the final pair). The first letter of the pair is found in the upper left grid, the second of the pair in the lower right. To encode, move along the row from the first letter to pair up with the column of the second letter. Then for the second letter, move along its row to align with the column of the first letter.

[[File:Four square cipher - coded for Pathfinder.png|frame|center]]

In the image here, we have also color coded to see. So PA = BN, TH = QC, FI = EG, ND = KR, ER = AU. We would then send the encoded message (Pathfinder) as BNQCEGKRAU


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A substitution cipher is a simple cipher, where each letter/number is replaced by an alternate letter/number/symbol. The characters are changed for the encoded message, but not the order of characters. Morse Code can be considered a substitution cipher, as each letter is replaced with a unique set of dashes and dots, which allowed the message to be sent across telegraph lines by sending longer (dash) or shorter (dot) pulses of electricity.

[[File:International Morse Code.svg|frame|center]]


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In a polyalphabetic cipher, the substituted letter is determined both by the key and the placement in a word. So it may be that every third letter, the cipher shifts, or there is a different cipher for first letter, second letter, third letter, etc. In this style, the encoded message letters may represent different letters in the unencoded message, as different ciphers are used for different positions. It is more complicated to decode than a simple substitution cipher.

One well known polyalphabetic cipher is the Vigenere cipher, which uses a full alphabet grid (see below).

[[File:Vigenere cipher.png|frame|center]]

The message is encoded using a key phrase. The key phrase, repeated as necessary, is aligned above the unencoded text message, and each encoded replacement letter is found by the intersection of the key phrase letter column and the unencoded text letter row. In this case, we will use the key phrase "Sixth grade" and encode the message "Companion Class". We would align these atop one another, for example

[[File:A code phrase .png|frame|center]]

To encode, we find the letter at the intersection of S and C, which is U. The next letter is encoded by finding the intersection of I and O, which is W. Once done, our message is encoded as UWJIHTCOQGDIPL

[[File:Encoding a Vigenere.png|frame|center]]

[[File:Using the vigenere cipher.png|frame|center]]


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a. Processing done by a computer to determine if a user enters a correct password

Cipher (a mathematical formula), using one-way encryption or a hash

b. A Bible verse reference

Plain text (just an abbreviation)

c. The colors used on a traffic light to mean "Stop," "Go," or "Caution"

Code (each color having a different word meaning)

d. HTTPS:// used in a URL over the Internet

Cipher to security transfer data between two points

e. Forming a message by entering it into a grid row-by-row and reading it out column-by-column

Cipher (specifically a square cipher)

f. Invisible ink

Steganography (hiding a message in plain sight)

g. Navajo language used by the Code Talkers in World War II

Code (replacing words with words)

h. Data representation via a grid of dots (QR codes) or lines (Bar codes)

Code, though could also be used to hide additional information as a form of steganography

i. Enigma machine used in World War II

Cipher - used mathematical algorithms to encode and decode messages

j. Recording your computer password on a piece of paper

Plain Text (no encoding)

k. Signal used by Jonathan and David recounted in 1 Samuel 20:18-23

Code (each message coupled with arrow shot encoded its particular message)


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a. Egyptian hieroglyphs, 1900 BC

[[File:Hieroglyphs from Stela of Ity.jpg|frame|A selection of hieroglyphs from the Stela of Ity, on display at the British Museum]]
[[File:Selection from Stela of Semty Junior.jpg|frame|Hieroglyphs from the stela of Semty Junior, on display at the British Museum]]

Egyptian hieroglyphs are not really a code or a cipher, they are a form of written language. Hieroglyphs are symbols that may be phonograms (represent a sound), Ideograms (represent a word), or determinatives (provide context for the other hieroglyphs in a message). There are three types of phonograms - unilaterals (the symbol represents a single sound), bilaterals (representing a double sound, such as “pr”), and trilaterals (representing three sounds combined, such as “mwt”).

Hieroglyph words could be written right to left, left to right, top to bottom, and at times a bit of horizontal and vertical combined, depending upon how well it fit within the physical context (thus the writing often was as much art as communication). Vowels were generally excluded (most common transliterations just toss an “e” between each consonant), and the exact pronunciation remains somewhat uncertain. Writing your name or some other message, then, may include first stripping out the vowels before encoding into hieroglyphs. You will often see people’s names enclosed in an oval, making them easier to spot. Hieroglyphs could be carved, painted, or both.

[[File:The Rosetta Stone.jpg|frame|The Rosetta Stone, on display at the British Museum]]
[[File:Rosetta 4336.jpg|frame|A selection from the Rosetta Stone, on display at the British Museum]]
[[File:Rosetta 4341.jpg|frame|A selection from the Rosetta Stone, on display at the British Museum]]

Although there were many attempts to translate hieroglyphs for centuries, the discovery of the Rosetta Stone in 1799 by the French provided the impetus for the final work to crack the “code.” The Rosetta Stone, carved around 196 BC, had the same message written in hieroglyphs (the priestly language), demotic (a more common form of written Egyptian), and ancient Greek (as Egypt had earlier been conquered by Alexander the Great). Using the Rosetta Stone as a guide, French scholar Jean-François Champollion became the first to be recognized for deciphering hieroglyphs in 1822.

Many scholars and historians of cryptology date the earliest written cipher to the tomb of Khnumhotep II, an overseer during the Middle Kingdom period of Egypt (around 1900 BC). In the tomb, located in Beni Hassan, Egypt, there are several non-standard hieroglyphs, which may have been meant to highlight key words or phrases, or make the writings appear more significant. While not necessarily meant to hide the meaning, this is often considered a first use of a substitution cipher - replacing one letter or word with another.

If you want to learn more to try and do your own hieroglyphic writing, there are several good books and online resources, including:
https://www.egyptianhieroglyphs.net/
https://www.bibalex.org/learnhieroglyphs/Lesson/Introduction_En.aspx
Or try an online “translator,” such as https://lingojam.com/HieroglyphicsTranslator
Or try out https://artsandculture.google.com/experiment/fabricius/gwHX41Sm0N7-Dw?hl=en

b. Hebrew Atbash cipher, 500 BC

The Atbash cipher is a simple substitution cipher, reversing the order of the alphabet (the name is actually the first two and last two letters of the Hebrew alphabet). Hebrew has 22 letters, and using this cipher you replace the first with last, the second with second to last, etc. If we were to use the English alphabet (26 letters), A=Z, B=Y, C=X, D=W and so on. It is a simple cipher, making it useful but easy to crack.

It is believed that there is a use of the Atbash cipher in the book of Jeremiah. In Jeremiah 25:26 and 51:41, there is a mention of “Sheshach,” written right to left using the letters shin shin kaf. If an Atbash cipher is applied, these would be replaced by bet bet lamed, the Hebrew word for Babel (or Babylon). Thus it is believed that here Jeremiah is referring to Babylon, not some unknown city or country of “Sheshach.”
See 2b for an Atbash Cipher in action

c. Julius Caesar's substitution cipher, 100 BC

The Caesar shift cipher is another simply substitution cipher and was used for military communications. The cipher “shifts” the chosen letter left or right a set number based on the cipher key. So if there is a shift 2 to the right, then the letter A in plain text is shifted to C in the cipher text - it has “shifted” 2 letters to the right.

Building a simple wheel coder/decoder is an easy way to use a Caesar cipher. It is fairly easy to break a Caesar cipher, either through brute force or (just keep replacing a letter in a word until the word makes sense) or through a frequency analysis of the coded message, recognizing that certain letters (E, T, S) are very common, and will occur more often than other letters.

See question 6 for a Caesar Cipher in action.


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The Caesar cipher is a relatively simple cipher, with the coded text just shifting the letter a certain number of spaces left or right along the alphabet. If we have 26 letters in the alphabet, it means we can shift the alphabet 25 different ways right and 25 different ways left. A "right +2" Caesar cipher would move each letter two spaces to the right, so "A" would be encoded as "C," "B" would be "D" and so on, until "Y" wrapped around to "A" and "Z" wrapped around to be encoded as "B."

Here is a left +12 Caesar cipher (12 for the number of disciples). You can use a code phrase or some other way to signify the shift (though Caesar ciphers are relatively simple to break using brute force approaches and basic logic of language).

[[File:Plus 12 Caesar Cipher.png|frame|center]]

To use this, we first lay out our plain text

[[File:Plain text of Pathfinder Law.png|frame|center]]

Now we encode the letters using our left +12 Caesar cipher

[[File:Encoding the Pathfinder Law.png|frame|center]]

Finally, we remove our plain text, and can send the encoded text instead.

[[File:The Pathfinder Law encoded.png|frame|center]]


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There are many online tools to embed messages in images using ‘least significant bit’ (LSB) steganography, which changes one character in the encoding of the colors for pixels. This is nearly invisible to the human eye, but can be decoded by machine. Changing a file by saving it somewhere else, or in a different format, however, may compromise the message. Information can also be hidden in video files, music files, and other digital media.

But one doesn't always need a computer to hide messages in plain sight. This has been done for centuries, by hand. Steganography is hiding a message in plain sight. One simple way to do this is to write the message in invisible ink, such as lemon juice. When the ink dries, it cannot be seen on the paper until treated (with lemon juice, that means exposing it to heat). If you write the message over an already printed paper, it is even more hidden, as those intercepting the message will think the plain text is the message when in fact the real message is hidden underneath and waits to be revealed.

For a time-consuming but clever text based steganography, we can use Bacon's cipher to encode the Pathfinder Pledge. Bacon's cipher first replaces each letter with a five-letter a-b key (similar to binary, but using a and b rather than 0 and 1). Then, the message is written by using a different font or other clue for each a or b mapped against a piece of concealment text. It doesn't matter what the text is, so long as when it is written, one can break it into blocks of five letters, and see which letter represents an a or a b. Those five character a-b blocks then remap against the original cipher, revealing the original text.

[[File:BaconsCipher.png|frame|center]]

Using Bacon's cipher, we can convert the Pathfinder Pledge to the following string of five-character a-b blocks. So we converted By (the first word of the pledge) into aaaab babba, and continue with the whole Pledge, ignoring spaces and punctuation.

[[File:EncryptedMessage.png|frame|center]]

Now we need our concealment text. The encrypted text is 485 characters long, so we need at least that much text. For this exercise, we have a selection from The Pathfinder Story, which, with its citation, is exactly 485 characters. We will hide the a-b encrypted text within this concealment text.

[[File:ConcealmentText.png|frame|center]]

Now we take our concealment text, remove all of the punctuation and spaces, and break it into five character blocks, so we can map it against the cipher.

[[File:ContractedConcealment.png|frame|center]]

We can then map this set of five character text blocks against our cipher text so we know what characters to slightly alter to encode our message in plain sight.

[[File:Mapped.png|frame|center]]

For this version, we then take all of the letters that map against an "a" in the cipher text and leave them as 14 point font, while all the letters that map against a "b" in the cipher text are converted to 13 point font. It is a little noticeable, but not immediately obvious in the text that we have a hidden code.

[[File:EncodedMessage.png|frame|center]]

To make it easier to see, here is some of the text with the 13 point font letters in red. We would not send it this way, but this may help you see how the encoding works in the concealment message.

[[File:ShowEncoding.png|frame|center]]

To decrypt, we reverse the process. We first break our text into five character blocks, so we will be able to write out the cifer text. Here, we are using red to showcase which characters were in the 13 point font, while we leave the 14 point font characters in black.

[[File:FiveBlock.png|frame|center]]

Next, we convert the coded concealment text into a-b blocks. In this case, red (13 point font) letters are converted to "b," black (14 point font) characters are converted to "a."

[[File:Fiveblockdecrypt.png|frame|center]]

Finally, we take the cipher text (the a-b blocks) and convert them to letters, giving us our hidden message.

[[File:Decrypted.png|frame|center]]

The clever thing about Bacon's cipher, despite the long process, is that done right, it is almost impossible to tell that there is even a hidden message. By hiding the message in plain sight, others are less likely to think it is a message, and thus wont even work to break the cipher.


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You have plenty of choices for this one.

Here is an example of using a columnar transposition cipher (with a key) to encode our message. In this form of cipher, we write our plain text in a grid horizontally, and write our cipher text by reading the columns vertically. But the twist is the key. Before writing our text, we write the key word across our grid. This determines how many rows we will have. The rows are then written as the cipher text based on the alphabetical order of the letters in the key word - so the first column isn't necessarily the first column we will write. If there are two of the same letter in the key word, the first appearance comes first in numbering the columns.

So here is the way to encrypt using this method. Our plain text comes from the book of Psalm. Here we have converted the numbers to words so we do not need to worry about having numbers mixed with out letters.

[[File:Plain Text Psalm to encode.png|frame|center]]

Our keyword is SHEPHARD. Yes, it is spelled like a person's name, not the job with sheep. Using similar sounding words can add to the complexity if someone overhears the key word. The keyword should be sent (or pre-arranged) separately from the cipher text. Perhaps you can use steganography to hide the key word. So, our key, shephard, has 8 letters, so we will have 8 columns in our grid. When we encode, we will begin with the column beneath the letter "A," then the column beneath the letter "d," then "e," then the first "H," then the second "H" and so on. So here is the verse written out in our grid.

[[File:Cipher psalm.png|frame|center]]

Now we write out the coded message, starting with the column under "a," and so on.

[[File:Encoding a Psalm.png|frame|center]]

Finally, we break it up (this time in groups of 5, but use whatever you want so long as it isnt the original number of columns)

[[File:Cipher text for psalm.png|frameless|center]]

To decode, we would take the key word, make a grid, count the total number of characters in the encoded message and divide by the number of columns in our table to determine how many rows we need. Then we begin writing the cipher text vertically in the table, beginning with the "A" column and so on. Once complete, we read/write it out horizontally across the rows to recover our original text.


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==References== 
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[[Category:AY Honors/noindex{{GetLangSuffix}}|{{SUBPAGENAME}}]]

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AY Honors/Cryptography/Answer Key

2026-03-30T20:03:42Z

RABaker96:

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Cryptography is the science or process of encoding and decoding messages to allow more secure transfer of information.


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Codes use symbols to replace the original message. These may include images, numbers, colors, etc. In many codes, the entire word can be represented by a symbol or another word.

For example, if we see a traffic light, each color represents a word or phrase, with a specific meaning: red=stop, amber=caution, green=go. The color denotes a word, and is thus a code. At sea, ships may use flags and pennants as part of the International Code of Signals, each flag representing a letter, number, word, or phrase.

[[File:ICS-flags.png|frame|center]]

In wartime and in secret government communications, code words may be used to obfuscate the actual meaning. During World War II, for example, the U.S. Navy used code words to represent locations or activities, so if the message was intercepted, the enemy would not know what or where they were talking about.

For example, the word "BALSA" in a message meant "Midway Island," "WOODBANK" meant "Paris, France," and "RANCID" translated to "Greenland."


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A Cipher encrypts a message at the level of individual or small groups of letters, rather than replacing entire words. It is created (and solved) using an algorithm. A simple classic cipher, for example, is the Caesar cipher, where the alphabet is shifted a certain number of spaces to encode and decode the message. The example below is a Caesar cipher with a key of 3 (ie each letter is shifted 3 places). The algorithm could be written as (P)+X=(C), where "P" means the plain text letter, and "C" means the new cipher text letter, and "X" is the number of spaces to shift the letter. A 3 shift Caesar cipher, as below, adds 23 places (26 letters in the alphabet -3 shifted spaces) to get us our encoding, but we "subtract" three letters from the encoded message to solve for the original.

[[File:A 3 key Caesar cipher.png|frame|center]]

Using this cipher, we could encode the word "Ranger" as OXKDBO, the word "Voyager" as SLVXDBO

Another simple classic cipher is the Atbash cipher, where the code is the alphabet in reverse.

[[File:Atbash cipher.png|frame|center]]

Using this cipher, we could encode the word "Companion" as xlnkzmrlm, the word "Guide" as tfrwv

Ciphers can be even more complex (and often are, particularly when using machines and computers). The Enigma machine of World War II used several mechanical elements to encode via a polyalphabetic cipher, meaning that in the enciphered text, a single letter may have different unencrypted meanings, based on where it was and how the algorithm encoded it.


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Steganography is the process of hiding data/information inside other data, for example hiding textual information in an image file, subtly changing fonts, or using invisible ink.

A simple two-part invisible ink can be created with things you likely already have in your house. The ink is made from a mixture of 1TBSP Baking Soda mixed in 1/2C water. Write the message with this ink on the paper. When first trying it out, use cotton swabs, but later you can experiment with finer brushes. Once the message is written, allow the paper to dry.

[[File:Ink1.jpg|frame|center|Making the Invisible Ink]]
[[File:Ink2.jpg|frame|center|Write the message and allow to dry]]

To reveal the invisible message, mix 1tsp turmeric with 1/2c rubbing alcohol to make the reagent. Then paint the reagent over the paper. Be careful, as it is easy to stain your fingers and the table a lovely yellow.

[[File:Ink3.jpg|frame|center|Mix the reagent.]]
[[File:Ink4.jpg|frame|center|Use the reagent to reveal the message]]


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Plain Text refers to the unencrypted information prior to encoding


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A key is the information necessary to encrypt and decrypt a particular message. In a Caesar cipher, it is the number of letters to shift.


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A public key is part of a two-key encryption/decryption model, where one key is private, and another is publicly available. Public Key Cryptography is also called Asymmetric Cryptography, and is a way of transmitting secure messages via the internet/email, where even if intercepted the message cannot be decrypted.


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A one way function is a model of encrypting information where it is relatively easy to convert the data one way, but much more difficult to reverse the process. In some computer applications, this one way function results in a hash value, allowing secure storage of sensitive information or passwords. If someone breaks into the database, they can only recover the hash value, which obscures the original information.


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Transposition is a classic cipher that moves the position of letters in a word or phrase, rather than replacing them. At its simplest, this could involve just shifting things around (Hello Friend might be encoded as Olleh Dneirf). Other forms include a rail fence ciphers as shown below, which write the words in a zig-zag pattern and then encode across the rows.

[[File:Rail Fence Cipher - 2 lines.png|frame|center]]

A two-line rail fence cipher, to encode "Pathfinders Strong." Once entered into the blocks, we would then send the encoded message as "PTFNESTOGAHIDRSRN"

[[File:Rail Fence Cipher - 3 Lines.png|frame|center]]

A three-line rail fence cipher, to encode "pathfinders strong." Once entered into the blocks, we would send the encoded message as "pfetgahidrsrntnso"


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A traditional Polybius Square is a 5X5 grid with the alphabet filling in the square (English alphabet needs a larger square, or combines two letters, such as I and J or U and V of C and K). Each square is then given a 2 digit code as per its column and row number.

[[File:Polybius Square.png|frame|center]]

Using the square above, we would encode the word "Pathfinder" as: "53 11 44 32 12 42 33 41 51 24"


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In a square cipher, the letters are placed in a grid, and encoded against another grid. A common square grid is a four square grid, made up (as the name implies) of four 5X5 grids. The upper left and lower right are a regular alphabet, the upper right and lower left may have a code word (in this case Pathfinder Strong is the code word - the code word is written in the squares first, then the grid is finished with the rest of the alphabet).

[[File:Four square cipher.png|frame|center]]

To encode a message, it is first broken into two-letter segments. So pathfinder becomes pa th fi nd er (if there were an odd number of letters, you would use an x to fill the final pair). The first letter of the pair is found in the upper left grid, the second of the pair in the lower right. To encode, move along the row from the first letter to pair up with the column of the second letter. Then for the second letter, move along its row to align with the column of the first letter.

[[File:Four square cipher - coded for Pathfinder.png|frame|center]]

In the image here, we have also color coded to see. So PA = BN, TH = QC, FI = EG, ND = KR, ER = AU. We would then send the encoded message (Pathfinder) as BNQCEGKRAU


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A substitution cipher is a simple cipher, where each letter/number is replaced by an alternate letter/number/symbol. The characters are changed for the encoded message, but not the order of characters. Morse Code can be considered a substitution cipher, as each letter is replaced with a unique set of dashes and dots, which allowed the message to be sent across telegraph lines by sending longer (dash) or shorter (dot) pulses of electricity.

[[File:International Morse Code.svg|frame|center]]


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In a polyalphabetic cipher, the substituted letter is determined both by the key and the placement in a word. So it may be that every third letter, the cipher shifts, or there is a different cipher for first letter, second letter, third letter, etc. In this style, the encoded message letters may represent different letters in the unencoded message, as different ciphers are used for different positions. It is more complicated to decode than a simple substitution cipher.

One well known polyalphabetic cipher is the Vigenere cipher, which uses a full alphabet grid (see below).

[[File:Vigenere cipher.png|frame|center]]

The message is encoded using a key phrase. The key phrase, repeated as necessary, is aligned above the unencoded text message, and each encoded replacement letter is found by the intersection of the key phrase letter column and the unencoded text letter row. In this case, we will use the key phrase "Sixth grade" and encode the message "Companion Class". We would align these atop one another, for example

[[File:A code phrase .png|frame|center]]

To encode, we find the letter at the intersection of S and C, which is U. The next letter is encoded by finding the intersection of I and O, which is W. Once done, our message is encoded as UWJIHTCOQGDIPL

[[File:Encoding a Vigenere.png|frame|center]]

[[File:Using the vigenere cipher.png|frame|center]]


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a. Processing done by a computer to determine if a user enters a correct password

Cipher (a mathematical formula), using one-way encryption or a hash

b. A Bible verse reference

Plain text (just an abbreviation)

c. The colors used on a traffic light to mean "Stop," "Go," or "Caution"

Code (each color having a different word meaning)

d. HTTPS:// used in a URL over the Internet

Cipher to security transfer data between two points

e. Forming a message by entering it into a grid row-by-row and reading it out column-by-column

Cipher (specifically a square cipher)

f. Invisible ink

Steganography (hiding a message in plain sight)

g. Navajo language used by the Code Talkers in World War II

Code (replacing words with words)

h. Data representation via a grid of dots (QR codes) or lines (Bar codes)

Code, though could also be used to hide additional information as a form of steganography

i. Enigma machine used in World War II

Cipher - used mathematical algorithms to encode and decode messages

j. Recording your computer password on a piece of paper

Plain Text (no encoding)

k. Signal used by Jonathan and David recounted in 1 Samuel 20:18-23

Code (each message coupled with arrow shot encoded its particular message)


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a. Egyptian hieroglyphs, 1900 BC

[[File:Hieroglyphs from Stela of Ity.jpg|frame|A selection of hieroglyphs from the Stela of Ity, on display at the British Museum]]
[[File:Selection from Stela of Semty Junior.jpg|frame|Hieroglyphs from the stela of Semty Junior, on display at the British Museum]]

Egyptian hieroglyphs are not really a code or a cipher, they are a form of written language. Hieroglyphs are symbols that may be phonograms (represent a sound), Ideograms (represent a word), or determinatives (provide context for the other hieroglyphs in a message). There are three types of phonograms - unilaterals (the symbol represents a single sound), bilaterals (representing a double sound, such as “pr”), and trilaterals (representing three sounds combined, such as “mwt”).

Hieroglyph words could be written right to left, left to right, top to bottom, and at times a bit of horizontal and vertical combined, depending upon how well it fit within the physical context (thus the writing often was as much art as communication). Vowels were generally excluded (most common transliterations just toss an “e” between each consonant), and the exact pronunciation remains somewhat uncertain. Writing your name or some other message, then, may include first stripping out the vowels before encoding into hieroglyphs. You will often see people’s names enclosed in an oval, making them easier to spot. Hieroglyphs could be carved, painted, or both.

[[File:The Rosetta Stone.jpg|frame|The Rosetta Stone, on display at the British Museum]]
[[File:Rosetta 4336.jpg|frame|A selection from the Rosetta Stone, on display at the British Museum]]
[[File:Rosetta 4341.jpg|frame|A selection from the Rosetta Stone, on display at the British Museum]]

Although there were many attempts to translate hieroglyphs for centuries, the discovery of the Rosetta Stone in 1799 by the French provided the impetus for the final work to crack the “code.” The Rosetta Stone, carved around 196 BC, had the same message written in hieroglyphs (the priestly language), demotic (a more common form of written Egyptian), and ancient Greek (as Egypt had earlier been conquered by Alexander the Great). Using the Rosetta Stone as a guide, French scholar Jean-François Champollion became the first to be recognized for deciphering hieroglyphs in 1822.

Many scholars and historians of cryptology date the earliest written cipher to the tomb of Khnumhotep II, an overseer during the Middle Kingdom period of Egypt (around 1900 BC). In the tomb, located in Beni Hassan, Egypt, there are several non-standard hieroglyphs, which may have been meant to highlight key words or phrases, or make the writings appear more significant. While not necessarily meant to hide the meaning, this is often considered a first use of a substitution cipher - replacing one letter or word with another.

If you want to learn more to try and do your own hieroglyphic writing, there are several good books and online resources, including:
https://www.egyptianhieroglyphs.net/
https://www.bibalex.org/learnhieroglyphs/Lesson/Introduction_En.aspx
Or try an online “translator,” such as https://lingojam.com/HieroglyphicsTranslator
Or try out https://artsandculture.google.com/experiment/fabricius/gwHX41Sm0N7-Dw?hl=en

b. Hebrew Atbash cipher, 500 BC

The Abash cipher is a simple substitution cipher, reversing the order of the alphabet (the name is actually the first two and last two letters of the Hebrew alphabet). Hebrew has 22 letters, and using this cipher you replace the first with last, the second with second to last, etc. If we were to use the English alphabet (26 letters), A=Z, B=Y, C=X, D=W and so on. It is a simple cipher, making it useful but easy to crack.

It is believed that there is a use of the Abash cipher in the book of Jeremiah. In Jeremiah 25:26 and 51:41, there is a mention of “Sheshach,” written right to left using the letters shin shin kaf. If an Abash cipher is applied, these would be replaced by bet bet lamed, the Hebrew word for Babel (or Babylon). Thus it is believed that here Jeremiah is referring to Babylon, not some unknown city or country of “Sheshach.”
See 2b for an Abash Cipher in action

c. Julius Caesar's substitution cipher, 100 BC

The Caesar shift cipher is another simply substitution cipher and was used for military communications. The cipher “shifts” the chosen letter left or right a set number based on the cipher key. So if there is a shift 2 to the right, then the letter A in plain text is shifted to C in the cipher text - it has “shifted” 2 letters to the right.

Building a simple wheel coder/decoder is an easy way to use a Caesar cipher. It is fairly easy to break a Caesar cipher, either through brute force or (just keep replacing a letter in a word until the word makes sense) or through a frequency analysis of the coded message, recognizing that certain letters (E, T, S) are very common, and will occur more often than other letters.

See question 6 for a Caesar Cipher in action.


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The Caesar cipher is a relatively simple cipher, with the coded text just shifting the letter a certain number of spaces left or right along the alphabet. If we have 26 letters in the alphabet, it means we can shift the alphabet 25 different ways right and 25 different ways left. A "right +2" Caesar cipher would move each letter two spaces to the right, so "A" would be encoded as "C," "B" would be "D" and so on, until "Y" wrapped around to "A" and "Z" wrapped around to be encoded as "B."

Here is a left +12 Caesar cipher (12 for the number of disciples). You can use a code phrase or some other way to signify the shift (though Caesar ciphers are relatively simple to break using brute force approaches and basic logic of language).

[[File:Plus 12 Caesar Cipher.png|frame|center]]

To use this, we first lay out our plain text

[[File:Plain text of Pathfinder Law.png|frame|center]]

Now we encode the letters using our left +12 Caesar cipher

[[File:Encoding the Pathfinder Law.png|frame|center]]

Finally, we remove our plain text, and can send the encoded text instead.

[[File:The Pathfinder Law encoded.png|frame|center]]


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There are many online tools to embed messages in images using ‘least significant bit’ (LSB) steganography, which changes one character in the encoding of the colors for pixels. This is nearly invisible to the human eye, but can be decoded by machine. Changing a file by saving it somewhere else, or in a different format, however, may compromise the message. Information can also be hidden in video files, music files, and other digital media.

But one doesn't always need a computer to hide messages in plain sight. This has been done for centuries, by hand. Steganography is hiding a message in plain sight. One simple way to do this is to write the message in invisible ink, such as lemon juice. When the ink dries, it cannot be seen on the paper until treated (with lemon juice, that means exposing it to heat). If you write the message over an already printed paper, it is even more hidden, as those intercepting the message will think the plain text is the message when in fact the real message is hidden underneath and waits to be revealed.

For a time-consuming but clever text based steganography, we can use Bacon's cipher to encode the Pathfinder Pledge. Bacon's cipher first replaces each letter with a five-letter a-b key (similar to binary, but using a and b rather than 0 and 1). Then, the message is written by using a different font or other clue for each a or b mapped against a piece of concealment text. It doesn't matter what the text is, so long as when it is written, one can break it into blocks of five letters, and see which letter represents an a or a b. Those five character a-b blocks then remap against the original cipher, revealing the original text.

[[File:BaconsCipher.png|frame|center]]

Using Bacon's cipher, we can convert the Pathfinder Pledge to the following string of five-character a-b blocks. So we converted By (the first word of the pledge) into aaaab babba, and continue with the whole Pledge, ignoring spaces and punctuation.

[[File:EncryptedMessage.png|frame|center]]

Now we need our concealment text. The encrypted text is 485 characters long, so we need at least that much text. For this exercise, we have a selection from The Pathfinder Story, which, with its citation, is exactly 485 characters. We will hide the a-b encrypted text within this concealment text.

[[File:ConcealmentText.png|frame|center]]

Now we take our concealment text, remove all of the punctuation and spaces, and break it into five character blocks, so we can map it against the cipher.

[[File:ContractedConcealment.png|frame|center]]

We can then map this set of five character text blocks against our cipher text so we know what characters to slightly alter to encode our message in plain sight.

[[File:Mapped.png|frame|center]]

For this version, we then take all of the letters that map against an "a" in the cipher text and leave them as 14 point font, while all the letters that map against a "b" in the cipher text are converted to 13 point font. It is a little noticeable, but not immediately obvious in the text that we have a hidden code.

[[File:EncodedMessage.png|frame|center]]

To make it easier to see, here is some of the text with the 13 point font letters in red. We would not send it this way, but this may help you see how the encoding works in the concealment message.

[[File:ShowEncoding.png|frame|center]]

To decrypt, we reverse the process. We first break our text into five character blocks, so we will be able to write out the cifer text. Here, we are using red to showcase which characters were in the 13 point font, while we leave the 14 point font characters in black.

[[File:FiveBlock.png|frame|center]]

Next, we convert the coded concealment text into a-b blocks. In this case, red (13 point font) letters are converted to "b," black (14 point font) characters are converted to "a."

[[File:Fiveblockdecrypt.png|frame|center]]

Finally, we take the cipher text (the a-b blocks) and convert them to letters, giving us our hidden message.

[[File:Decrypted.png|frame|center]]

The clever thing about Bacon's cipher, despite the long process, is that done right, it is almost impossible to tell that there is even a hidden message. By hiding the message in plain sight, others are less likely to think it is a message, and thus wont even work to break the cipher.


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You have plenty of choices for this one.

Here is an example of using a columnar transposition cipher (with a key) to encode our message. In this form of cipher, we write our plain text in a grid horizontally, and write our cipher text by reading the columns vertically. But the twist is the key. Before writing our text, we write the key word across our grid. This determines how many rows we will have. The rows are then written as the cipher text based on the alphabetical order of the letters in the key word - so the first column isn't necessarily the first column we will write. If there are two of the same letter in the key word, the first appearance comes first in numbering the columns.

So here is the way to encrypt using this method. Our plain text comes from the book of Psalm. Here we have converted the numbers to words so we do not need to worry about having numbers mixed with out letters.

[[File:Plain Text Psalm to encode.png|frame|center]]

Our keyword is SHEPHARD. Yes, it is spelled like a person's name, not the job with sheep. Using similar sounding words can add to the complexity if someone overhears the key word. The keyword should be sent (or pre-arranged) separately from the cipher text. Perhaps you can use steganography to hide the key word. So, our key, shephard, has 8 letters, so we will have 8 columns in our grid. When we encode, we will begin with the column beneath the letter "A," then the column beneath the letter "d," then "e," then the first "H," then the second "H" and so on. So here is the verse written out in our grid.

[[File:Cipher psalm.png|frame|center]]

Now we write out the coded message, starting with the column under "a," and so on.

[[File:Encoding a Psalm.png|frame|center]]

Finally, we break it up (this time in groups of 5, but use whatever you want so long as it isnt the original number of columns)

[[File:Cipher text for psalm.png|frameless|center]]

To decode, we would take the key word, make a grid, count the total number of characters in the encoded message and divide by the number of columns in our table to determine how many rows we need. Then we begin writing the cipher text vertically in the table, beginning with the "A" column and so on. Once complete, we read/write it out horizontally across the rows to recover our original text.


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==References== 
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AY Honors/Raptors/Answer Key

2026-03-20T14:15:03Z

RABaker96:

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The word Raptor comes from the Latin word ''rapere'', meaning to seize, or snatch away. The term is used in reference with the way many raptors kill their prey with their feet.


Raptors include hawks, eagles, kites, vultures, condors, harriers, kestrels, falcons, owls and the secretarybird. Raptors are often referred to as birds of prey, as they are frequently active hunters (aside from the vultures and condors, which are primarily carrion eaters). A common characteristic among raptors are their sharp, curved talons for catching and holding prey, their curved upper bill for tearing flesh, and often their keen eyesight, hearing and/or sense of smell, used for finding their food.


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Raptors are divided into two broad groups, the diurnal raptors (those active in the day), such as hawks, eagles, kites, falcons and osprey, and the nocturnal raptors (those active at night), which comprise the typical owls and the barn owls.


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Raptors are currently divided into three Orders under the Class Aves:


Order Accipitriformes (''accipiter'', from the Latin word meaning hawk)
* Family Accipitridae: including the hawks, eagles, and kites, represented by 74 genera and some 217 species worldwide
* Family Cathartidae (''cathartes'', from the Greek word meaning purifier): represented by five genera, and include the vultures and condors
* Family Pandionidae (''Pandion'', from the Greek legend, the father of Procne, changed into a swallow): the ingle species of Osprey
* Family Sagittariidae (''Sagittarius'', Latin for archer): One species of Secretarybird, found in Sub-Saharan Africa


Order Falconiformes (likely from ''falx'', from the Latin meaning sickle, referring to the curved beak)
* Family Falconidae: 11 Genera and some 60 species of falcons and their allies, including the Caracaras


Order Strigiformes (''strix'', from the Greek meaning to screech)
* Family Strigidae: 23 Genera and some 124 species of owls worldwide
* Family Tytonidae (''Tyto'', from the Greek for owl): Two genera and around ten species of Barn Owls


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Raptors are generally characterized by their sharp, curved talons, their sharp, powerful curved beaks, and their keen eyesight. The vultures (Cathartidae) do not have powerful talons, as they do not hunt live prey. The Turkey Vultures and the Yellow Headed Vultures have a very strong sense of smell, something that isn't as heightened in the Black Vulture, which finds its prey by sight - or by following the Turkey Vulture.


'''Eyes''': Raptor eyes are very large for their head, and more forward pointing to allow binocular vision, which is important for determining distance to prey. Like many other birds, raptors are also able to see in the ultraviolet light spectrum, which may reveal the trails of potential rodent prey. Their overall vision is considered some eight times as powerful as a human, which is important as they fly far overhead, seeking small rodents and other prey. Diurnal raptors have good color vision, but nocturnal raptor eyes are instead designed to pick up every scrap of light, given their nighttime hunting habits.


Protecting the eye is a bony ring, called the sclerotic ring, but while this helps keep the eye safe from injury, it also limits the raptor’s ability to turn its eyes, thus they turn their head to adjust where they are looking and ascertain distance to prey. To facilitate this manner of looking around, raptors have the ability to rotate their heads quite a bit, with some owls able to turn their heads more than 180 degrees around, looking completely backwards and then some.


Another way raptors protect their eyes is with three eyelids, two outer ones that close up-and-down, and an inner translucent eyelid, called a nictitating membrane, which opens and closes fore-and-aft. The nictitating membrane may be closed while a raptor is digging its beak into its prey, to avoid getting things in its eyes, and the osprey is known to close the membrane before diving into water.


<gallery mode="packed-hover">
Image:Buteo_swainsoni_1.jpg|Sainson’s Hawk skull - note the large eye socket.
Image:Cathartes_aura_Skull.jpg|Turkey Vulture skull - note large nasal opening
</gallery>


'''Talons/Feet''': With the exception of the vultures (Cathartidae), most raptors capture their live prey with their feet/talons. The feet are strong, and in diurnal raptors the lower legs are often bare (whereas many owls may have feathers even on their feet, with the Great Horned Owl having entirely feathered feet). The claws may be long and strongly curved, as in Osprey or falcons that catch fish or birds on the wing, or shorter for raptors hunting much larger prey. Most raptors have three toes facing forward and a fourth facing backwards, but owls and osprey can turn their small toe backwards, to have a two-two configuration, for better balance or grip.


'''Beaks''': The common raptor beak shape is a sharp hook, designed to tear flesh, pull off feather and fur, and pierce flesh. Raptors do not chew their food, so they need to either swallow it whole, or tear it into bite sized pieces. Vultures, which eat carrion, may have slightly longer and straighter beaks, able to stick deeper into a carcass. Vultures also may have few or no feathers on their head, to avoid getting food in their feathers.


Many falcons, and some hawks and other accipiters, have a special extra projection on the outside edge of the upper mandible (beak) just behind the sharp curved tip. This is called the Tomial Tooth, and may be matched by a notch in the lower bill called the Tomial Notch. The falcons use this to quickly sever the spinal column of their small prey, quickly killing it.


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Use this to find how many of each family are in your area, and then see of you can find them. Some examples include:


* Accipitridae: The largest and most diverse family of raptors. Includes the Bald Eagle, Red-Tailed Hawk, and Mississippi Kite, among others. Below are a small selection of raptors found in the Family Accipitridae.


<gallery mode="packed-hover">
Image:Accipiter cooperii 1.jpeg|Cooper’s Hawk (''Accipiter cooperii'')
Image:Buteo jamaicensis 3.jpg|Red-Tailed Hawk (''Buteo jamaicensis'')
Image:Terathopius ecaudatus 1.jpg|Bateleur Eagle (''Terathopius ecaudatus'')
Image:Parabuteo unicinctus 1.jpg|Harris’ Hawk (''Parabuteo unicinctus'')
Image:Haliaeetus leucocephalus 3.jpg|Bald Eagle (''Haliaeetus leucocephalus'')
Image:Spilornis cheela 1.jpg|Crested Serpent Eagle (''Spilornis cheela'')
Image:Haliastur indus 1.jpg|Brahminy Kite (''Haliastur indus'')
Image:Harpia harpyja 2.jpg|Harpy Eagle (''Harpia harpyja'')
Image:Buteo lineatus 6.jpg|Red-Shouldered Hawk (''Buteo lineatus'')
Image:Ictinia mississippiensis 1.jpg|Mississippi Kite (''Ictinia mississippiensis'')
</gallery>


* Cathartidae: There are seven recognized species in the Family Cathartidae: Turkey Vulture (Cathartes aura), Lesser Yellow-Headed Vulture (Cathartes burrovianus), Greater Yellow-Headed Vulture (Cathartes melambrotus), Black Vulture (Corygyps atratus), California Condor (Gymnogyps californianus), King Vulture (Sarcoramphus papa) and the massive Andean Condor (Vultur gryphus)


<gallery mode="packed-hover">
Image:Cathartes aura 7.jpg|Turkey Vulture (''Cathartes aura'')
Image:Coragyps atratus 3.jpg|Black Vulture (''Coragyps atratus'')
Image: Vultur gryphus 1.jpg|Andean Condor (''Vultur gryphus'')
</gallery>


* Pandionidae: There is one recognized species of Osprey: (Pandion halietus)


<gallery mode="packed-hover">
Image:Pandion haliaetus 1.jpg|Western Osprey (''Pandion haliaetus'')
</gallery>


* Sagittariidae: There is only one species in this family, the Secretarybird (Sagittarius serpentarius), found in Africa.


* Falconidae: Falconidae are divided into two sub-families, Falconinae and Polyborinae. The former has four genera, and includes the ubiquitous Peregrine Falcon (Falco peregrinus), the Merlin (Falco columbarius) and the American Kestrel (Falco sparvarius), as well as the tiny Black-Thighed Falconet (Microhierax fringillarius). The Polyborinae comprises seven genera, and includes the Crested Caracara (Caracara plancus) and the Barred Forest Falcon (Micrastur ruficollis).


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Image:Falco peregrinus 1.jpg|Peregrine Falcon (''Falco peregrinus'')
Image:Caracara cheriway 1.jpg|Crested Caracara (''Caracara plancus'')
</gallery>


* Strigidae comprises 23 genera of “typical” owls in three sub-families, and includes the massive Eurasian Eagle-Owl (Bubo bubo), the Great Grey Owl (Strix nebulosa), the tiny Northern Pygmy Owl (Glaucidium gnoma) and the equally diminutive Elf Owl (Micrathene whitneyi), and the Great Horned Owl (Bubo virginianus).


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Image:Bubo virginianus 2.jpg|Great Horned Owl (''Bubo virginianus'')
Image:Megascops asio 1.jpg|Eastern Screech Owl (''Megascops asio'')
Image:Pulsatrix perspicillata 1.jpg|Spectacled Owl (''Pulsatrix perspicillata'')
Image:Strix varia 1.jpg|Barred Owl (''Strix varia'')
Image:Ninox connivens 1.jpg|Barking Boobook (''Ninox connivens'')
Image:Bubo philippensis 1.jpg|Philippine Eagle-Owl (''Bubo philippensis'')
</gallery>


* Tytonidae is divided into two sub-families, each with just a single genus. Among the Tytonidae are the Oriental Bay Owl (Phodilus badius), the American Barn Owl (Tyto furcata), and the Australian Masked Owl (Tyto novaehollandiae).


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Image:Tyto_alba_1.jpg|Barn Owl (''Tyto furcata'')
</gallery>


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[[Image:ExternalAnatomy.jpg|300px]]
[[Image:FlightFeathers.jpg|300px]]
[[Image:OwlTalon 1.jpg|300px]]


The flight feathers in raptors (and all birds) are called Retrices on the tail, Remiges on the wings. The main feathers responsible for flight on the wings are divided into the Primary feathers (Primaries), the Secondary feathers (Secondaries), and at times Tertiary feathers.


The ears are usually hidden behind the feathers, and occur a little below and behind the eye. "Eared" owls, those with tufts sticking up on either side of the head, also have their ear in the normal place - the raised tufts are not related to the ear location.


The third picture above is a close up shot of owl talons. Note the sharp, curved claws, used for grasping prey.


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The smallest diurnal raptors are the Black-Thighed Falconet and the White-Fronted Falconet, the former, found on peninsular Malaysia and southern Thailand, Borneo, Sumatra and Java, measures 14-17 centimeters (5.5-6.7 inches) and weighs 28-55 grams (0.06-0.12 pounds). The latter is found in northern Borneo, also measuring 14-17 centimeters (5.5-6.7 inches), weighing 35-65 grams (0.08-0.14 pounds).


The smallest diurnal raptor in the United States is the American Kestrel, which by comparison is a massive 22-31 centimeters (8.7-12.2 inches) long, and 80-165 grams (0.18-0.36 pounds).


The smallest nocturnal raptor is a toss-up (depending upon the individual specimen) between the Northern Pygmy Owl (at 16-18 centimeters/6.3-7.1 inches long), found through Central America, Mexico, the western United States to Canada, and the Elf Owl, living in the American southwest and south central states and Mexico, at 13-30 centimeters (5.1-11.8 inches) long, and weighing around 40 grams (0.09 pounds).


The Pygmy Parrots of New Guinea are the smallest parrots, measuring just 3.5-4 inches in length. The African Pygmy Goose, weighing in at just around six-tenths of a pound and measuring 12 inches in length, is the smallest of the waterfowl.


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The largest diurnal raptor by wingspan is the Andean Condor (image below), measuring in at 10 feet or more across. By weight, it is the California Condor, at 31 pounds.


[[Image:Vultur gryphus 2.jpg|300px]]


The largest nocturnal raptor by weight is either the Eurasian Eagle-Owl, measuring 2-2.5 feet with a wingspan of 5-6 feet (weighing 3-9 pounds), or the endangered Blakiston’s Fish Owl, measuring 2-2.3 feet and weighing 6.5-10 pounds. By size (but not weight), the Great Grey Owl tops both, measuring 2-2.75 feet with a wingspan of up to five feet, but weighing in at only 1.3 to slightly over 4 pounds.


By comparison, the largest parrots, the Hyacinth Macaw, can reach a length of some 3.3 feet, and the flightless Kakapo can weigh up to 4.5 pounds, and the largest waterfowl are the Trumpeter Swan, with a 10 foot wingspan and weighing in at some 38 pounds.


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As would be expected from such a diverse group, raptors build many different types of nests.


Some build large stick nests, among them the Bald Eagles, Osprey, Secretarybird, Crested Caracara, and Red-Shouldered Hawk. Osprey nests are usually atop a solitary pole, Caracara may place their nests atop a small tree or palm.


Others scrape out nesting sites on cliffs, such as the Peregrine Falcon, or the Merlin (which may also use old nests of other raptors).


Several types of owls nest in natural cavities in trees, including the Screech Owl, while the Elf Owl prefers to nest in old woodpecker holes in Cacti. The Common Kestrel is another cavity nester.


Most vultures do not bother building nests at all, laying their eggs in tall grasses, natural hollows in rocks or on cliffs, or in fallen hollow logs.


The Burrowing Owl, as its name suggests, prefers to nest in ground burrows, usually ones abandoned by mammals.


<gallery mode="packed-hover">
Image:Pandion haliaetus 2.jpg|Osprey stick nest atop a pole
Image:Buteo lineatus 4.jpg|Red-Shouldered Hawk nest in the crook of a sycamore tree, two eyas (chicks) and mother in nest
Image:Bubo virginianus 2.jpg|Great Horned Owl nest atop a wall, with three owlets
</gallery>


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Among the raptors, a general rule is that the smaller the species, the shorter the lifespan. Small raptors live 3-15 years, though for nearly all raptors, the first 1-3 years are the most dangerous, and the time they are most likely to be killed prematurely. Larger raptors live 20-40 years, and perhaps even longer in captivity for some species.


Like the raptors, smaller parrots have shorter lifespans, perhaps some 15-20 years, while the larger species may live 80 or more years. For waterfowl, some geese may live well over 20 years, while other ducks may have shorter average lifespans, in the 8-20 year range.


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With the exception of the vultures (Cathartidae) which are carrion-eating scavengers, most raptors are active hunters, using their keen eyesight (watch them flying, and you will often see their head cocked to one side looking down) to find prey, and their sharp talons to capture the prey. Most falcons (Falconidae), as well as some Kites and other Accipiters, have a well developed extra "bump" on the outer edge of their upper mandible (beak) just behind the curved tip. This is referred to as the Tomial "tooth," and is thought to assist the falcons in quickly killing their captured prey by severing the spinal column.


The vultures are primarily carrion eaters, feeding on dead animals and the occasional invertebrate, lizard or amphibian or at times even small or young mammals. The Lesser Yellow-Headed Vulture prefers dead fish, the Turkey Vulture prefers smaller mammals, and the Black Vulture is known to eat just about anything dead.


Secretarybirds hunt small mammals, reptiles, birds and invertebrates.


Osprey are almost exclusively fish eaters, catching fish out of the water with their talons.


Falcons feed on many different types of live prey, including live birds (the Peregrine Falcon is particularly adept at catching birds on the wing).


Smaller hawks may prefer reptiles and amphibians and smaller mammals like rodents, larger hawks and eagles may tackle even bigger live prey, including rabbits and ducks. Smaller Accipiters and Falcons feed on insects.


Owls are frequently known for their affinity for small mammals, particularly rodents.


Bearded Vultures like to eat Ostrich eggs, among other things. Their beaks are not strong enough to pierce the thick shell, so they throw rocks at the eggs until they crack open.


The Snail Kite, as its name implies, has a beak suited for prying snails out of their shells, and feeds mostly on apple snails.


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Image:Buteo_lineatus_7.jpg|Red-Shouldered Hawk carrying a bird chick raided from another nest
Image:Accipiter_cooperii_2.jpg|A Cooper’s Hawk with a pigeon it killed
Image:Cathartes_aura_6.jpg|A Turkey Vulture preparing to enjoy a squirrel
</gallery>


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Raptors like hawks and eagles swallow their prey whole or if it can’t be swallowed whole they use their sharp beaks to pierce prey, pull of fur, tug away skin, pluck out feathers and tear meat into bite-sized, easy to swallow chunks. They also have a “tooth” tucked inside their upper beak. This “tooth” is shaped like a small triangle and is called a tomila. The tomila helps the raptor kill its prey quickly by cutting the prey’s spinal cord.


Raptors like owls swallow their food whole if they can. The food goes directly from their mouth to their gizzard. They later regurgitate pellets of indigestible materials such as bone, fur and feathers. This is called a “pellet.” You can tell the diet of an owl by what is found in the pellet.


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This can be done as part of Requirement #7. If going to a zoo or wildlife refuge be sure to plan the visit or prearrange for a demonstration of raptors.


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You can choose from this list or find another. Try your local library!


*First Sight: Birds of Prey by Kate Petty, Shooting Star Press, 1995
*Birds of Prey, ZooBooks
*Eagles, ZooBooks
*Birds of the World, Eyewitness Handbook, DK Publishing 1993
*Birds of Prey Coloring book by John Green
*Birds of Prey from Falcons to Vultures by Sara Swan Miller, Franklin Watts, 2001
*Vultures by Sandra Markle, Lerner Publications Company 2005
*Birds of Prey: A look at Daytime Raptors by Sneed B Collard III, Grolier Publishing 1999
*Extreme Birds by Dominic Couzens, Firefly Books 2008


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Here is one possibility:


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See the [[AY Honors/Puppetry|Puppetry]] honor for tips on doing this.


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[http://kidwings.com/nests-of-knowledge/virtual-pellet/ This site] features an online owl pellet dissection app. You can also order actual owl pellets online and dissect them. Most pellet suppliers also offer toolkits for this.


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This can be done while visiting a zoo under Requirement #7 or while working on some of the activities of this honor.


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A docent is a person, often a volunteer, that provides information and tours.
{{AY Honors/Zoo Visit}}


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The [http://www.audubon.org National Audubon Society] is one possible resource for this. They run hundreds of nature centers and are usually located in an area frequented by many species of birds. Many such nature centers are located near urban areas.


Raptors live outside of Audubon Society nature centers as well. Many cities have thriving populations of raptors. The trick is to ''get outside'', keep your eyes open, spend time looking, and recognize them when they appear.


While looking for raptors, you could work on the [[AY Honors/Birds|Birds]] honor at the same time.


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There are many mentions of raptors in the Bible. Practice using a concordance in your search (something you need to do for Explorer class Investiture Achievement). Depending upon the version, there may be different translated names, but in general you will be able to find eagle, owl, falcon, kite, osprey, and vulture.


Eagles generally denote speed, power, strength and might, as well as something largely unreachable and untamable.
* God's salvation is represented as a powerful eagle, protecting his people or carrying them out of trouble (Ex. 19:4, Deut. 32:11, Rev. 12:14, Ezek. 17:1-10)
* The eagle may be a symbol of strength, youth and revival (Ps. 103:5, Is. 40:28-31)
* Just as the eagle can be seen as powerful for good, it can also represent the power of destruction, often as either a tool of God’s wrath, or as a the power of an overwhelming enemy (Deut. 28:49, Jer. 4:13, Jer. 48:40, Jer. 49:22, Lam. 4:19, Hos. 8:1, Hab. 1:8)
* Eagles are fast, and are used as a comparison to speed, or to things being snatched away or fleeting (2 Sam. 1:23, Job 9:26, Prov. 23:5)
* The soaring height of eagles and their nests hidden in high rocky crags represents distance - a distance that is easily overcome by God (Jer. 49:16, Ob. 1:4)
* Finally, eagles are often seen in the characteristics of heavenly beings (Ez. 1:10, Dan. 7:4, Rev. 4:7, Rev. 8:13 - some versions use eagle, others angel)


* Owls represent something that lives in desolate places, in places without people. They are a symbol of complete destruction, or of severe loneliness (Job 30:29 - some versions use ostriches, Ps. 102:6, Is. 13:21, Is. 14:23 - some versions replace owl with porcupine, Is. 34:8-15, Jer. 50:39 - some versions use ostrich, Zeph. 2:14 - some versions translate as different birds)


There are other examples of raptors in the Bible, sometimes just as themselves (as in the discussions of clean and unclean animals in Leviticus and Deuteronomy), at other times based on their characteristics (falcons with strong sight, vultures gathering around a corpse).


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==References== 


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AY Honors/Cryptography/Answer Key

2025-07-07T00:14:05Z

RABaker96:

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Cryptography is the science or process of encoding and decoding messages to allow more secure transfer of information.


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Codes use symbols to replace the original message. These may include images, numbers, colors, etc. In many codes, the entire word can be represented by a symbol or another word.

For example, if we see a traffic light, each color represents a word or phrase, with a specific meaning: red=stop, amber=caution, green=go. The color denotes a word, and is thus a code. At sea, ships may use flags and pennants as part of the International Code of Signals, each flag representing a letter, number, word, or phrase.

[[File:ICS-flags.png|frame|center]]

In wartime and in secret government communications, code words may be used to obfuscate the actual meaning. During World War II, for example, the U.S. Navy used code words to represent locations or activities, so if the message was intercepted, the enemy would not know what or where they were talking about.

For example, the word "BALSA" in a message meant "Midway Island," "WOODBANK" meant "Paris, France," and "RANCID" translated to "Greenland."


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A Cipher encrypts a message at the level of individual or small groups of letters, rather than replacing entire words. It is created (and solved) using an algorithm. A simple classic cipher, for example, is the Caesar cipher, where the alphabet is shifted a certain number of spaces to encode and decode the message. The example below is a Caesar cipher with a key of 3 (ie each letter is shifted 3 places). The algorithm could be written as (P)+X=(C), where "P" means the plain text letter, and "C" means the new cipher text letter, and "X" is the number of spaces to shift the letter. A 3 shift Caesar cipher, as below, adds 23 places (26 letters in the alphabet -3 shifted spaces) to get us our encoding, but we "subtract" three letters from the encoded message to solve for the original.

[[File:A 3 key Caesar cipher.png|frame|center]]

Using this cipher, we could encode the word "Ranger" as OXKDBO, the word "Voyager" as SLVXDBO

Another simple classic cipher is the Atbash cipher, where the code is the alphabet in reverse.

[[File:Atbash cipher.png|frame|center]]

Using this cipher, we could encode the word "Companion" as xlnkzmrlm, the word "Guide" as tfrwv

Ciphers can be even more complex (and often are, particularly when using machines and computers). The Enigma machine of World War II used several mechanical elements to encode via a polyalphabetic cipher, meaning that in the enciphered text, a single letter may have different unencrypted meanings, based on where it was and how the algorithm encoded it.


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Steganography is the process of hiding data/information inside other data, for example hiding textual information in an image file, subtly changing fonts, or using invisible ink.

A simple two-part invisible ink can be created with things you likely already have in your house. The ink is made from a mixture of 1TBSP Baking Soda mixed in 1/2C water. Write the message with this ink on the paper. When first trying it out, use cotton swabs, but later you can experiment with finer brushes. Once the message is written, allow the paper to dry.

[[File:Ink1.jpg|frame|center|Making the Invisible Ink]]
[[File:Ink2.jpg|frame|center|Write the message and allow to dry]]

To reveal the invisible message, mix 1tsp turmeric with 1/2c rubbing alcohol to make the reagent. Then paint the reagent over the paper. Be careful, as it is easy to stain your fingers and the table a lovely yellow.

[[File:Ink3.jpg|frame|center|Mix the reagent.]]
[[File:Ink4.jpg|frame|center|Use the reagent to reveal the message]]


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Plain Text refers to the unencrypted information prior to encoding


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A key is the information necessary to encrypt and decrypt a particular message. In a Caesar cipher, it is the number of letters to shift.


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A public key is part of a two-key encryption/decryption model, where one key is private, and another is publicly available. Public Key Cryptography is also called Asymmetric Cryptography, and is a way of transmitting secure messages via the internet/email, where even if intercepted the message cannot be decrypted.


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A one way function is a model of encrypting information where it is relatively easy to convert the data one way, but much more difficult to reverse the process. In some computer applications, this one way function results in a hash value, allowing secure storage of sensitive information or passwords. If someone breaks into the database, they can only recover the hash value, which obscures the original information.


