The Most Interesting Encryption Methods of the Ancient World

From the skytale of the spartans to the mystery machine of nazi germany mysterious passwords, It was considered the most unbreakable password of the period until someone solved them.

Widely known and made its name in history 5 famous encryption methods:

One of the oldest encryption methods: Skytale/Spartans

Known as the most well-known encryption methods of the Spartans “sktyale”, It was performed using simple sticks and strips of leather.

The person who would encrypt the message was using a stick of a certain thickness. After preparing the long and narrow strip, he wrapped it around the stick. The message was written horizontally on the strip and the letters consecutive It was located on the strip.

Once the password left the strip, it became unreadable because the letters entered a meaningless sequence. For those who want to decipher the password: bar of the same thickness He had to wrap the ribbon around the rod using Thus, the message was readable.

Most widely known encryption: Caesar cipher

Created by shifting each letter by a certain position in the alphabet Caesar cipher, Also known as displacement cipher. For example, when the letters were shifted 3 positions, the letter A turned into the letter D instead of the letter B, and so on.

Although it may seem easy when we look at it now, it is actually a question of how many positions will be shifted in this password, which is widely used in the negative period. key of password It was happening. Let’s say the number of scrolls is 3. While the original message was “Hello”, the encrypted version was “Khoor”.

Piglet cipher, also known as the Mason cipher

Each letter is replaced by a specific geometric shape or symbol. pig mouth passwordwere arranged in simple grids or crosses.

Letters two 3×3 in grid diagram on the grill It was located. As you can see in the image, the lines next to the letters were actually passwords. The same was true for the cross-scheme.

in the example to letters And when you look at its counterpart in the image, you can actually understand the encryption more clearly.

Code of the telegraph system: Morse code

Developed as a communication system by Samuel Morse and Alfred Vail in the 1830s morse coderepresented letters, numbers, and punctuation using short and long signs (dots and dashes).

As you can see in the image, each letter had a code. While dots meant short signals, lines meant long signals. This code; telegraph devices, radio signals, It could be used in a variety of ways, such as flashlights or sound signals.

The encryption method of Nazi Germany, which was considered unbreakable for a long time: Mystery machine

The mystery machine, especially during World War II. A complex device used by Nazi Germany during World War II. electro-mechanical encryption It was the device. The working principle and history of the machine developed for the purpose of encrypting and decrypting messages are also of great importance in the world of cryptography.

The written text was automatically encrypted by the machine and transmitted via radio. The receiver receives the encoded message to the mystery machine It was typing and the code was automatically decoded.

One of the reasons it was extremely safe was that the German army made a day code book so that sending and receiving machines were changed every 24 hours. this too 150,000,000,000,000,000,000 combinations It meant.

In the 1930s, the code of the mystery machine was cracked by the Poles and the information was to British intelligence transferred. II. During World War II, the machine’s code was regularly cracked and important information that changed the course of the war was obtained.

Don’t forget to read these about the old ones: