SOLVING CIPHER SECRETS Edited by M. E . Ghaver

SIfORT AND SNAPPY! THAT'S I T ! GOOD POINTS AND INTERESTING CIPHERS. WHOOP IT UP, LADIES AND GENTS! IT'S GONNA BE GOOD I

^ ^ ^ ^ ^ E R E i t is, fans: ' Meaning, of course, the

first installment of the much heralded weekly c i ­pher department.

Henceforth, if this plan is well received, you wil l only have to wait one week for the explanation of a particu­lar ly fascinating cryptogram. Reader ci­phers, too, can now be discussed in more de­tai l than has heretofore been easily prac­ticable.

Representative historical ciphers, with methods of analysis, w i l l continue to be published at intervals, as before. B u t an extensive program^of short items has at the same time been planned for the weekly series.

T h i s adventure in a weekly department is due to the suggestions of our readers, and we would like to see its contents con­form to their wishes. H o w does the idea strike you? W e would appreciate your opinion.

T o start things off with a bang, try your hand at cipher No. i , for the first correct solution of which M r . Davidson is offering a free year's subscription to F L Y N N ' S

W E E K L Y .

Y o u r answer should be accompanied by a brief explanation of the cipher and your method of solution, and must be mailed not later than two weeks from the date of this issue.

Should two or more contestants be tied for first place, the year's subscription wil l be awarded to the entry accompanied by the best explanation and solution, .i^ddress a l l answers to Solving Cipher Secrets, F L Y N N ' S

W E E K L Y , 2 8 0 Broadway, N e w Y o r k C i t y , New Y o r k .

M r . Davidson's cipher is entirely prac­ticable in use, and is well worth knowing. A full explanation wi l l be published four weeks hence, and any solvers wil l be listed as soon tliereafter as practicable.

Here's the cipher, fans. Who wins?

C I P H E R No. I (Kenneth Davidson, MonUeal, Quebec, Canada).

U X V I Z B T D N E P P R D K A S I A F E V S Z X L D T S R Z D H E W E R Z I X E S O I J F A I H A S E I P I V F I K T H E I P A U E L Q N Z B I D R B . A N D R R N U T E C U S I C E S L D B E T H S G R M I Q X T S Q K A • V F .

Now that our ship is fa ir ly launched, and before offering another cryptogram, it m a y be well to speak briefly of the real purpose of cryptography.

Of course, it affords instruction and en­tertainment of a high order in the construc­tion and resolution of intricate problems. B u t also, as you may well know, cryptog­raphy is an important subject with a legiti­mate excuse for its existence.

Without i t , organizations and individuals would have to search out other means of securing the real or supposed inviolability of their communications. A n d diplomatic,

478

S O L V I N G C I P H E R S E C R E T S 479

military, political, business, and personal messages in cipher, which probably aggre­gate thousands daily throughout the world, would demand expression through other channels.

T h e number of ciphers that have been devised for these various purposes is, of course, practically unlimited. B u t .some of these ciphers are better than others. W h i c h brings up the question of what actually con­stitutes a good cipher.

Quite naturally, cryptographers have been trying to decide this for centuries. For example, it was in 1 6 0 5 in his " Advance­ment of Learning " that Sir Francis Bacon pronounced his much quoted three virtues of a good cipher. T o these three E d g a r A l l a n Poe added a "fourth in 1 8 4 1 .

I n 1 8 8 3 August Kerckhoffs in " L a Cryp-tographie Mil i ta ire " announced his famous six properties of mil i tary ciphers. T o these six requisites H . Josse, French captain and author of a work on ciphers, added a

C I P H E R No. ?. (in Churles I stroke cipher).

— y - ^ •- ^-^-!-

7

seventh in 1 8 8 5 . .\nd F . Delastelle fol­lowed in 1 8 9 3 with an eighth.

Another French writer on the subject, E . Myskowski , published in 1 9 0 2 in his " Cryptographie Indechiffrable" eight properties, for the greater part a review of what had gone before.

T o assist our readers in the improvement of theif own ciphers, and to better appre­ciate the work of others, we have coordi­nated these and other sets of regulations, restating some, eliminating duplicates, and throwing in a few other self-evident propo­sitions for good measure.

T h e first of these rules and regulations w i l l appear, with a short discussion, in next week's cipher department. Others wil l be published at intervals in our weekly series.

Now for cipher No. 2 , for which we have prepared an example in the stroke cipher of Charles L

T h e alphabet of this system, found at the B r i t i s h Museum among the royal manu­scripts, is somewhat suggestive of short­hand, and is to be found engraved in d i v e ' s Linear Shorthand, published in 1 8 3 0 .

T h i s cipher seems to have been a favorite with Charles I , i t being of especial interest from having been used in his letter of .April 5 , 1 6 4 6 , to the E a r l of Glamorgan—after­ward Marquis of Worcester—in which the king made certain concessions to tlie Roman Catholics of Ireland.

