AY Honor Cryptography Answer Key

Cryptography

Skill Level

1

Year

2025

Version

11.09.2025

Approval authority

North American Division

1

Define cryptography and list its major applications.

Cryptography, or cryptology, is the art of concealing messages in order to keep them private or confidential.

When the message is encoded, only those who have been given the key or code book will know how to decode the secret message.

Steganography is the art of hiding the message with a "cover" so that what people see is the cover without realizing there is a secret message hidden within or under it.

2

Define the following terms:

2a

Code

2b

Cipher

Decryption is the reverse process where the unintelligible cipher text is converted back to plain text (normal text).

2c

Steganography

2d

Plain text

2e

Key

3

Define each of the following categories of ciphers, give an example of each, and encipher your name using each technique.

The word cipher comes from the Arabic word SIFR, meaning "empty" or "zero."

4

Investigate whether each item in the list below is a code, a cipher, steganography, or a plain text message.

Scytale in Greek means a baton.

5

Classical cryptology is the study of codes and ciphers used in the past. Discover how the following cryptographic forms were encoded in antiquity, and try to duplicate their processes to record a message:

The first Enigma was invented by German engineer Arthur Scherbius at the end of World War I.

6

Prepare a message containing the Pathfinder Law enciphered in a Caesar cipher and indicate the key used.

Code talkers refer to Native American soldiers who talk using a coded language to transmit secret messages over the radio.

7

Use steganography to write the Pathfinder Pledge.

The Navajo language was an unpublished language and no books in Navajo had ever been published.

8

Choose a cipher to encrypt a favorite Bible text and let another person decrypt it. Be sure to give that person the type of cipher and the key used.

The decree by Ptolemy V written on the Rosetta Stone appears in three languages.

9

Decrypt a message made by another person using the key and cipher type they used.

10

A transposition cipher is a method of encryption by which the positions held by units of plain text are shifted according to a regular system to create the cipher text.

11

A substitution cipher is a method of encryption by which the units of the plain text are replaced with other symbols which need not be the same as those used in the plain text.

References

• Cryptology Pathfinder Honour on YouTube (sponsored by the British Union)
• PowerPoint and Answer Sheet