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Transposition is a classic cipher that moves the position of letters in a word or phrase, rather than replacing them. At its simplest, this could involve just shifting things around (Hello Friend might be encoded as Olleh Dneirf). Other forms include a rail fence ciphers as shown below, which write the words in a zig-zag pattern and then encode across the rows.

[[File:Rail Fence Cipher - 2 lines.png|frame|center]]

A two-line rail fence cipher, to encode "Pathfinders Strong." Once entered into the blocks, we would then send the encoded message as "PTFNESTOGAHIDRSRN"

[[File:Rail Fence Cipher - 3 Lines.png|frame|center]]

A three-line rail fence cipher, to encode "pathfinders strong." Once entered into the blocks, we would send the encoded message as "pfetgahidrsrntnso"


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A traditional Polybius Square is a 5X5 grid with the alphabet filling in the square (English alphabet needs a larger square, or combines two letters, such as I and J or U and V of C and K). Each square is then given a 2 digit code as per its column and row number.

[[File:Polybius Square.png|frame|center]]

Using the square above, we would encode the word "Pathfinder" as: "53 11 44 32 12 42 33 41 51 24"


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In a square cipher, the letters are placed in a grid, and encoded against another grid. A common square grid is a four square grid, made up (as the name implies) of four 5X5 grids. The upper left and lower right are a regular alphabet, the upper right and lower left may have a code word (in this case Pathfinder Strong is the code word - the code word is written in the squares first, then the grid is finished with the rest of the alphabet).

[[File:Four square cipher.png|frame|center]]

To encode a message, it is first broken into two-letter segments. So pathfinder becomes pa th fi nd er (if there were an odd number of letters, you would use an x to fill the final pair). The first letter of the pair is found in the upper left grid, the second of the pair in the lower right. To encode, move along the row from the first letter to pair up with the column of the second letter. Then for the second letter, move along its row to align with the column of the first letter.

[[File:Four square cipher - coded for Pathfinder.png|frame|center]]

In the image here, we have also color coded to see. So PA = BN, TH = QC, FI = EG, ND = KR, ER = AU. We would then send the encoded message (Pathfinder) as BNQCEGKRAU


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A substitution cipher is a simple cipher, where each letter/number is replaced by an alternate letter/number/symbol. The characters are changed for the encoded message, but not the order of characters. Morse Code can be considered a substitution cipher, as each letter is replaced with a unique set of dashes and dots, which allowed the message to be sent across telegraph lines by sending longer (dash) or shorter (dot) pulses of electricity.

[[File:International Morse Code.svg|frame|center]]


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In a polyalphabetic cipher, the substituted letter is determined both by the key and the placement in a word. So it may be that every third letter, the cipher shifts, or there is a different cipher for first letter, second letter, third letter, etc. In this style, the encoded message letters may represent different letters in the unencoded message, as different ciphers are used for different positions. It is more complicated to decode than a simple substitution cipher.

One well known polyalphabetic cipher is the Vigenere cipher, which uses a full alphabet grid (see below).

[[File:Vigenere cipher.png|frame|center]]

The message is encoded using a key phrase. The key phrase, repeated as necessary, is aligned above the unencoded text message, and each encoded replacement letter is found by the intersection of the key phrase letter column and the unencoded text letter row. In this case, we will use the key phrase "Sixth grade" and encode the message "Companion Class". We would align these atop one another, for example

[[File:A code phrase .png|frame|center]]

To encode, we find the letter at the intersection of S and C, which is U. The next letter is encoded by finding the intersection of I and O, which is W. Once done, our message is encoded as UWJIHTCOQGDIPL

[[File:Encoding a Vigenere.png|frame|center]]

[[File:Using the vigenere cipher.png|frame|center]]


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a. Processing done by a computer to determine if a user enters a correct password

Cipher (a mathematical formula), using one-way encryption or a hash

b. A Bible verse reference

Plain text (just an abbreviation)

c. The colors used on a traffic light to mean "Stop," "Go," or "Caution"

Code (each color having a different word meaning)

d. HTTPS:// used in a URL over the Internet

Cipher to security transfer data between two points

e. Forming a message by entering it into a grid row-by-row and reading it out column-by-column

Cipher (specifically a square cipher)

f. Invisible ink

Steganography (hiding a message in plain sight)

g. Navajo language used by the Code Talkers in World War II

Code (replacing words with words)

h. Data representation via a grid of dots (QR codes) or lines (Bar codes)

Code, though could also be used to hide additional information as a form of steganography

i. Enigma machine used in World War II

Cipher - used mathematical algorithms to encode and decode messages

j. Recording your computer password on a piece of paper

Plain Text (no encoding)

k. Signal used by Jonathan and David recounted in 1 Samuel 20:18-23

Code (each message coupled with arrow shot encoded its particular message)


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a. Egyptian hieroglyphs, 1900 BC

[[File:Hieroglyphs from Stela of Ity.jpg|frame|A selection of hieroglyphs from the Stela of Ity, on display at the British Museum]]
[[File:Selection from Stela of Semty Junior.jpg|frame|Hieroglyphs from the stela of Semty Junior, on display at the British Museum]]

Egyptian hieroglyphs are not really a code or a cipher, they are a form of written language. Hieroglyphs are symbols that may be phonograms (represent a sound), Ideograms (represent a word), or determinatives (provide context for the other hieroglyphs in a message). There are three types of phonograms - unilaterals (the symbol represents a single sound), bilaterals (representing a double sound, such as “pr”), and trilaterals (representing three sounds combined, such as “mwt”).

Hieroglyph words could be written right to left, left to right, top to bottom, and at times a bit of horizontal and vertical combined, depending upon how we. It fit within the physical context (thus the writing often was as much art as communication). Vowels were generally excluded (most common transliterations just toss an “e” between each consonant), and the exact pronunciation remains somewhat uncertain. Writing your name or some other message, then, may include first stripping out the vowels before encoding into hieroglyphs. You will often see people’s names enclosed in an oval, making them easier to spot. Hieroglyphs could be carved, painted, or both.

[[File:The Rosetta Stone.jpg|frame|The Rosetta Stone, on display at the British Museum]]
[[File:Rosetta 4336.jpg|frame|A selection from the Rosetta Stone, on display at the British Museum]]
[[File:Rosetta 4341.jpg|frame|A selection from the Rosetta Stone, on display at the British Museum]]

Although there were many attempts to translate hieroglyphs for centuries, the discovery of the Rosetta Stone in 1799 by the French provided the impetus for the final work to crack the “code.” The Rosetta Stone, carved around 196 BC, had the same message written in hieroglyphs (the priestly language), demotic (a more common form of written Egyptian), and ancient Greek (as Egypt had earlier been conquered by Alexander the Great). Using the Rosetta Stone as a guide, French scholar Jean-François Champollion became the first to be recognized for deciphering hieroglyphs in 1822.

Many scholars and historians of cryptology date the earliest written cipher to the tomb of Khnumhotep II, an overseer during the Middle Kingdom period of Egypt (around 1900 BC). In the tomb, located in Beni Hassan, Egypt, there are several non-standard hieroglyphs, which may have been meant to highlight key words or phrases, or make the writings appear more significant. While not necessarily meant to hide the meaning, this is often considered a first use of a substitution cipher - replacing one letter or word with another.

If you want to learn more to try and do your own hieroglyphic writing, there are several good books and online resources, including:
https://www.egyptianhieroglyphs.net/
https://www.bibalex.org/learnhieroglyphs/Lesson/Introduction_En.aspx
Or try an online “translator,” such as https://lingojam.com/HieroglyphicsTranslator
Or try out https://artsandculture.google.com/experiment/fabricius/gwHX41Sm0N7-Dw?hl=en

b. Hebrew Atbash cipher, 500 BC

The Abash cipher is a simple substitution cipher, reversing the order of the alphabet (the name is actually the first two and last two letters of the Hebrew alphabet). Hebrew has 22 letters, and using this cipher you replace the first with last, the second with second to last, etc. If we were to use the English alphabet (26 letters), A=Z, B=Y, C=X, D=W and so on. It is a simple cipher, making it useful but easy to crack.

It is believed that there is a use of the Abash cipher in the book of Jeremiah. In Jeremiah 25:26 and 51:41, there is a mention of “Sheshach,” written right to left using the letters shin shin kaf. If an Abash cipher is applied, these would be replaced by bet bet lamed, the Hebrew word for Babel (or Babylon). Thus it is believed that here Jeremiah is referring to Babylon, not some unknown city or country of “Sheshach.”
See 2b for an Abash Cipher in action

c. Julius Caesar's substitution cipher, 100 BC

The Caesar shift cipher is another simply substitution cipher and was used for military communications. The cipher “shifts” the chosen letter left or right a set number based on the cipher key. So if there is a shift 2 to the right, then the letter A in plain text is shifted to C in the cipher text - it has “shifted” 2 letters to the right.

Building a simple wheel coder/decoder is an easy way to use a Caesar cipher. It is fairly easy to break a Caesar cipher, either through brute force or (just keep replacing a letter in a word until the word makes sense) or through a frequency analysis of the coded message, recognizing that certain letters (E, T, S) are very common, and will occur more often than other letters.

See question 6 for a Caesar Cipher in action.


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The Caesar cipher is a relatively simple cipher, with the coded text just shifting the letter a certain number of spaces left or right along the alphabet. If we have 26 letters in the alphabet, it means we can shift the alphabet 25 different ways right and 25 different ways left. A "right +2" Caesar cipher would move each letter two spaces to the right, so "A" would be encoded as "C," "B" would be "D" and so on, until "Y" wrapped around to "A" and "Z" wrapped around to be encoded as "B."

Here is a left +12 Caesar cipher (12 for the number of disciples). You can use a code phrase or some other way to signify the shift (though Caesar ciphers are relatively simple to break using brute force approaches and basic logic of language).

[[File:Plus 12 Caesar Cipher.png|frame|center]]

To use this, we first lay out our plain text

[[File:Plain text of Pathfinder Law.png|frame|center]]

Now we encode the letters using our left +12 Caesar cipher

[[File:Encoding the Pathfinder Law.png|frame|center]]

Finally, we remove our plain text, and can send the encoded text instead.

[[File:The Pathfinder Law encoded.png|frame|center]]


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There are many online tools to embed messages in images using ‘least significant bit’ (LSB) steganography, which changes one character in the encoding of the colors for pixels. This is nearly invisible to the human eye, but can be decoded by machine. Changing a file by saving it somewhere else, or in a different format, however, may compromise the message. Information can also be hidden in video files, music files, and other digital media.

But one doesn't always need a computer to hide messages in plain sight. This has been done for centuries, by hand. Steganography is hiding a message in plain sight. One simple way to do this is to write the message in invisible ink, such as lemon juice. When the ink dries, it cannot be seen on the paper until treated (with lemon juice, that means exposing it to heat). If you write the message over an already printed paper, it is even more hidden, as those intercepting the message will think the plain text is the message when in fact the real message is hidden underneath and waits to be revealed.

For a time-consuming but clever text based steganography, we can use Bacon's cipher to encode the Pathfinder Pledge. Bacon's cipher first replaces each letter with a five-letter a-b key (similar to binary, but using a and b rather than 0 and 1). Then, the message is written by using a different font or other clue for each a or b mapped against a piece of concealment text. It doesn't matter what the text is, so long as when it is written, one can break it into blocks of five letters, and see which letter represents an a or a b. Those five character a-b blocks then remap against the original cipher, revealing the original text.

[[File:BaconsCipher.png|frame|center]]

Using Bacon's cipher, we can convert the Pathfinder Pledge to the following string of five-character a-b blocks. So we converted By (the first word of the pledge) into aaaab babba, and continue with the whole Pledge, ignoring spaces and punctuation.

[[File:EncryptedMessage.png|frame|center]]

Now we need our concealment text. The encrypted text is 485 characters long, so we need at least that much text. For this exercise, we have a selection from The Pathfinder Story, which, with its citation, is exactly 485 characters. We will hide the a-b encrypted text within this concealment text.

[[File:ConcealmentText.png|frame|center]]

Now we take our concealment text, remove all of the punctuation and spaces, and break it into five character blocks, so we can map it against the cipher.

[[File:ContractedConcealment.png|frame|center]]

We can then map this set of five character text blocks against our cipher text so we know what characters to slightly alter to encode our message in plain sight.

[[File:Mapped.png|frame|center]]

For this version, we then take all of the letters that map against an "a" in the cipher text and leave them as 14 point font, while all the letters that map against a "b" in the cipher text are converted to 13 point font. It is a little noticeable, but not immediately obvious in the text that we have a hidden code.

[[File:EncodedMessage.png|frame|center]]

To make it easier to see, here is some of the text with the 13 point font letters in red. We would not send it this way, but this may help you see how the encoding works in the concealment message.

[[File:ShowEncoding.png|frame|center]]

To decrypt, we reverse the process. We first break our text into five character blocks, so we will be able to write out the cifer text. Here, we are using red to showcase which characters were in the 13 point font, while we leave the 14 point font characters in black.

[[File:FiveBlock.png|frame|center]]

Next, we convert the coded concealment text into a-b blocks. In this case, red (13 point font) letters are converted to "b," black (14 point font) characters are converted to "a."

[[File:Fiveblockdecrypt.png|frame|center]]

Finally, we take the cipher text (the a-b blocks) and convert them to letters, giving us our hidden message.

[[File:Decrypted.png|frame|center]]

The clever thing about Bacon's cipher, despite the long process, is that done right, it is almost impossible to tell that there is even a hidden message. By hiding the message in plain sight, others are less likely to think it is a message, and thus wont even work to break the cipher.


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You have plenty of choices for this one.

Here is an example of using a columnar transposition cipher (with a key) to encode our message. In this form of cipher, we write our plain text in a grid horizontally, and write our cipher text by reading the columns vertically. But the twist is the key. Before writing our text, we write the key word across our grid. This determines how many rows we will have. The rows are then written as the cipher text based on the alphabetical order of the letters in the key word - so the first column isn't necessarily the first column we will write. If there are two of the same letter in the key word, the first appearance comes first in numbering the columns.

So here is the way to encrypt using this method. Our plain text comes from the book of Psalm. Here we have converted the numbers to words so we do not need to worry about having numbers mixed with out letters.

[[File:Plain Text Psalm to encode.png|frame|center]]

Our keyword is SHEPHARD. Yes, it is spelled like a person's name, not the job with sheep. Using similar sounding words can add to the complexity if someone overhears the key word. The keyword should be sent (or pre-arranged) separately from the cipher text. Perhaps you can use steganography to hide the key word. So, our key, shephard, has 8 letters, so we will have 8 columns in our grid. When we encode, we will begin with the column beneath the letter "A," then the column beneath the letter "d," then "e," then the first "H," then the second "H" and so on. So here is the verse written out in our grid.

[[File:Cipher psalm.png|frame|center]]

Now we write out the coded message, starting with the column under "a," and so on.

[[File:Encoding a Psalm.png|frame|center]]

Finally, we break it up (this time in groups of 5, but use whatever you want so long as it isnt the original number of columns)

[[File:Cipher text for psalm.png|frameless|center]]

To decode, we would take the key word, make a grid, count the total number of characters in the encoded message and divide by the number of columns in our table to determine how many rows we need. Then we begin writing the cipher text vertically in the table, beginning with the "A" column and so on. Once complete, we read/write it out horizontally across the rows to recover our original text.


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==References== 
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[[Category:AY Honors/noindex{{GetLangSuffix}}|{{SUBPAGENAME}}]]

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File:Ink4.jpg

2025-07-07T00:11:17Z

RABaker96:

revealed invisible message

File:Ink3.jpg

2025-07-07T00:10:29Z

RABaker96:

Invisible ink reagent

File:Ink2.jpg

2025-07-07T00:08:26Z

RABaker96:

Writing with invisible ink

File:Ink1.jpg

2025-07-07T00:07:36Z

RABaker96:

Baking Soda and Water invisible ink

AY Honors/Cryptography/Answer Key

2025-07-05T03:29:50Z

RABaker96:

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Cryptography is the science or process of encoding and decoding messages to allow more secure transfer of information.


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Codes use symbols to replace the original message. These may include images, numbers, colors, etc. In many codes, the entire word can be represented by a symbol or another word.

For example, if we see a traffic light, each color represents a word or phrase, with a specific meaning: red=stop, amber=caution, green=go. The color denotes a word, and is thus a code. At sea, ships may use flags and pennants as part of the International Code of Signals, each flag representing a letter, number, word, or phrase.

[[File:ICS-flags.png|frame|center]]

In wartime and in secret government communications, code words may be used to obfuscate the actual meaning. During World War II, for example, the U.S. Navy used code words to represent locations or activities, so if the message was intercepted, the enemy would not know what or where they were talking about.

For example, the word "BALSA" in a message meant "Midway Island," "WOODBANK" meant "Paris, France," and "RANCID" translated to "Greenland."


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A Cipher encrypts a message at the level of individual or small groups of letters, rather than replacing entire words. It is created (and solved) using an algorithm. A simple classic cipher, for example, is the Caesar cipher, where the alphabet is shifted a certain number of spaces to encode and decode the message. The example below is a Caesar cipher with a key of 3 (ie each letter is shifted 3 places). The algorithm could be written as (P)+X=(C), where "P" means the plain text letter, and "C" means the new cipher text letter, and "X" is the number of spaces to shift the letter. A 3 shift Caesar cipher, as below, adds 23 places (26 letters in the alphabet -3 shifted spaces) to get us our encoding, but we "subtract" three letters from the encoded message to solve for the original.

[[File:A 3 key Caesar cipher.png|frame|center]]

Using this cipher, we could encode the word "Ranger" as OXKDBO, the word "Voyager" as SLVXDBO

Another simple classic cipher is the Atbash cipher, where the code is the alphabet in reverse.

[[File:Atbash cipher.png|frame|center]]

Using this cipher, we could encode the word "Companion" as xlnkzmrlm, the word "Guide" as tfrwv

Ciphers can be even more complex (and often are, particularly when using machines and computers). The Enigma machine of World War II used several mechanical elements to encode via a polyalphabetic cipher, meaning that in the enciphered text, a single letter may have different unencrypted meanings, based on where it was and how the algorithm encoded it.


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Steganography is the process of hiding data/information inside other data, for example hiding textual information in an image file, subtly changing fonts, or using invisible ink.


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Plain Text refers to the unencrypted information prior to encoding


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A key is the information necessary to encrypt and decrypt a particular message. In a Caesar cipher, it is the number of letters to shift.


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A public key is part of a two-key encryption/decryption model, where one key is private, and another is publicly available. Public Key Cryptography is also called Asymmetric Cryptography, and is a way of transmitting secure messages via the internet/email, where even if intercepted the message cannot be decrypted.


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A one way function is a model of encrypting information where it is relatively easy to convert the data one way, but much more difficult to reverse the process. In some computer applications, this one way function results in a hash value, allowing secure storage of sensitive information or passwords. If someone breaks into the database, they can only recover the hash value, which obscures the original information.


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Transposition is a classic cipher that moves the position of letters in a word or phrase, rather than replacing them. At its simplest, this could involve just shifting things around (Hello Friend might be encoded as Olleh Dneirf). Other forms include a rail fence ciphers as shown below, which write the words in a zig-zag pattern and then encode across the rows.

[[File:Rail Fence Cipher - 2 lines.png|frame|center]]

A two-line rail fence cipher, to encode "Pathfinders Strong." Once entered into the blocks, we would then send the encoded message as "PTFNESTOGAHIDRSRN"

[[File:Rail Fence Cipher - 3 Lines.png|frame|center]]

A three-line rail fence cipher, to encode "pathfinders strong." Once entered into the blocks, we would send the encoded message as "pfetgahidrsrntnso"


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A traditional Polybius Square is a 5X5 grid with the alphabet filling in the square (English alphabet needs a larger square, or combines two letters, such as I and J or U and V of C and K). Each square is then given a 2 digit code as per its column and row number.

[[File:Polybius Square.png|frame|center]]

Using the square above, we would encode the word "Pathfinder" as: "53 11 44 32 12 42 33 41 51 24"


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In a square cipher, the letters are placed in a grid, and encoded against another grid. A common square grid is a four square grid, made up (as the name implies) of four 5X5 grids. The upper left and lower right are a regular alphabet, the upper right and lower left may have a code word (in this case Pathfinder Strong is the code word - the code word is written in the squares first, then the grid is finished with the rest of the alphabet).

[[File:Four square cipher.png|frame|center]]

To encode a message, it is first broken into two-letter segments. So pathfinder becomes pa th fi nd er (if there were an odd number of letters, you would use an x to fill the final pair). The first letter of the pair is found in the upper left grid, the second of the pair in the lower right. To encode, move along the row from the first letter to pair up with the column of the second letter. Then for the second letter, move along its row to align with the column of the first letter.

[[File:Four square cipher - coded for Pathfinder.png|frame|center]]

In the image here, we have also color coded to see. So PA = BN, TH = QC, FI = EG, ND = KR, ER = AU. We would then send the encoded message (Pathfinder) as BNQCEGKRAU


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A substitution cipher is a simple cipher, where each letter/number is replaced by an alternate letter/number/symbol. The characters are changed for the encoded message, but not the order of characters. Morse Code can be considered a substitution cipher, as each letter is replaced with a unique set of dashes and dots, which allowed the message to be sent across telegraph lines by sending longer (dash) or shorter (dot) pulses of electricity.

[[File:International Morse Code.svg|frame|center]]


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In a polyalphabetic cipher, the substituted letter is determined both by the key and the placement in a word. So it may be that every third letter, the cipher shifts, or there is a different cipher for first letter, second letter, third letter, etc. In this style, the encoded message letters may represent different letters in the unencoded message, as different ciphers are used for different positions. It is more complicated to decode than a simple substitution cipher.

One well known polyalphabetic cipher is the Vigenere cipher, which uses a full alphabet grid (see below).

[[File:Vigenere cipher.png|frame|center]]

The message is encoded using a key phrase. The key phrase, repeated as necessary, is aligned above the unencoded text message, and each encoded replacement letter is found by the intersection of the key phrase letter column and the unencoded text letter row. In this case, we will use the key phrase "Sixth grade" and encode the message "Companion Class". We would align these atop one another, for example

[[File:A code phrase .png|frame|center]]

To encode, we find the letter at the intersection of S and C, which is U. The next letter is encoded by finding the intersection of I and O, which is W. Once done, our message is encoded as UWJIHTCOQGDIPL

[[File:Encoding a Vigenere.png|frame|center]]

[[File:Using the vigenere cipher.png|frame|center]]


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a. Processing done by a computer to determine if a user enters a correct password

Cipher (a mathematical formula), using one-way encryption or a hash

b. A Bible verse reference

Plain text (just an abbreviation)

c. The colors used on a traffic light to mean "Stop," "Go," or "Caution"

Code (each color having a different word meaning)

d. HTTPS:// used in a URL over the Internet

Cipher to security transfer data between two points

e. Forming a message by entering it into a grid row-by-row and reading it out column-by-column

Cipher (specifically a square cipher)

f. Invisible ink

Steganography (hiding a message in plain sight)

g. Navajo language used by the Code Talkers in World War II

Code (replacing words with words)

h. Data representation via a grid of dots (QR codes) or lines (Bar codes)

Code, though could also be used to hide additional information as a form of steganography

i. Enigma machine used in World War II

Cipher - used mathematical algorithms to encode and decode messages

j. Recording your computer password on a piece of paper

Plain Text (no encoding)

k. Signal used by Jonathan and David recounted in 1 Samuel 20:18-23

Code (each message coupled with arrow shot encoded its particular message)


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a. Egyptian hieroglyphs, 1900 BC

[[File:Hieroglyphs from Stela of Ity.jpg|frame|A selection of hieroglyphs from the Stela of Ity, on display at the British Museum]]
[[File:Selection from Stela of Semty Junior.jpg|frame|Hieroglyphs from the stela of Semty Junior, on display at the British Museum]]

Egyptian hieroglyphs are not really a code or a cipher, they are a form of written language. Hieroglyphs are symbols that may be phonograms (represent a sound), Ideograms (represent a word), or determinatives (provide context for the other hieroglyphs in a message). There are three types of phonograms - unilaterals (the symbol represents a single sound), bilaterals (representing a double sound, such as “pr”), and trilaterals (representing three sounds combined, such as “mwt”).

Hieroglyph words could be written right to left, left to right, top to bottom, and at times a bit of horizontal and vertical combined, depending upon how we. It fit within the physical context (thus the writing often was as much art as communication). Vowels were generally excluded (most common transliterations just toss an “e” between each consonant), and the exact pronunciation remains somewhat uncertain. Writing your name or some other message, then, may include first stripping out the vowels before encoding into hieroglyphs. You will often see people’s names enclosed in an oval, making them easier to spot. Hieroglyphs could be carved, painted, or both.

[[File:The Rosetta Stone.jpg|frame|The Rosetta Stone, on display at the British Museum]]
[[File:Rosetta 4336.jpg|frame|A selection from the Rosetta Stone, on display at the British Museum]]
[[File:Rosetta 4341.jpg|frame|A selection from the Rosetta Stone, on display at the British Museum]]

Although there were many attempts to translate hieroglyphs for centuries, the discovery of the Rosetta Stone in 1799 by the French provided the impetus for the final work to crack the “code.” The Rosetta Stone, carved around 196 BC, had the same message written in hieroglyphs (the priestly language), demotic (a more common form of written Egyptian), and ancient Greek (as Egypt had earlier been conquered by Alexander the Great). Using the Rosetta Stone as a guide, French scholar Jean-François Champollion became the first to be recognized for deciphering hieroglyphs in 1822.

Many scholars and historians of cryptology date the earliest written cipher to the tomb of Khnumhotep II, an overseer during the Middle Kingdom period of Egypt (around 1900 BC). In the tomb, located in Beni Hassan, Egypt, there are several non-standard hieroglyphs, which may have been meant to highlight key words or phrases, or make the writings appear more significant. While not necessarily meant to hide the meaning, this is often considered a first use of a substitution cipher - replacing one letter or word with another.

If you want to learn more to try and do your own hieroglyphic writing, there are several good books and online resources, including:
https://www.egyptianhieroglyphs.net/
https://www.bibalex.org/learnhieroglyphs/Lesson/Introduction_En.aspx
Or try an online “translator,” such as https://lingojam.com/HieroglyphicsTranslator
Or try out https://artsandculture.google.com/experiment/fabricius/gwHX41Sm0N7-Dw?hl=en

b. Hebrew Atbash cipher, 500 BC

The Abash cipher is a simple substitution cipher, reversing the order of the alphabet (the name is actually the first two and last two letters of the Hebrew alphabet). Hebrew has 22 letters, and using this cipher you replace the first with last, the second with second to last, etc. If we were to use the English alphabet (26 letters), A=Z, B=Y, C=X, D=W and so on. It is a simple cipher, making it useful but easy to crack.

It is believed that there is a use of the Abash cipher in the book of Jeremiah. In Jeremiah 25:26 and 51:41, there is a mention of “Sheshach,” written right to left using the letters shin shin kaf. If an Abash cipher is applied, these would be replaced by bet bet lamed, the Hebrew word for Babel (or Babylon). Thus it is believed that here Jeremiah is referring to Babylon, not some unknown city or country of “Sheshach.”
See 2b for an Abash Cipher in action

c. Julius Caesar's substitution cipher, 100 BC

The Caesar shift cipher is another simply substitution cipher and was used for military communications. The cipher “shifts” the chosen letter left or right a set number based on the cipher key. So if there is a shift 2 to the right, then the letter A in plain text is shifted to C in the cipher text - it has “shifted” 2 letters to the right.

Building a simple wheel coder/decoder is an easy way to use a Caesar cipher. It is fairly easy to break a Caesar cipher, either through brute force or (just keep replacing a letter in a word until the word makes sense) or through a frequency analysis of the coded message, recognizing that certain letters (E, T, S) are very common, and will occur more often than other letters.

See question 6 for a Caesar Cipher in action.


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The Caesar cipher is a relatively simple cipher, with the coded text just shifting the letter a certain number of spaces left or right along the alphabet. If we have 26 letters in the alphabet, it means we can shift the alphabet 25 different ways right and 25 different ways left. A "right +2" Caesar cipher would move each letter two spaces to the right, so "A" would be encoded as "C," "B" would be "D" and so on, until "Y" wrapped around to "A" and "Z" wrapped around to be encoded as "B."

Here is a left +12 Caesar cipher (12 for the number of disciples). You can use a code phrase or some other way to signify the shift (though Caesar ciphers are relatively simple to break using brute force approaches and basic logic of language).

[[File:Plus 12 Caesar Cipher.png|frame|center]]

To use this, we first lay out our plain text

[[File:Plain text of Pathfinder Law.png|frame|center]]

Now we encode the letters using our left +12 Caesar cipher

[[File:Encoding the Pathfinder Law.png|frame|center]]

Finally, we remove our plain text, and can send the encoded text instead.

[[File:The Pathfinder Law encoded.png|frame|center]]


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There are many online tools to embed messages in images using ‘least significant bit’ (LSB) steganography, which changes one character in the encoding of the colors for pixels. This is nearly invisible to the human eye, but can be decoded by machine. Changing a file by saving it somewhere else, or in a different format, however, may compromise the message. Information can also be hidden in video files, music files, and other digital media.

But one doesn't always need a computer to hide messages in plain sight. This has been done for centuries, by hand. Steganography is hiding a message in plain sight. One simple way to do this is to write the message in invisible ink, such as lemon juice. When the ink dries, it cannot be seen on the paper until treated (with lemon juice, that means exposing it to heat). If you write the message over an already printed paper, it is even more hidden, as those intercepting the message will think the plain text is the message when in fact the real message is hidden underneath and waits to be revealed.

For a time-consuming but clever text based steganography, we can use Bacon's cipher to encode the Pathfinder Pledge. Bacon's cipher first replaces each letter with a five-letter a-b key (similar to binary, but using a and b rather than 0 and 1). Then, the message is written by using a different font or other clue for each a or b mapped against a piece of concealment text. It doesn't matter what the text is, so long as when it is written, one can break it into blocks of five letters, and see which letter represents an a or a b. Those five character a-b blocks then remap against the original cipher, revealing the original text.

[[File:BaconsCipher.png|frame|center]]

Using Bacon's cipher, we can convert the Pathfinder Pledge to the following string of five-character a-b blocks. So we converted By (the first word of the pledge) into aaaab babba, and continue with the whole Pledge, ignoring spaces and punctuation.

[[File:EncryptedMessage.png|frame|center]]

Now we need our concealment text. The encrypted text is 485 characters long, so we need at least that much text. For this exercise, we have a selection from The Pathfinder Story, which, with its citation, is exactly 485 characters. We will hide the a-b encrypted text within this concealment text.

[[File:ConcealmentText.png|frame|center]]

Now we take our concealment text, remove all of the punctuation and spaces, and break it into five character blocks, so we can map it against the cipher.

[[File:ContractedConcealment.png|frame|center]]

We can then map this set of five character text blocks against our cipher text so we know what characters to slightly alter to encode our message in plain sight.

[[File:Mapped.png|frame|center]]

For this version, we then take all of the letters that map against an "a" in the cipher text and leave them as 14 point font, while all the letters that map against a "b" in the cipher text are converted to 13 point font. It is a little noticeable, but not immediately obvious in the text that we have a hidden code.

[[File:EncodedMessage.png|frame|center]]

To make it easier to see, here is some of the text with the 13 point font letters in red. We would not send it this way, but this may help you see how the encoding works in the concealment message.

[[File:ShowEncoding.png|frame|center]]

To decrypt, we reverse the process. We first break our text into five character blocks, so we will be able to write out the cifer text. Here, we are using red to showcase which characters were in the 13 point font, while we leave the 14 point font characters in black.

[[File:FiveBlock.png|frame|center]]

Next, we convert the coded concealment text into a-b blocks. In this case, red (13 point font) letters are converted to "b," black (14 point font) characters are converted to "a."

[[File:Fiveblockdecrypt.png|frame|center]]

Finally, we take the cipher text (the a-b blocks) and convert them to letters, giving us our hidden message.

[[File:Decrypted.png|frame|center]]

The clever thing about Bacon's cipher, despite the long process, is that done right, it is almost impossible to tell that there is even a hidden message. By hiding the message in plain sight, others are less likely to think it is a message, and thus wont even work to break the cipher.


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You have plenty of choices for this one.

Here is an example of using a columnar transposition cipher (with a key) to encode our message. In this form of cipher, we write our plain text in a grid horizontally, and write our cipher text by reading the columns vertically. But the twist is the key. Before writing our text, we write the key word across our grid. This determines how many rows we will have. The rows are then written as the cipher text based on the alphabetical order of the letters in the key word - so the first column isn't necessarily the first column we will write. If there are two of the same letter in the key word, the first appearance comes first in numbering the columns.

So here is the way to encrypt using this method. Our plain text comes from the book of Psalm. Here we have converted the numbers to words so we do not need to worry about having numbers mixed with out letters.

[[File:Plain Text Psalm to encode.png|frame|center]]

Our keyword is SHEPHARD. Yes, it is spelled like a person's name, not the job with sheep. Using similar sounding words can add to the complexity if someone overhears the key word. The keyword should be sent (or pre-arranged) separately from the cipher text. Perhaps you can use steganography to hide the key word. So, our key, shephard, has 8 letters, so we will have 8 columns in our grid. When we encode, we will begin with the column beneath the letter "A," then the column beneath the letter "d," then "e," then the first "H," then the second "H" and so on. So here is the verse written out in our grid.

[[File:Cipher psalm.png|frame|center]]

Now we write out the coded message, starting with the column under "a," and so on.

[[File:Encoding a Psalm.png|frame|center]]

Finally, we break it up (this time in groups of 5, but use whatever you want so long as it isnt the original number of columns)

[[File:Cipher text for psalm.png|frameless|center]]

To decode, we would take the key word, make a grid, count the total number of characters in the encoded message and divide by the number of columns in our table to determine how many rows we need. Then we begin writing the cipher text vertically in the table, beginning with the "A" column and so on. Once complete, we read/write it out horizontally across the rows to recover our original text.


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==References== 
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AY Honors/Cryptography/Answer Key

2025-07-05T03:18:33Z

RABaker96:

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Cryptography is the science or process of encoding and decoding messages to allow more secure transfer of information.


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Codes use symbols to replace the original message. These may include images, numbers, colors, etc. In many codes, the entire word can be represented by a symbol or another word.

For example, if we see a traffic light, each color represents a word or phrase, with a specific meaning: red=stop, amber=caution, green=go. The color denotes a word, and is thus a code. At sea, ships may use flags and pennants as part of the International Code of Signals, each flag representing a letter, number, word, or phrase.

[[File:ICS-flags.png|frame|center]]

In wartime and in secret government communications, code words may be used to obfuscate the actual meaning. During World War II, for example, the U.S. Navy used code words to represent locations or activities, so if the message was intercepted, the enemy would not know what or where they were talking about.

For example, the word "BALSA" in a message meant "Midway Island," "WOODBANK" meant "Paris, France," and "RANCID" translated to "Greenland."


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A Cipher encrypts a message at the level of individual or small groups of letters, rather than replacing entire words. It is created (and solved) using an algorithm. A simple classic cipher, for example, is the Caesar cipher, where the alphabet is shifted a certain number of spaces to encode and decode the message. The example below is a Caesar cipher with a key of 3 (ie each letter is shifted 3 places). The algorithm could be written as (P)+X=(C), where "P" means the plain text letter, and "C" means the new cipher text letter, and "X" is the number of spaces to shift the letter. A 3 shift Caesar cipher, as below, adds 23 places (26 letters in the alphabet -3 shifted spaces) to get us our encoding, but we "subtract" three letters from the encoded message to solve for the original.

[[File:A 3 key Caesar cipher.png|frame|center]]

Using this cipher, we could encode the word "Ranger" as OXKDBO, the word "Voyager" as SLVXDBO

Another simple classic cipher is the Atbash cipher, where the code is the alphabet in reverse.

[[File:Atbash cipher.png|frame|center]]

Using this cipher, we could encode the word "Companion" as xlnkzmrlm, the word "Guide" as tfrwv

Ciphers can be even more complex (and often are, particularly when using machines and computers). The Enigma machine of World War II used several mechanical elements to encode via a polyalphabetic cipher, meaning that in the enciphered text, a single letter may have different unencrypted meanings, based on where it was and how the algorithm encoded it.


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Steganography is the process of hiding data/information inside other data, for example hiding textual information in an image file, subtly changing fonts, or using invisible ink.


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Plain Text refers to the unencrypted information prior to encoding


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A key is the information necessary to encrypt and decrypt a particular message. In a Caesar cipher, it is the number of letters to shift.


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A public key is part of a two-key encryption/decryption model, where one key is private, and another is publicly available. Public Key Cryptography is also called Asymmetric Cryptography, and is a way of transmitting secure messages via the internet/email, where even if intercepted the message cannot be decrypted.


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A one way function is a model of encrypting information where it is relatively easy to convert the data one way, but much more difficult to reverse the process. In some computer applications, this one way function results in a hash value, allowing secure storage of sensitive information or passwords. If someone breaks into the database, they can only recover the hash value, which obscures the original information.


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Transposition is a classic cipher that moves the position of letters in a word or phrase, rather than replacing them. At its simplest, this could involve just shifting things around (Hello Friend might be encoded as Olleh Dneirf). Other forms include a rail fence ciphers as shown below, which write the words in a zig-zag pattern and then encode across the rows.

[[File:Rail Fence Cipher - 2 lines.png|frame|center]]

A two-line rail fence cipher, to encode "Pathfinders Strong." Once entered into the blocks, we would then send the encoded message as "PTFNESTOGAHIDRSRN"

[[File:Rail Fence Cipher - 3 Lines.png|frame|center]]

A three-line rail fence cipher, to encode "pathfinders strong." Once entered into the blocks, we would send the encoded message as "pfetgahidrsrntnso"


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A traditional Polybius Square is a 5X5 grid with the alphabet filling in the square (English alphabet needs a larger square, or combines two letters, such as I and J or U and V of C and K). Each square is then given a 2 digit code as per its column and row number.

[[File:Polybius Square.png|frame|center]]

Using the square above, we would encode the word "Pathfinder" as: "53 11 44 32 12 42 33 41 51 24"


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In a square cipher, the letters are placed in a grid, and encoded against another grid. A common square grid is a four square grid, made up (as the name implies) of four 5X5 grids. The upper left and lower right are a regular alphabet, the upper right and lower left may have a code word (in this case Pathfinder Strong is the code word - the code word is written in the squares first, then the grid is finished with the rest of the alphabet).

[[File:Four square cipher.png|frame|center]]

To encode a message, it is first broken into two-letter segments. So pathfinder becomes pa th fi nd er (if there were an odd number of letters, you would use an x to fill the final pair). The first letter of the pair is found in the upper left grid, the second of the pair in the lower right. To encode, move along the row from the first letter to pair up with the column of the second letter. Then for the second letter, move along its row to align with the column of the first letter.

[[File:Four square cipher - coded for Pathfinder.png|frame|center]]

In the image here, we have also color coded to see. So PA = BN, TH = QC, FI = EG, ND = KR, ER = AU. We would then send the encoded message (Pathfinder) as BNQCEGKRAU


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A substitution cipher is a simple cipher, where each letter/number is replaced by an alternate letter/number/symbol. The characters are changed for the encoded message, but not the order of characters. Morse Code can be considered a substitution cipher, as each letter is replaced with a unique set of dashes and dots, which allowed the message to be sent across telegraph lines by sending longer (dash) or shorter (dot) pulses of electricity.

[[File:International Morse Code.svg|frame|center]]


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In a polyalphabetic cipher, the substituted letter is determined both by the key and the placement in a word. So it may be that every third letter, the cipher shifts, or there is a different cipher for first letter, second letter, third letter, etc. In this style, the encoded message letters may represent different letters in the unencoded message, as different ciphers are used for different positions. It is more complicated to decode than a simple substitution cipher.

One well known polyalphabetic cipher is the Vigenere cipher, which uses a full alphabet grid (see below).

[[File:Vigenere cipher.png|frame|center]]

The message is encoded using a key phrase. The key phrase, repeated as necessary, is aligned above the unencoded text message, and each encoded replacement letter is found by the intersection of the key phrase letter column and the unencoded text letter row. In this case, we will use the key phrase "Sixth grade" and encode the message "Companion Class". We would align these atop one another, for example

[[File:A code phrase .png|frame|center]]

To encode, we find the letter at the intersection of S and C, which is U. The next letter is encoded by finding the intersection of I and O, which is W. Once done, our message is encoded as UWJIHTCOQGDIPL

[[File:Encoding a Vigenere.png|frame|center]]

[[File:Using the vigenere cipher.png|frame|center]]


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a. Egyptian hieroglyphs, 1900 BC

[[File:Hieroglyphs from Stela of Ity.jpg|frame|A selection of hieroglyphs from the Stela of Ity, on display at the British Museum]]
[[File:Selection from Stela of Semty Junior.jpg|frame|Hieroglyphs from the stela of Semty Junior, on display at the British Museum]]

Egyptian hieroglyphs are not really a code or a cipher, they are a form of written language. Hieroglyphs are symbols that may be phonograms (represent a sound), Ideograms (represent a word), or determinatives (provide context for the other hieroglyphs in a message). There are three types of phonograms - unilaterals (the symbol represents a single sound), bilaterals (representing a double sound, such as “pr”), and trilaterals (representing three sounds combined, such as “mwt”).

Hieroglyph words could be written right to left, left to right, top to bottom, and at times a bit of horizontal and vertical combined, depending upon how we. It fit within the physical context (thus the writing often was as much art as communication). Vowels were generally excluded (most common transliterations just toss an “e” between each consonant), and the exact pronunciation remains somewhat uncertain. Writing your name or some other message, then, may include first stripping out the vowels before encoding into hieroglyphs. You will often see people’s names enclosed in an oval, making them easier to spot. Hieroglyphs could be carved, painted, or both.

[[File:The Rosetta Stone.jpg|frame|The Rosetta Stone, on display at the British Museum]]
[[File:Rosetta 4336.jpg|frame|A selection from the Rosetta Stone, on display at the British Museum]]
[[File:Rosetta 4341.jpg|frame|A selection from the Rosetta Stone, on display at the British Museum]]

Although there were many attempts to translate hieroglyphs for centuries, the discovery of the Rosetta Stone in 1799 by the French provided the impetus for the final work to crack the “code.” The Rosetta Stone, carved around 196 BC, had the same message written in hieroglyphs (the priestly language), demotic (a more common form of written Egyptian), and ancient Greek (as Egypt had earlier been conquered by Alexander the Great). Using the Rosetta Stone as a guide, French scholar Jean-François Champollion became the first to be recognized for deciphering hieroglyphs in 1822.

Many scholars and historians of cryptology date the earliest written cipher to the tomb of Khnumhotep II, an overseer during the Middle Kingdom period of Egypt (around 1900 BC). In the tomb, located in Beni Hassan, Egypt, there are several non-standard hieroglyphs, which may have been meant to highlight key words or phrases, or make the writings appear more significant. While not necessarily meant to hide the meaning, this is often considered a first use of a substitution cipher - replacing one letter or word with another.

If you want to learn more to try and do your own hieroglyphic writing, there are several good books and online resources, including:
https://www.egyptianhieroglyphs.net/
https://www.bibalex.org/learnhieroglyphs/Lesson/Introduction_En.aspx
Or try an online “translator,” such as https://lingojam.com/HieroglyphicsTranslator
Or try out https://artsandculture.google.com/experiment/fabricius/gwHX41Sm0N7-Dw?hl=en

b. Hebrew Atbash cipher, 500 BC

The Abash cipher is a simple substitution cipher, reversing the order of the alphabet (the name is actually the first two and last two letters of the Hebrew alphabet). Hebrew has 22 letters, and using this cipher you replace the first with last, the second with second to last, etc. If we were to use the English alphabet (26 letters), A=Z, B=Y, C=X, D=W and so on. It is a simple cipher, making it useful but easy to crack.

It is believed that there is a use of the Abash cipher in the book of Jeremiah. In Jeremiah 25:26 and 51:41, there is a mention of “Sheshach,” written right to left using the letters shin shin kaf. If an Abash cipher is applied, these would be replaced by bet bet lamed, the Hebrew word for Babel (or Babylon). Thus it is believed that here Jeremiah is referring to Babylon, not some unknown city or country of “Sheshach.”
See 2b for an Abash Cipher in action

c. Julius Caesar's substitution cipher, 100 BC

The Caesar shift cipher is another simply substitution cipher and was used for military communications. The cipher “shifts” the chosen letter left or right a set number based on the cipher key. So if there is a shift 2 to the right, then the letter A in plain text is shifted to C in the cipher text - it has “shifted” 2 letters to the right.

Building a simple wheel coder/decoder is an easy way to use a Caesar cipher. It is fairly easy to break a Caesar cipher, either through brute force or (just keep replacing a letter in a word until the word makes sense) or through a frequency analysis of the coded message, recognizing that certain letters (E, T, S) are very common, and will occur more often than other letters.

See question 6 for a Caesar Cipher in action.


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The Caesar cipher is a relatively simple cipher, with the coded text just shifting the letter a certain number of spaces left or right along the alphabet. If we have 26 letters in the alphabet, it means we can shift the alphabet 25 different ways right and 25 different ways left. A "right +2" Caesar cipher would move each letter two spaces to the right, so "A" would be encoded as "C," "B" would be "D" and so on, until "Y" wrapped around to "A" and "Z" wrapped around to be encoded as "B."

Here is a left +12 Caesar cipher (12 for the number of disciples). You can use a code phrase or some other way to signify the shift (though Caesar ciphers are relatively simple to break using brute force approaches and basic logic of language).

[[File:Plus 12 Caesar Cipher.png|frame|center]]

To use this, we first lay out our plain text

[[File:Plain text of Pathfinder Law.png|frame|center]]

Now we encode the letters using our left +12 Caesar cipher

[[File:Encoding the Pathfinder Law.png|frame|center]]

Finally, we remove our plain text, and can send the encoded text instead.

[[File:The Pathfinder Law encoded.png|frame|center]]


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There are many online tools to embed messages in images using ‘least significant bit’ (LSB) steganography, which changes one character in the encoding of the colors for pixels. This is nearly invisible to the human eye, but can be decoded by machine. Changing a file by saving it somewhere else, or in a different format, however, may compromise the message. Information can also be hidden in video files, music files, and other digital media.

But one doesn't always need a computer to hide messages in plain sight. This has been done for centuries, by hand. Steganography is hiding a message in plain sight. One simple way to do this is to write the message in invisible ink, such as lemon juice. When the ink dries, it cannot be seen on the paper until treated (with lemon juice, that means exposing it to heat). If you write the message over an already printed paper, it is even more hidden, as those intercepting the message will think the plain text is the message when in fact the real message is hidden underneath and waits to be revealed.

For a time-consuming but clever text based steganography, we can use Bacon's cipher to encode the Pathfinder Pledge. Bacon's cipher first replaces each letter with a five-letter a-b key (similar to binary, but using a and b rather than 0 and 1). Then, the message is written by using a different font or other clue for each a or b mapped against a piece of concealment text. It doesn't matter what the text is, so long as when it is written, one can break it into blocks of five letters, and see which letter represents an a or a b. Those five character a-b blocks then remap against the original cipher, revealing the original text.

[[File:BaconsCipher.png|frame|center]]

Using Bacon's cipher, we can convert the Pathfinder Pledge to the following string of five-character a-b blocks. So we converted By (the first word of the pledge) into aaaab babba, and continue with the whole Pledge, ignoring spaces and punctuation.

[[File:EncryptedMessage.png|frame|center]]

Now we need our concealment text. The encrypted text is 485 characters long, so we need at least that much text. For this exercise, we have a selection from The Pathfinder Story, which, with its citation, is exactly 485 characters. We will hide the a-b encrypted text within this concealment text.

[[File:ConcealmentText.png|frame|center]]

Now we take our concealment text, remove all of the punctuation and spaces, and break it into five character blocks, so we can map it against the cipher.

[[File:ContractedConcealment.png|frame|center]]

We can then map this set of five character text blocks against our cipher text so we know what characters to slightly alter to encode our message in plain sight.

[[File:Mapped.png|frame|center]]

For this version, we then take all of the letters that map against an "a" in the cipher text and leave them as 14 point font, while all the letters that map against a "b" in the cipher text are converted to 13 point font. It is a little noticeable, but not immediately obvious in the text that we have a hidden code.

[[File:EncodedMessage.png|frame|center]]

To make it easier to see, here is some of the text with the 13 point font letters in red. We would not send it this way, but this may help you see how the encoding works in the concealment message.

[[File:ShowEncoding.png|frame|center]]

To decrypt, we reverse the process. We first break our text into five character blocks, so we will be able to write out the cifer text. Here, we are using red to showcase which characters were in the 13 point font, while we leave the 14 point font characters in black.

[[File:FiveBlock.png|frame|center]]

Next, we convert the coded concealment text into a-b blocks. In this case, red (13 point font) letters are converted to "b," black (14 point font) characters are converted to "a."

[[File:Fiveblockdecrypt.png|frame|center]]

Finally, we take the cipher text (the a-b blocks) and convert them to letters, giving us our hidden message.

[[File:Decrypted.png|frame|center]]

The clever thing about Bacon's cipher, despite the long process, is that done right, it is almost impossible to tell that there is even a hidden message. By hiding the message in plain sight, others are less likely to think it is a message, and thus wont even work to break the cipher.


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You have plenty of choices for this one.

Here is an example of using a columnar transposition cipher (with a key) to encode our message. In this form of cipher, we write our plain text in a grid horizontally, and write our cipher text by reading the columns vertically. But the twist is the key. Before writing our text, we write the key word across our grid. This determines how many rows we will have. The rows are then written as the cipher text based on the alphabetical order of the letters in the key word - so the first column isn't necessarily the first column we will write. If there are two of the same letter in the key word, the first appearance comes first in numbering the columns.

So here is the way to encrypt using this method. Our plain text comes from the book of Psalm. Here we have converted the numbers to words so we do not need to worry about having numbers mixed with out letters.

[[File:Plain Text Psalm to encode.png|frame|center]]

Our keyword is SHEPHARD. Yes, it is spelled like a person's name, not the job with sheep. Using similar sounding words can add to the complexity if someone overhears the key word. The keyword should be sent (or pre-arranged) separately from the cipher text. Perhaps you can use steganography to hide the key word. So, our key, shephard, has 8 letters, so we will have 8 columns in our grid. When we encode, we will begin with the column beneath the letter "A," then the column beneath the letter "d," then "e," then the first "H," then the second "H" and so on. So here is the verse written out in our grid.

[[File:Cipher psalm.png|frame|center]]

Now we write out the coded message, starting with the column under "a," and so on.

[[File:Encoding a Psalm.png|frame|center]]

Finally, we break it up (this time in groups of 5, but use whatever you want so long as it isnt the original number of columns)

[[File:Cipher text for psalm.png|frameless|center]]

To decode, we would take the key word, make a grid, count the total number of characters in the encoded message and divide by the number of columns in our table to determine how many rows we need. Then we begin writing the cipher text vertically in the table, beginning with the "A" column and so on. Once complete, we read/write it out horizontally across the rows to recover our original text.


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==References== 
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[[Category:AY Honors/noindex{{GetLangSuffix}}|{{SUBPAGENAME}}]]

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File:Rosetta 4341.jpg

2025-07-05T03:17:05Z

RABaker96:

A selection from the Rosetta Stone, on display at the British Museum

File:Rosetta 4336.jpg

2025-07-05T03:15:27Z

RABaker96:

A close up of a selection of the Rosetta Stone

File:The Rosetta Stone.jpg

2025-07-05T03:14:16Z

RABaker96:

The Rosetta Stone, on display at the British Museum

File:Selection from Stela of Semty Junior.jpg

2025-07-05T03:12:09Z

RABaker96:

A selection of hieroglyphs from the Stela of Semty Junior

File:Hieroglyphs from Stela of Ity.jpg

2025-07-05T03:08:26Z

RABaker96:

A selection from the Stela of Ity, on display at the British Museum

AY Honors/Cryptography/Answer Key

2025-07-05T03:00:34Z

RABaker96:

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Cryptography is the science or process of encoding and decoding messages to allow more secure transfer of information.


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Codes use symbols to replace the original message. These may include images, numbers, colors, etc. In many codes, the entire word can be represented by a symbol or another word.

For example, if we see a traffic light, each color represents a word or phrase, with a specific meaning: red=stop, amber=caution, green=go. The color denotes a word, and is thus a code. At sea, ships may use flags and pennants as part of the International Code of Signals, each flag representing a letter, number, word, or phrase.

[[File:ICS-flags.png|frame|center]]

In wartime and in secret government communications, code words may be used to obfuscate the actual meaning. During World War II, for example, the U.S. Navy used code words to represent locations or activities, so if the message was intercepted, the enemy would not know what or where they were talking about.

For example, the word "BALSA" in a message meant "Midway Island," "WOODBANK" meant "Paris, France," and "RANCID" translated to "Greenland."


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A Cipher encrypts a message at the level of individual or small groups of letters, rather than replacing entire words. It is created (and solved) using an algorithm. A simple classic cipher, for example, is the Caesar cipher, where the alphabet is shifted a certain number of spaces to encode and decode the message. The example below is a Caesar cipher with a key of 3 (ie each letter is shifted 3 places). The algorithm could be written as (P)+X=(C), where "P" means the plain text letter, and "C" means the new cipher text letter, and "X" is the number of spaces to shift the letter. A 3 shift Caesar cipher, as below, adds 23 places (26 letters in the alphabet -3 shifted spaces) to get us our encoding, but we "subtract" three letters from the encoded message to solve for the original.

[[File:A 3 key Caesar cipher.png|frame|center]]

Using this cipher, we could encode the word "Ranger" as OXKDBO, the word "Voyager" as SLVXDBO

Another simple classic cipher is the Atbash cipher, where the code is the alphabet in reverse.

[[File:Atbash cipher.png|frame|center]]

Using this cipher, we could encode the word "Companion" as xlnkzmrlm, the word "Guide" as tfrwv

Ciphers can be even more complex (and often are, particularly when using machines and computers). The Enigma machine of World War II used several mechanical elements to encode via a polyalphabetic cipher, meaning that in the enciphered text, a single letter may have different unencrypted meanings, based on where it was and how the algorithm encoded it.


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Steganography is the process of hiding data/information inside other data, for example hiding textual information in an image file, subtly changing fonts, or using invisible ink.


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Plain Text refers to the unencrypted information prior to encoding


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A key is the information necessary to encrypt and decrypt a particular message. In a Caesar cipher, it is the number of letters to shift.


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A public key is part of a two-key encryption/decryption model, where one key is private, and another is publicly available. Public Key Cryptography is also called Asymmetric Cryptography, and is a way of transmitting secure messages via the internet/email, where even if intercepted the message cannot be decrypted.


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A one way function is a model of encrypting information where it is relatively easy to convert the data one way, but much more difficult to reverse the process. In some computer applications, this one way function results in a hash value, allowing secure storage of sensitive information or passwords. If someone breaks into the database, they can only recover the hash value, which obscures the original information.


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Transposition is a classic cipher that moves the position of letters in a word or phrase, rather than replacing them. At its simplest, this could involve just shifting things around (Hello Friend might be encoded as Olleh Dneirf). Other forms include a rail fence ciphers as shown below, which write the words in a zig-zag pattern and then encode across the rows.

[[File:Rail Fence Cipher - 2 lines.png|frame|center]]

A two-line rail fence cipher, to encode "Pathfinders Strong." Once entered into the blocks, we would then send the encoded message as "PTFNESTOGAHIDRSRN"

[[File:Rail Fence Cipher - 3 Lines.png|frame|center]]

A three-line rail fence cipher, to encode "pathfinders strong." Once entered into the blocks, we would send the encoded message as "pfetgahidrsrntnso"


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A traditional Polybius Square is a 5X5 grid with the alphabet filling in the square (English alphabet needs a larger square, or combines two letters, such as I and J or U and V of C and K). Each square is then given a 2 digit code as per its column and row number.

[[File:Polybius Square.png|frame|center]]

Using the square above, we would encode the word "Pathfinder" as: "53 11 44 32 12 42 33 41 51 24"


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In a square cipher, the letters are placed in a grid, and encoded against another grid. A common square grid is a four square grid, made up (as the name implies) of four 5X5 grids. The upper left and lower right are a regular alphabet, the upper right and lower left may have a code word (in this case Pathfinder Strong is the code word - the code word is written in the squares first, then the grid is finished with the rest of the alphabet).

