If you have been caught finishing crossword puzzles, acrostics, hardcore Sudoku games, and other types of puzzles based upon numbers and letters… you might already be a beginning code breaker…it’s just that real; codes can get a lot more challenging. This link to the New Scientist site covers some classic ‘unbreakable’ code examples (I have one of them below…).
If you are easily caught up in these sorts of challenges (the New Scientist has this set up as a sort of contest), I would suggest doing some searches on such fun sounding topics as substitution codes, transposition codes, and pads… there are also plenty of books (free and online, as well as $$ eBooks form places like Amazon) which may help get you to the point where you might feel obliged to give this contest a try…
A brief history of codebreaking: can you crack it?
http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2011/05/a-brief-history-of-codebreakin.html
Read more: "Unbreakable: Eight codes we can’t crack"
Nothing is more beguiling than a secret. It’s why codebreaking has always fascinated us. The use of codes and ciphers goes back centuries: they have helped to build empires and divert the path of wars. To mark the 70th anniversary of the capture of an Enigma codebreaking machine, New Scientist has devised four dastardly ciphers.
If you have the smarts to crack them, the answers will reveal a brief history of codebreaking. But if that wasn’t incentive enough, the first three correct answers sent to us using this form (submit your entry to "Features") will receive a copy of New Scientist‘s new book Farmer Buckley’s Exploding Trousers. We’ll publish the names of the heroic first 10 codebreakers to solve all four puzzles next week, so that you may be showered in the glory you deserve.
Puzzle 1: Caesar cipher
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