Enciphering is the process by which we hide our messages so that not everyone can read them. Two people who want to communicate agree on the process of hiding and revealing messages. It is important that the agreed process remains secret.
We will describe some significant historical events that are related to enciphering.
Ever since the dawn of civilization, people have had secrets and there has been a need for hiding secrets. One of the first enciphering devices was used by the Spartans. That device was called scytale. Scytale is a rod around which a strip of parchment is rolled, and the message is written on the parchment along the rod. After the strip of parchment was unrolled, the content of the message would remain hidden for anyone who did not have the same rod.
The great Roman general Gaius Julius Caesar used cipher to hide messages from his enemies. Almost 2000 years after Caesar people would successfully hide secrets using different cipher, similar to the way Caesar used to do it. Over time, enciphering procedures became increasingly more complex.
Some 200 years ago English mathematician Charles Babbage made a mechanical machine on the basis of which today’s computers were developed. The first real computer was designed and built by a group of mathematicians and engineers led by the great mathematician Alan Turing. They built a computer so that they could use it to read secrets hidden by the famous encryption device called Enigma. Description of the first real computer was published in 1946, and the first personal computer was built 17 years later.
After the appearance of first computers people had to think of new ways to hide secrets, ones that could not be discovered with the help of computers. Mathematicians have devised many encryption methods that successfully keep our secrets today.
If we managed to spark your interest for the topic, read on about enciphering and try out our quest for the secret.
