Cozy Mystery Author 

Cryptology

The word cryptography is a combination of the Greek word, Kryptos, which means hidden, and graphy, which means writing. Cryptography is the study and process of hiding or coding sensitive information intended for a specific reader—a method of sending secret messages in business, war, espionage, diplomacy, or to the friend down the street. The art of encryption has been used for thousands of years beginning with the Egyptian use of hieroglyphics and pictograms. Developing codification includes Julius Caesar’s elementary cipher, writing a message sliding each character desired three away from the original letters. In a Caesar’s slide, Hello would be encrypted as Ebiil. As long as the receiver understands how the cipher came to be, whether transposition or substitution, unmasking the message should be possible. Encryption has been done by shifting and twisting existing messages, using passcodes, providing special keys, and by machine. Present day algorithms protect our data, and the advanced ciphers are used in cyber security.

There are movies which use secret codes like The Imitation Game, Sneakers, Codebreakers, Windtalkers, and War Games. Authors have written novels using cryptology including The Enigma Girls, Codebreaker, The Lost Symbol, and The Rule of Four.

My stories may include relatively simple codes and short biographies of historical pioneering female cryptographers who helped construct much of the framework for decoding the Enigma and uncovering messages from Germany, Japan, and Italy, who have been summarily ignored until recently. Men and women put their skills together to intercept and understand enciphered messages.

Here’s one for you. The numbers in this message map onto the letters in the same position of the alphabet.

8-1-22-5 1 7-18-5-1-20 4-1-25!

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