T h e cipher employs a simple substitution alphabet, each symbol fixedly signifying a certain letter, and a given letter always being represented by one certain symbol.

T h e text of the present cryptogram is taken from a statement by an eyewitness of the execution of Charles 1.

C a n you decipher i t?

Send in your solutions to this week's ci­phers, and look for the answer to No. 2 , along with the complete alphabet, in the next issue of this magazine.

Have you a cipher of your own brewing that you would like to try on your fellow readers? I f so, send it along, too; prefer­ably with the solution.

Next week's installment, besides the first of the cipher rules and regulations, wi l l also contain some interesting reader ciphers.

Don't fail to see them. T h a t readers of F L Y N N ' S W E E K L Y have

proved the vulnerability of the key phrase cipher, described in the January 2 2 issue, is clearly demonstrated by the list of solvers of these ciphers that is now accumulating, and which wil l be published in a later issue.

y-.—7 y-

- 2 ^ . . _ N _ l T ^ " ^ " " -y-'-'-zr-^-

n—^ " — T y: - T — Z — r - L

480 F L Y N N ' S W E E K L Y

T h e key phrases and translations of these two ciphers follow:

C I P H E R No. I ( K e y phrase in Old French: Dku, le roy, et le foy du Vaughn.") Mes­

sage: I n some curious examination of the carved woodwork above the library at Crag-ness, I hit accidentally upon a secret spring, distant six inches in a right line from the spear head of the knight in heraldic device there blazoned. Within the crypt, disclosed by the movement of this spring, I found the secret which, having driven my father to his grave, then turned back to fasten upon me, and w i l l , as I am certain, never release me until I die beside him.

C I P H E R No. 2 ( K e y phrase: T e l l not your secret to an enemy.) Message: I f one of my sons shall discover the secret place where is hidden this pistol and the confession of his father's follies and crimes, I counsel llrnoons should have read Imconsl him to lay the lat­ter upon the fire, and to discharge the first into his own head. So best shall he shield the memory of his ancestors, and spare h im­self their inheritance.

T h e above messages are both quotations from a little known novel, " Cipher," an early work of the .American author, Jane Goodwin Austin ( 1 8 3 1 - 1 8 9 4 ) . T h i s story was published serially in the Galaxy from October, 1 8 6 8 , to Apr i l , 1 8 6 9 , inclusive; and, as far as we have been able to learn, was never issued in book form.

T h e first message is an excerpt from a lengthy document that figures in the story. T h i s document is given in Engl ish, but it is supposed to have been written in cipher, and to have been deciphered by an acci­dental discovery of the Old French key phrase already given.

T h e only actual cryptograms in the whole novel, however, are the two short speci­mens, " Edaolu oe oludluv," and " Ruyllye aol oludlu," which our readers can decipher, i f they choose, by means of the Old French key phrase. A s used by Austin, however,

this key was applied only to the first twenty-four letters of the Engl ish alphabet, y and 2 being left to take care of themselves without any symbols.

.Austin's use of the key phrase cipher may have been due to the influence of Poe, who had already described it in Graham's Magazine, and had set the pace for fiction writers, in this respect, by using a crypto­gram in the Gold Bug.

T u r n i n g now to our November 1 3 list of solvers, no one succeeded in deciphering the photographic formula code, No. 7, and not without good reason. B u t all the rest fell swiftly before the attack.

Charles P. Winsor, Boston, Massachusetts ( 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - S - 6 - 8 - 9 ) .

Fredrik Pilstrand, Brooklyn, New Y o r k ( 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - S - g ) .

Richard Miller, Indianapolis, Indiana ( 1 - 2 -3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 8 ) .

J . K . Manning, Morrisonville, Il l inois ( 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - S - 6 - 8 ) .

Arthur Bellamy, Boston, Massachusetts ( 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 8 ) .

E . H . " Barber, Lieutenant Commander ( S O , United States Navy, Cavite, Philippine Islands ( 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 8 ) .

Charles C. Fulton, Omaha, Nebraska ( 1 - 2 - 4 1 .

Paul Ringel, Toledo, Ohio ( 8 - 9 ) . ' Paul A. Napier, Louisville, Kentucky ( 8 ) .

December 1 8 ciphers seemed to offer a more stubborn resistance. Nevertheless, a number of fans succeeded in solving Nos. T and 2 of the " Castle Radio C o n t e s t " type, including M r . Castle himself, who managed to get away with both of them.

.Arthur Bellamy, Boston, Massachusetts ( 1 - 2 - S ) .

C . A. Castle, Waterloo, I o w a ( 1 - 2 ) . Paul A . Napier, Louisville, Kentucky ( 1 ) . Basi l J . Condon, Durham, North Caro­

lina ( i ) .

T h e J a n u a r y 2 2 list wi l l be published later.

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