[[File:Four square cipher.png|frame|center]]

To encode a message, it is first broken into two-letter segments. So pathfinder becomes pa th fi nd er (if there were an odd number of letters, you would use an x to fill the final pair). The first letter of the pair is found in the upper left grid, the second of the pair in the lower right. To encode, move along the row from the first letter to pair up with the column of the second letter. Then for the second letter, move along its row to align with the column of the first letter.

[[File:Four square cipher - coded for Pathfinder.png|frame|center]]

In the image here, we have also color coded to see. So PA = BN, TH = QC, FI = EG, ND = KR, ER = AU. We would then send the encoded message (Pathfinder) as BNQCEGKRAU


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A substitution cipher is a simple cipher, where each letter/number is replaced by an alternate letter/number/symbol. The characters are changed for the encoded message, but not the order of characters. Morse Code can be considered a substitution cipher, as each letter is replaced with a unique set of dashes and dots, which allowed the message to be sent across telegraph lines by sending longer (dash) or shorter (dot) pulses of electricity.

[[File:International Morse Code.svg|frame|center]]


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In a polyalphabetic cipher, the substituted letter is determined both by the key and the placement in a word. So it may be that every third letter, the cipher shifts, or there is a different cipher for first letter, second letter, third letter, etc. In this style, the encoded message letters may represent different letters in the unencoded message, as different ciphers are used for different positions. It is more complicated to decode than a simple substitution cipher.

One well known polyalphabetic cipher is the Vigenere cipher, which uses a full alphabet grid (see below).

[[File:Vigenere cipher.png|frame|center]]

The message is encoded using a key phrase. The key phrase, repeated as necessary, is aligned above the unencoded text message, and each encoded replacement letter is found by the intersection of the key phrase letter column and the unencoded text letter row. In this case, we will use the key phrase "Sixth grade" and encode the message "Companion Class". We would align these atop one another, for example

[[File:A code phrase .png|frame|center]]

To encode, we find the letter at the intersection of S and C, which is U. The next letter is encoded by finding the intersection of I and O, which is W. Once done, our message is encoded as UWJIHTCOQGDIPL

[[File:Encoding a Vigenere.png|frame|center]]

[[File:Using the vigenere cipher.png|frame|center]]


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The Caesar cipher is a relatively simple cipher, with the coded text just shifting the letter a certain number of spaces left or right along the alphabet. If we have 26 letters in the alphabet, it means we can shift the alphabet 25 different ways right and 25 different ways left. A "right +2" Caesar cipher would move each letter two spaces to the right, so "A" would be encoded as "C," "B" would be "D" and so on, until "Y" wrapped around to "A" and "Z" wrapped around to be encoded as "B."

Here is a left +12 Caesar cipher (12 for the number of disciples). You can use a code phrase or some other way to signify the shift (though Caesar ciphers are relatively simple to break using brute force approaches and basic logic of language).

[[File:Plus 12 Caesar Cipher.png|frame|center]]

To use this, we first lay out our plain text

[[File:Plain text of Pathfinder Law.png|frame|center]]

Now we encode the letters using our left +12 Caesar cipher

[[File:Encoding the Pathfinder Law.png|frame|center]]

Finally, we remove our plain text, and can send the encoded text instead.

[[File:The Pathfinder Law encoded.png|frame|center]]


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There are many online tools to embed messages in images using ‘least significant bit’ (LSB) steganography, which changes one character in the encoding of the colors for pixels. This is nearly invisible to the human eye, but can be decoded by machine. Changing a file by saving it somewhere else, or in a different format, however, may compromise the message. Information can also be hidden in video files, music files, and other digital media.

But one doesn't always need a computer to hide messages in plain sight. This has been done for centuries, by hand. Steganography is hiding a message in plain sight. One simple way to do this is to write the message in invisible ink, such as lemon juice. When the ink dries, it cannot be seen on the paper until treated (with lemon juice, that means exposing it to heat). If you write the message over an already printed paper, it is even more hidden, as those intercepting the message will think the plain text is the message when in fact the real message is hidden underneath and waits to be revealed.

For a time-consuming but clever text based steganography, we can use Bacon's cipher to encode the Pathfinder Pledge. Bacon's cipher first replaces each letter with a five-letter a-b key (similar to binary, but using a and b rather than 0 and 1). Then, the message is written by using a different font or other clue for each a or b mapped against a piece of concealment text. It doesn't matter what the text is, so long as when it is written, one can break it into blocks of five letters, and see which letter represents an a or a b. Those five character a-b blocks then remap against the original cipher, revealing the original text.

[[File:BaconsCipher.png|frame|center]]

Using Bacon's cipher, we can convert the Pathfinder Pledge to the following string of five-character a-b blocks. So we converted By (the first word of the pledge) into aaaab babba, and continue with the whole Pledge, ignoring spaces and punctuation.

[[File:EncryptedMessage.png|frame|center]]

Now we need our concealment text. The encrypted text is 485 characters long, so we need at least that much text. For this exercise, we have a selection from The Pathfinder Story, which, with its citation, is exactly 485 characters. We will hide the a-b encrypted text within this concealment text.

[[File:ConcealmentText.png|frame|center]]

Now we take our concealment text, remove all of the punctuation and spaces, and break it into five character blocks, so we can map it against the cipher.

[[File:ContractedConcealment.png|frame|center]]

We can then map this set of five character text blocks against our cipher text so we know what characters to slightly alter to encode our message in plain sight.

[[File:Mapped.png|frame|center]]

For this version, we then take all of the letters that map against an "a" in the cipher text and leave them as 14 point font, while all the letters that map against a "b" in the cipher text are converted to 13 point font. It is a little noticeable, but not immediately obvious in the text that we have a hidden code.

[[File:EncodedMessage.png|frame|center]]

To make it easier to see, here is some of the text with the 13 point font letters in red. We would not send it this way, but this may help you see how the encoding works in the concealment message.

[[File:ShowEncoding.png|frame|center]]

To decrypt, we reverse the process. We first break our text into five character blocks, so we will be able to write out the cifer text. Here, we are using red to showcase which characters were in the 13 point font, while we leave the 14 point font characters in black.

[[File:FiveBlock.png|frame|center]]

Next, we convert the coded concealment text into a-b blocks. In this case, red (13 point font) letters are converted to "b," black (14 point font) characters are converted to "a."

[[File:Fiveblockdecrypt.png|frame|center]]

Finally, we take the cipher text (the a-b blocks) and convert them to letters, giving us our hidden message.

[[File:Decrypted.png|frame|center]]

The clever thing about Bacon's cipher, despite the long process, is that done right, it is almost impossible to tell that there is even a hidden message. By hiding the message in plain sight, others are less likely to think it is a message, and thus wont even work to break the cipher.


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You have plenty of choices for this one.

Here is an example of using a columnar transposition cipher (with a key) to encode our message. In this form of cipher, we write our plain text in a grid horizontally, and write our cipher text by reading the columns vertically. But the twist is the key. Before writing our text, we write the key word across our grid. This determines how many rows we will have. The rows are then written as the cipher text based on the alphabetical order of the letters in the key word - so the first column isn't necessarily the first column we will write. If there are two of the same letter in the key word, the first appearance comes first in numbering the columns.

So here is the way to encrypt using this method. Our plain text comes from the book of Psalm. Here we have converted the numbers to words so we do not need to worry about having numbers mixed with out letters.

[[File:Plain Text Psalm to encode.png|frame|center]]

Our keyword is SHEPHARD. Yes, it is spelled like a person's name, not the job with sheep. Using similar sounding words can add to the complexity if someone overhears the key word. The keyword should be sent (or pre-arranged) separately from the cipher text. Perhaps you can use steganography to hide the key word. So, our key, shephard, has 8 letters, so we will have 8 columns in our grid. When we encode, we will begin with the column beneath the letter "A," then the column beneath the letter "d," then "e," then the first "H," then the second "H" and so on. So here is the verse written out in our grid.

[[File:Cipher psalm.png|frame|center]]

Now we write out the coded message, starting with the column under "a," and so on.

[[File:Encoding a Psalm.png|frame|center]]

Finally, we break it up (this time in groups of 5, but use whatever you want so long as it isnt the original number of columns)

[[File:Cipher text for psalm.png|frameless|center]]

To decode, we would take the key word, make a grid, count the total number of characters in the encoded message and divide by the number of columns in our table to determine how many rows we need. Then we begin writing the cipher text vertically in the table, beginning with the "A" column and so on. Once complete, we read/write it out horizontally across the rows to recover our original text.


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==References== 
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AY Honors/Cryptography/Answer Key

2025-06-11T13:42:40Z

RABaker96:

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Cryptography is the science or process of encoding and decoding messages to allow more secure transfer of information.


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Codes use symbols to replace the original message. These may include images, numbers, colors, etc. In many codes, the entire word can be represented by a symbol or another word.

For example, if we see a traffic light, each color represents a word or phrase, with a specific meaning: red=stop, amber=caution, green=go. The color denotes a word, and is thus a code. At sea, ships may use flags and pennants as part of the International Code of Signals, each flag representing a letter, number, word, or phrase.

[[File:ICS-flags.png|frame|center]]

In wartime and in secret government communications, code words may be used to obfuscate the actual meaning. During World War II, for example, the U.S. Navy used code words to represent locations or activities, so if the message was intercepted, the enemy would not know what or where they were talking about.

For example, the word "BALSA" in a message meant "Midway Island," "WOODBANK" meant "Paris, France," and "RANCID" translated to "Greenland."


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A Cipher encrypts a message at the level of individual or small groups of letters, rather than replacing entire words. It is created (and solved) using an algorithm. A simple classic cipher, for example, is the Caesar cipher, where the alphabet is shifted a certain number of spaces to encode and decode the message. The example below is a Caesar cipher with a key of 3 (ie each letter is shifted 3 places). The algorithm could be written as (P)+X=(C), where "P" means the plain text letter, and "C" means the new cipher text letter, and "X" is the number of spaces to shift the letter. A 3 shift Caesar cipher, as below, adds 23 places (26 letters in the alphabet -3 shifted spaces) to get us our encoding, but we "subtract" three letters from the encoded message to solve for the original.

[[File:A 3 key Caesar cipher.png|frame|center]]

Using this cipher, we could encode the word "Ranger" as OXKDBO, the word "Voyager" as SLVXDBO

Another simple classic cipher is the Atbash cipher, where the code is the alphabet in reverse.

[[File:Atbash cipher.png|frame|center]]

Using this cipher, we could encode the word "Companion" as xlnkzmrlm, the word "Guide" as tfrwv

Ciphers can be even more complex (and often are, particularly when using machines and computers). The Enigma machine of World War II used several mechanical elements to encode via a polyalphabetic cipher, meaning that in the enciphered text, a single letter may have different unencrypted meanings, based on where it was and how the algorithm encoded it.


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Steganography is the process of hiding data/information inside other data, for example hiding textual information in an image file, subtly changing fonts, or using invisible ink.


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Plain Text refers to the unencrypted information prior to encoding


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A key is the information necessary to encrypt and decrypt a particular message. In a Caesar cipher, it is the number of letters to shift.


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A public key is part of a two-key encryption/decryption model, where one key is private, and another is publicly available. Public Key Cryptography is also called Asymmetric Cryptography, and is a way of transmitting secure messages via the internet/email, where even if intercepted the message cannot be decrypted.


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A one way function is a model of encrypting information where it is relatively easy to convert the data one way, but much more difficult to reverse the process. In some computer applications, this one way function results in a hash value, allowing secure storage of sensitive information or passwords. If someone breaks into the database, they can only recover the hash value, which obscures the original information.


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Transposition is a classic cipher that moves the position of letters in a word or phrase, rather than replacing them. At its simplest, this could involve just shifting things around (Hello Friend might be encoded as Olleh Dneirf). Other forms include a rail fence ciphers as shown below, which write the words in a zig-zag pattern and then encode across the rows.

[[File:Rail Fence Cipher - 2 lines.png|frame|center]]

A two-line rail fence cipher, to encode "Pathfinders Strong." Once entered into the blocks, we would then send the encoded message as "PTFNESTOGAHIDRSRN"

[[File:Rail Fence Cipher - 3 Lines.png|frame|center]]

A three-line rail fence cipher, to encode "pathfinders strong." Once entered into the blocks, we would send the encoded message as "pfetgahidrsrntnso"


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A traditional Polybius Square is a 5X5 grid with the alphabet filling in the square (English alphabet needs a larger square, or combines two letters, such as I and J or U and V of C and K). Each square is then given a 2 digit code as per its column and row number.

[[File:Polybius Square.png|frame|center]]

Using the square above, we would encode the word "Pathfinder" as: "53 11 44 32 12 42 33 41 51 24"


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In a square cipher, the letters are placed in a grid, and encoded against another grid. A common square grid is a four square grid, made up (as the name implies) of four 5X5 grids. The upper left and lower right are a regular alphabet, the upper right and lower left may have a code word (in this case Pathfinder Strong is the code word - the code word is written in the squares first, then the grid is finished with the rest of the alphabet).

[[File:Four square cipher.png|frame|center]]

To encode a message, it is first broken into two-letter segments. So pathfinder becomes pa th fi nd er (if there were an odd number of letters, you would use an x to fill the final pair). The first letter of the pair is found in the upper left grid, the second of the pair in the lower right. To encode, move along the row from the first letter to pair up with the column of the second letter. Then for the second letter, move along its row to align with the column of the first letter.

[[File:Four square cipher - coded for Pathfinder.png|frame|center]]

In the image here, we have also color coded to see. So PA = BN, TH = QC, FI = EG, ND = KR, ER = AU. We would then send the encoded message (Pathfinder) as BNQCEGKRAU


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A substitution cipher is a simple cipher, where each letter/number is replaced by an alternate letter/number/symbol. The characters are changed for the encoded message, but not the order of characters. Morse Code can be considered a substitution cipher, as each letter is replaced with a unique set of dashes and dots, which allowed the message to be sent across telegraph lines by sending longer (dash) or shorter (dot) pulses of electricity.

[[File:International Morse Code.svg|frame|center]]


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In a polyalphabetic cipher, the substituted letter is determined both by the key and the placement in a word. So it may be that every third letter, the cipher shifts, or there is a different cipher for first letter, second letter, third letter, etc. In this style, the encoded message letters may represent different letters in the unencoded message, as different ciphers are used for different positions. It is more complicated to decode than a simple substitution cipher.

One well known polyalphabetic cipher is the Vigenere cipher, which uses a full alphabet grid (see below).

[[File:Vigenere cipher.png|frame|center]]

The message is encoded using a key phrase. The key phrase, repeated as necessary, is aligned above the unencoded text message, and each encoded replacement letter is found by the intersection of the key phrase letter column and the unencoded text letter row. In this case, we will use the key phrase "Sixth grade" and encode the message "Companion Class". We would align these atop one another, for example

[[File:A code phrase .png|frame|center]]

To encode, we find the letter at the intersection of S and C, which is U. The next letter is encoded by finding the intersection of I and O, which is W. Once done, our message is encoded as UWJIHTCOQGDIPL

[[File:Encoding a Vigenere.png|frame|center]]

[[File:Using the vigenere cipher.png|frame|center]]


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The Caesar cipher is a relatively simple cipher, with the coded text just shifting the letter a certain number of spaces left or right along the alphabet. If we have 26 letters in the alphabet, it means we can shift the alphabet 25 different ways right and 25 different ways left. A "right +2" Caesar cipher would move each letter two spaces to the right, so "A" would be encoded as "C," "B" would be "D" and so on, until "Y" wrapped around to "A" and "Z" wrapped around to be encoded as "B."

Here is a right +12 Caesar cipher (12 for the number of disciples). You can use a code phrase or some other way to signify the shift (though Caesar ciphers are relatively simple to break using brute force approaches and basic logic of language).

[[File:Plus 12 Caesar Cipher.png|frame|center]]

To use this, we first lay out our plain text

[[File:Plain text of Pathfinder Law.png|frame|center]]

Now we encode the letters using our right +12 Caesar cipher

[[File:Encoding the Pathfinder Law.png|frame|center]]

Finally, we remove our plain text, and can send the encoded text instead.

[[File:The Pathfinder Law encoded.png|frame|center]]


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There are many online tools to embed messages in images using ‘least significant bit’ (LSB) steganography, which changes one character in the encoding of the colors for pixels. This is nearly invisible to the human eye, but can be decoded by machine. Changing a file by saving it somewhere else, or in a different format, however, may compromise the message. Information can also be hidden in video files, music files, and other digital media.

But one doesn't always need a computer to hide messages in plain sight. This has been done for centuries, by hand. Steganography is hiding a message in plain sight. One simple way to do this is to write the message in invisible ink, such as lemon juice. When the ink dries, it cannot be seen on the paper until treated (with lemon juice, that means exposing it to heat). If you write the message over an already printed paper, it is even more hidden, as those intercepting the message will think the plain text is the message when in fact the real message is hidden underneath and waits to be revealed.

For a time-consuming but clever text based steganography, we can use Bacon's cipher to encode the Pathfinder Pledge. Bacon's cipher first replaces each letter with a five-letter a-b key (similar to binary, but using a and b rather than 0 and 1). Then, the message is written by using a different font or other clue for each a or b mapped against a piece of concealment text. It doesn't matter what the text is, so long as when it is written, one can break it into blocks of five letters, and see which letter represents an a or a b. Those five character a-b blocks then remap against the original cipher, revealing the original text.

[[File:BaconsCipher.png|frame|center]]

Using Bacon's cipher, we can convert the Pathfinder Pledge to the following string of five-character a-b blocks. So we converted By (the first word of the pledge) into aaaab babba, and continue with the whole Pledge, ignoring spaces and punctuation.

[[File:EncryptedMessage.png|frame|center]]

Now we need our concealment text. The encrypted text is 485 characters long, so we need at least that much text. For this exercise, we have a selection from The Pathfinder Story, which, with its citation, is exactly 485 characters. We will hide the a-b encrypted text within this concealment text.

[[File:ConcealmentText.png|frame|center]]

Now we take our concealment text, remove all of the punctuation and spaces, and break it into five character blocks, so we can map it against the cipher.

[[File:ContractedConcealment.png|frame|center]]

We can then map this set of five character text blocks against our cipher text so we know what characters to slightly alter to encode our message in plain sight.

[[File:Mapped.png|frame|center]]

For this version, we then take all of the letters that map against an "a" in the cipher text and leave them as 14 point font, while all the letters that map against a "b" in the cipher text are converted to 13 point font. It is a little noticeable, but not immediately obvious in the text that we have a hidden code.

[[File:EncodedMessage.png|frame|center]]

To make it easier to see, here is some of the text with the 13 point font letters in red. We would not send it this way, but this may help you see how the encoding works in the concealment message.

[[File:ShowEncoding.png|frame|center]]

To decrypt, we reverse the process. We first break our text into five character blocks, so we will be able to write out the cifer text. Here, we are using red to showcase which characters were in the 13 point font, while we leave the 14 point font characters in black.

[[File:FiveBlock.png|frame|center]]

Next, we convert the coded concealment text into a-b blocks. In this case, red (13 point font) letters are converted to "b," black (14 point font) characters are converted to "a."

[[File:Fiveblockdecrypt.png|frame|center]]

Finally, we take the cipher text (the a-b blocks) and convert them to letters, giving us our hidden message.

