Cracking Codes and Cryptograms For Dummies®

Chapter 1. Clueing You In about Codes and Cryptograms

In This Chapter

• Discovering cryptography through the ages

• Finding out about Masonic codes and ciphers

• Investigating additional resources

In this book, we offer you the challenge of breaking several types of real ciphers and cryptograms, all devised by noted Australian puzzlemaster Denise Sutherland (author of Word Searches For Dummies [Wiley]).

In this chapter, we offer a few things to orient you to the secrets of codes and cryptograms, including the world of the cryptogram, the history of ciphers and codes, and the ways in which the time-honored fraternity of the Freemasons has used codes over the centuries. We also tell you about the contemporary world of codes and follow up by giving you some suggestions for further reading.

Introducing the Cryptographic World

The word cryptographic comes from elements that mean "hidden" (crypto) and "writing" (graph). The cryptographic world encompasses codes and ciphers (which we distinguish between in Chapter 2), which are used to create cryptograms (secret messages).

Ciphers. Codes. Cryptograms. What do you think about when you hear these words?

You may get an image of dark nights with fog-filled streets. In an attic in wartime London, a nervous man, constantly checking the door with anxious looks over his shoulder, is bent over a static-filled radio, writing down strings of numbers as they come over one particular frequency on the dial. In the street below, people in trench coats trade identical ...