[[File:Decrypted.png|frame|center]]

The clever thing about Bacon's cipher, despite the long process, is that done right, it is almost impossible to tell that there is even a hidden message. By hiding the message in plain sight, others are less likely to think it is a message, and thus wont even work to break the cipher.


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You have plenty of choices for this one.

Here is an example of using a columnar transposition cipher (with a key) to encode our message. In this form of cipher, we write our plain text in a grid horizontally, and write our cipher text by reading the columns vertically. But the twist is the key. Before writing our text, we write the key word across our grid. This determines how many rows we will have. The rows are then written as the cipher text based on the alphabetical order of the letters in the key word - so the first column isn't necessarily the first column we will write. If there are two of the same letter in the key word, the first appearance comes first in numbering the columns.

So here is the way to encrypt using this method. Our plain text comes from the book of Psalm. Here we have converted the numbers to words so we do not need to worry about having numbers mixed with out letters.

[[File:Plain Text Psalm to encode.png|frame|center]]

Our keyword is SHEPHARD. Yes, it is spelled like a person's name, not the job with sheep. Using similar sounding words can add to the complexity if someone overhears the key word. The keyword should be sent (or pre-arranged) separately from the cipher text. Perhaps you can use steganography to hide the key word. So, our key, shephard, has 8 letters, so we will have 8 columns in our grid. When we encode, we will begin with the column beneath the letter "A," then the column beneath the letter "d," then "e," then the first "H," then the second "H" and so on. So here is the verse written out in our grid.

[[File:Cipher psalm.png|frame|center]]

Now we write out the coded message, starting with the column under "a," and so on.

[[File:Encoding a Psalm.png|frame|center]]

Finally, we break it up (this time in groups of 5, but use whatever you want so long as it isnt the original number of columns)

[[File:Cipher text for psalm.png|frameless|center]]

To decode, we would take the key word, make a grid, count the total number of characters in the encoded message and divide by the number of columns in our table to determine how many rows we need. Then we begin writing the cipher text vertically in the table, beginning with the "A" column and so on. Once complete, we read/write it out horizontally across the rows to recover our original text.


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==References== 
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AY Honors/Cryptography/Answer Key

2025-06-10T22:38:19Z

RABaker96:

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Cryptography is the science or process of encoding and decoding messages to allow more secure transfer of information.


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Codes use symbols to replace the original message. These may include images, numbers, colors, etc. In many codes, the entire word can be represented by a symbol or another word.

For example, if we see a traffic light, each color represents a word or phrase, with a specific meaning: red=stop, amber=caution, green=go. The color denotes a word, and is thus a code. At sea, ships may use flags and pennants as part of the International Code of Signals, each flag representing a letter, number, word, or phrase.

[[File:ICS-flags.png|frame|center]]

In wartime and in secret government communications, code words may be used to obfuscate the actual meaning. During World War II, for example, the U.S. Navy used code words to represent locations or activities, so if the message was intercepted, the enemy would not know what or where they were talking about.

For example, the word "BALSA" in a message meant "Midway Island," "WOODBANK" meant "Paris, France," and "RANCID" translated to "Greenland."


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A Cipher encrypts a message at the level of individual or small groups of letters, rather than replacing entire words. It is created (and solved) using an algorithm. A simple classic cipher, for example, is the Caesar cipher, where the alphabet is shifted a certain number of spaces to encode and decode the message. The example below is a Caesar cipher with a key of 3 (ie each letter is shifted 3 places). The algorithm could be written as (P)+X=(C), where "P" means the plain text letter, and "C" means the new cipher text letter, and "X" is the number of spaces to shift the letter. A 3 shift Caesar cipher, as below, adds 23 places (26 letters in the alphabet -3 shifted spaces) to get us our encoding, but we "subtract" three letters from the encoded message to solve for the original.

[[File:A 3 key Caesar cipher.png|frame|center]]

Using this cipher, we could encode the word "Ranger" as OXKDBO, the word "Voyager" as SLVXDBO

Another simple classic cipher is the Atbash cipher, where the code is the alphabet in reverse.

[[File:Atbash cipher.png|frame|center]]

Using this cipher, we could encode the word "Companion" as xlnkzmrlm, the word "Guide" as tfrwv

Ciphers can be even more complex (and often are, particularly when using machines and computers). The Enigma machine of World War II used several mechanical elements to encode via a polyalphabetic cipher, meaning that in the enciphered text, a single letter may have different unencrypted meanings, based on where it was and how the algorithm encoded it.


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Steganography is the process of hiding data/information inside other data, for example hiding textual information in an image file, subtly changing fonts, or using invisible ink.


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Plain Text refers to the unencrypted information prior to encoding


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A key is the information necessary to encrypt and decrypt a particular message. In a Caesar cipher, it is the number of letters to shift.


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A public key is part of a two-key encryption/decryption model, where one key is private, and another is publicly available. Public Key Cryptography is also called Asymmetric Cryptography, and is a way of transmitting secure messages via the internet/email, where even if intercepted the message cannot be decrypted.


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A one way function is a model of encrypting information where it is relatively easy to convert the data one way, but much more difficult to reverse the process. In some computer applications, this one way function results in a hash value, allowing secure storage of sensitive information or passwords. If someone breaks into the database, they can only recover the hash value, which obscures the original information.


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Transposition is a classic cipher that moves the position of letters in a word or phrase, rather than replacing them. At its simplest, this could involve just shifting things around (Hello Friend might be encoded as Olleh Dneirf). Other forms include a rail fence ciphers as shown below, which write the words in a zig-zag pattern and then encode across the rows.

[[File:Rail Fence Cipher - 2 lines.png|frame|center]]

A two-line rail fence cipher, to encode "Pathfinders Strong." Once entered into the blocks, we would then send the encoded message as "PTFNESTOGAHIDRSRN"

[[File:Rail Fence Cipher - 3 Lines.png|frame|center]]

A three-line rail fence cipher, to encode "pathfinders strong." Once entered into the blocks, we would send the encoded message as "pfetgahidrsrntnso"


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A traditional Polybius Square is a 5X5 grid with the alphabet filling in the square (English alphabet needs a larger square, or combines two letters, such as I and J or U and V of C and K). Each square is then given a 2 digit code as per its column and row number.

[[File:Polybius Square.png|frame|center]]

Using the square above, we would encode the word "Pathfinder" as: "53 11 44 32 12 42 33 41 51 24"


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In a square cipher, the letters are placed in a grid, and encoded against another grid. A common square grid is a four square grid, made up (as the name implies) of four 5X5 grids. The upper left and lower right are a regular alphabet, the upper right and lower left may have a code word (in this case Pathfinder Strong is the code word - the code word is written in the squares first, then the grid is finished with the rest of the alphabet).

[[File:Four square cipher.png|frame|center]]

To encode a message, it is first broken into two-letter segments. So pathfinder becomes pa th fi nd er (if there were an odd number of letters, you would use an x to fill the final pair). The first letter of the pair is found in the upper left grid, the second of the pair in the lower right. To encode, move along the row from the first letter to pair up with the column of the second letter. Then for the second letter, move along its row to align with the column of the first letter.

[[File:Four square cipher - coded for Pathfinder.png|frame|center]]

In the image here, we have also color coded to see. So PA = BN, TH = QC, FI = EG, ND = KR, ER = AU. We would then send the encoded message (Pathfinder) as BNQCEGKRAU


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A substitution cipher is a simple cipher, where each letter/number is replaced by an alternate letter/number/symbol. The characters are changed for the encoded message, but not the order of characters. Morse Code can be considered a substitution cipher, as each letter is replaced with a unique set of dashes and dots, which allowed the message to be sent across telegraph lines by sending longer (dash) or shorter (dot) pulses of electricity.

[[File:International Morse Code.svg|frame|center]]


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In a polyalphabetic cipher, the substituted letter is determined both by the key and the placement in a word. So it may be that every third letter, the cipher shifts, or there is a different cipher for first letter, second letter, third letter, etc. In this style, the encoded message letters may represent different letters in the unencoded message, as different ciphers are used for different positions. It is more complicated to decode than a simple substitution cipher.

One well known polyalphabetic cipher is the Vigenere cipher, which uses a full alphabet grid (see below).

[[File:Vigenere cipher.png|frame|center]]

The message is encoded using a key phrase. The key phrase, repeated as necessary, is aligned above the unencoded text message, and each encoded replacement letter is found by the intersection of the key phrase letter column and the unencoded text letter row. In this case, we will use the key phrase "Sixth grade" and encode the message "Companion Class". We would align these atop one another, for example

[[File:A code phrase .png|frame|center]]

To encode, we find the letter at the intersection of S and C, which is U. The next letter is encoded by finding the intersection of I and O, which is W. Once done, our message is encoded as UWJIHTCOQGDIPL

[[File:Encoding a Vigenere.png|frame|center]]

[[File:Using the vigenere cipher.png|frame|center]]


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The Caesar cipher is a relatively simple cipher, with the coded text just shifting the letter a certain number of spaces left or right along the alphabet. If we have 26 letters in the alphabet, it means we can shift the alphabet 25 different ways right and 25 different ways left. A "right +2" Caesar cipher would move each letter two spaces to the right, so "A" would be encoded as "C," "B" would be "D" and so on, until "Y" wrapped around to "A" and "Z" wrapped around to be encoded as "B."

Here is a right +12 Caesar cipher (12 for the number of disciples). You can use a code phrase or some other way to signify the shift (though Caesar ciphers are relatively simple to break using brute force approaches and basic logic of language).

[[File:Plus 12 Caesar Cipher.png|frame|center]]

To use this, we first lay out our plain text

[[File:Plain text of Pathfinder Law.png|frame|center]]

Now we encode the letters using our right +12 Caesar cipher

[[File:Encoding the Pathfinder Law.png|frame|center]]

Finally, we remove our plain text, and can send the encoded text instead.

[[File:The Pathfinder Law encoded.png|frame|center]]


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There are many online tools to embed messages in images using ‘least significant bit’ (LSB) steganography, which changes one character in the encoding of the colors for pixels. This is nearly invisible to the human eye, but can be decoded by machine. Changing a file by saving it somewhere else, or in a different format, however, may compromise the message. Information can also be hidden in video files, music files, and other digital media.

But one doesn't always need a computer to hide messages in plain sight. This has been done for centuries, by hand. Steganography is hiding a message in plain sight. One simple way to do this is to write the message in invisible ink, such as lemon juice. When the ink dries, it cannot be seen on the paper until treated (with lemon juice, that means exposing it to heat). If you write the message over an already printed paper, it is even more hidden, as those intercepting the message will think the plain text is the message when in fact the real message is hidden underneath and waits to be revealed.

For a time-consuming but clever text based steganography, we can use Bacon's cipher to encode the Pathfinder Pledge. Bacon's cipher first replaces each letter with a five-letter a-b key (similar to binary, but using a and b rather than 0 and 1). Then, the message is written by using a different font or other clue for each a or b mapped against a piece of concealment text. It doesn't matter what the text is, so long as when it is written, one can break it into blocks of five letters, and see which letter represents an a or a b. Those five character a-b blocks then remap against the original cipher, revealing the original text.

[[File:BaconsCipher.png|frame|center]]

Using Bacon's cipher, we can convert the Pathfinder Pledge to the following string of five-character a-b blocks. So we converted By (the first word of the pledge) into aaaab babba, and continue with the whole Pledge, ignoring spaces and punctuation.

[[File:EncryptedMessage.png|frame|center]]

Now we need our concealment text. The encrypted text is 485 characters long, so we need at least that much text. For this exercise, we have a selection from The Pathfinder Story, which, with its citation, is exactly 485 characters. We will hide the a-b encrypted text within this concealment text.

[[File:ConcealmentText.png|frame|center]]

Now we take our concealment text, remove all of the punctuation and spaces, and break it into five character blocks, so we can map it against the cipher.

[[File:ContractedConcealment.png|frame|center]]

We can then map this set of five character text blocks against our cipher text so we know what characters to slightly alter to encode our message in plain sight.

[[File:Mapped.png|frame|center]]

For this version, we then take all of the letters that map against an "a" in the cipher text and leave them as 14 point font, while all the letters that map against a "b" in the cipher text are converted to 13 point font. It is a little noticeable, but not immediately obvious in the text that we have a hidden code.

[[File:EncodedMessage.png|frame|center]]

To make it easier to see, here is some of the text with the 13 point font letters in red. We would not send it this way, but this may help you see how the encoding works in the concealment message.

[[File:ShowEncoding.png|frame|center]]

To decrypt, we reverse the process. We first break our text into five character blocks, so we will be able to write out the cifer text. Here, we are using red to showcase which characters were in the 13 point font, while we leave the 14 point font characters in black.

[[File:FiveBlock.png|frame|center]]

Next, we convert the coded concealment text into a-b blocks. In this case, red (13 point font) letters are converted to "b," black (14 point font) characters are converted to "a."

[[File:Fiveblockdecrypt.png|frame|center]]

Finally, we take the cipher text (the a-b blocks) and convert them to letters, giving us our hidden message.

[[File:Decrypted.png|frame|center]]

The clever thing about Bacon's cipher, despite the long process, is that done right, it is almost impossible to tell that there is even a hidden message. By hiding the message in plain sight, others are less likely to think it is a message, and thus wont even work to break the cipher.


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You have plenty of choices for this one. Here is an example of using a columnar transposition cipher (with a key) to encode our message. In this form of cipher, we write our plain text in a grid horizontally, and write our cipher text by reading the columns vertically. But the twist is the key. Before writing our text, we write the key word across our grid. This determines how many rows we will have. The rows are then written as the cipher text based on the alphabetical order of the letters in the key word - so the first column isn't necessarily the first column we will write. If there are two of the same letter in the key word, the first appearance comes first in numbering the columns.

So here is the way to encrypt using this method. Our plain text comes from the book of Psalm. Here we have converted the numbers to words so we do not need to worry about having numbers mixed with out letters.

[[File:Plain Text Psalm to encode.png|frame|center]]

Our keyword is SHEPHARD. It has 8 letters, so we will have 8 columns in our grid. When we encode, we will begin with the column beneath the letter "A," then the column beneath the letter "d," then "e," then the first "H," then the second "H" and so on. So here is the verse written out in our grid.

[[File:Cipher psalm.png|frame|center]]

Now we write out the coded message, starting with the column under "a," and so on.

[[File:Encoding a Psalm.png|frame|center]]

Finally, we break it up (this time in groups of 5, but use whatever you want so long as it isnt the original number of columns)

[[File:Cipher text for psalm.png|frameless|center]]

To decode, we would take the key word, make a grid, count the total number of characters in the encoded message and divide by the number of columns in our table to determine how many rows we need. Then we begin writing the cipher text vertically in the table, beginning with the "A" column and so on. Once complete, we read/write it out horizontally across the rows to recover our original text.


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==References== 
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[[Category:AY Honors/noindex{{GetLangSuffix}}|{{SUBPAGENAME}}]]

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File:Cipher text for psalm.png

2025-06-10T22:36:24Z

RABaker96:

our final cipher text for our psalm encryptian

File:Encoding a Psalm.png

2025-06-10T22:35:10Z

RABaker96:

the cipher text for encoding a psalm

File:Cipher psalm.png

2025-06-10T22:33:53Z

RABaker96:

a grid showing how to encode a part of a psalm using a columnar transposition cipher with the key word shephard

File:Plain Text Psalm to encode.png

2025-06-10T22:32:25Z

RABaker96:

a plain text file of Psalm 19:1-2 for encrypting

AY Honors/Cryptography/Answer Key

2025-06-08T14:11:25Z

RABaker96:

AY Honors/Cryptography/Answer Key

2025-06-08T13:54:38Z

RABaker96:

AY Honors/Cryptography/Answer Key

2025-06-08T13:45:03Z

RABaker96:

File:The Pathfinder Law encoded.png

2025-06-08T13:44:49Z

RABaker96:

the Pathfinder Law encoded using a right +12 Caesar cipher

File:Encoding the Pathfinder Law.png

2025-06-08T13:43:34Z

RABaker96:

Showing how to encode the Pathfinder Law using a right +12 Caesar cipher

File:Plain text of Pathfinder Law.png

2025-06-08T13:42:24Z

RABaker96:

the Pathfinder Law in a monospaced font, in preparation for encryptian

File:Plus 12 Caesar Cipher.png

2025-06-08T13:40:33Z

RABaker96:

an example of a right 12 caesae cipher, as well as a set of numbers to think about any Caesar cipher

AY Honors/Cryptography/Answer Key

2025-06-08T11:25:54Z

RABaker96:

AY Honors/Cryptography/Answer Key

2025-06-08T01:27:47Z

RABaker96:

AY Honors/Cryptography/Answer Key

2025-06-08T01:23:40Z

RABaker96:

AY Honors/Cryptography/Answer Key

2025-06-08T01:15:24Z

RABaker96:

File:Decrypted.png

2025-06-08T01:13:58Z

RABaker96:

shocasing how to decrypt a Bacon's cipher

File:Fiveblockdecrypt.png

2025-06-08T01:12:52Z

RABaker96:

Anotehr step in decrypting a message sent in Bacon's cipher

File:FiveBlock.png

2025-06-08T01:10:15Z

RABaker96:

showing a step in decoding steganography and Bacon's cipher

File:ShowEncoding.png

2025-06-08T01:08:24Z

RABaker96:

Revealing the point size encoding in a sample of text steganography

File:EncodedMessage.png

2025-06-08T01:06:51Z

RABaker96:

An encoded message using different font sizes to demonstrate steganography

File:Mapped.png

2025-06-08T01:04:31Z

RABaker96:

A concealment text mapped against a cipher text

File:ContractedConcealment.png

2025-06-08T01:03:12Z

RABaker96:

A selection of text broken into five character blocks to map against Bacon's cipher

File:ConcealmentText.png

2025-06-08T01:01:26Z

RABaker96:

A selection from The Pathfinder Story, to be used as concealment text for an example of steganography using Bacon's cipher

File:EncryptedMessage.png

2025-06-08T00:59:03Z

RABaker96:

The Pathfinder Pledge written in Bacon's cipher

File:BaconsCipher.png

2025-06-08T00:55:30Z

RABaker96:

an example of a 24 character Bacon's Cipher

File:PathfinderLogoHiddenText.png

2025-06-08T00:51:04Z

RABaker96:

The Pathfinder Pledge hidden via LSB steganography in the Pathfinder logo

AY Honors/Cryptography/Answer Key

2025-06-07T03:20:30Z

RABaker96:

File:Encoding a Vigenere.png

2025-06-07T03:20:00Z

RABaker96:

sample encoding using a Vigenere

File:Using the vigenere cipher.png

2025-06-07T03:17:02Z

RABaker96:

part of a solution for encoding using a vigenere cipher

File:A code phrase .png

2025-06-07T03:13:15Z

RABaker96:

a code phrase for a vigenere cipher

File:Vigenere cipher.png

2025-06-07T03:09:14Z

RABaker96:

A vigenere cipher

AY Honors/Cryptography/Answer Key

2025-06-07T02:30:09Z

RABaker96: