Bored with crosswords, Sudoku and word search puzzles, why not give ciphers a try?
If you like to be challenged, if you have a patient and logical approach to problem solving, ciphers might be just the thing for you.
When it comes to codes, ciphers and cryptography the one time pad is described as the ‘holy grail’ of ciphers and cryptography. It is widely acknowledged, if used properly and in accordance with strict instructions for its use, that it is virtually unbreakable.
There is only one cipher system that cannot be cracked by the FBI or NSA - or by anyone else for that matter. That system is the one-time pad.
A one-time pad is deceptively simple in its design and application. The creation of a one-time pad does not require a computer, calculator or any equipment other than a pencil and paper. At its simplest it consists of a random list of letters which when combined with the message to be encoded produce an almost indecipherable collection of apparent meaningless letters.
If you are not familiar with one-time pads don’t worry, I’m not going to bore you with endless technical details or mathematic equations. The easiest thing to do is for you ‘Google’ the term and you will find a wide range of websites with well written, succinct and comprehensive information about one-time pads and how to use them – something beyond the scope of this little publication. If you are already familiar with one-time pads…. that’s even better.
Each of the 12 ciphers contained in this book has been encoded using a one-time pad cipher... that’s the easy bit. Normally, without knowing the content of the one-time pad used to encode the original message, these ciphers would be (almost) unbreakable. Don’t worry… you have not wasted your money buying something you cannot solve.
In order to make this interesting, and a little bit more challenging, we have 'hidden' the 12 one-time pads, used to create the 12 CIPHERS, amongst 100 individual 500 letter one-time pads. Your task is to try and identify which one-time pad is used for which individual message.
If it all proves too much for you.... we have included the SOLUTIONS TO THE ONE-TIME PAD CIPHERS at the back of this book.
So settle in, get comfortable and enjoy....
If you like to be challenged, if you have a patient and logical approach to problem solving, ciphers might be just the thing for you.
When it comes to codes, ciphers and cryptography the one time pad is described as the ‘holy grail’ of ciphers and cryptography. It is widely acknowledged, if used properly and in accordance with strict instructions for its use, that it is virtually unbreakable.
There is only one cipher system that cannot be cracked by the FBI or NSA - or by anyone else for that matter. That system is the one-time pad.
A one-time pad is deceptively simple in its design and application. The creation of a one-time pad does not require a computer, calculator or any equipment other than a pencil and paper. At its simplest it consists of a random list of letters which when combined with the message to be encoded produce an almost indecipherable collection of apparent meaningless letters.
If you are not familiar with one-time pads don’t worry, I’m not going to bore you with endless technical details or mathematic equations. The easiest thing to do is for you ‘Google’ the term and you will find a wide range of websites with well written, succinct and comprehensive information about one-time pads and how to use them – something beyond the scope of this little publication. If you are already familiar with one-time pads…. that’s even better.
Each of the 12 ciphers contained in this book has been encoded using a one-time pad cipher... that’s the easy bit. Normally, without knowing the content of the one-time pad used to encode the original message, these ciphers would be (almost) unbreakable. Don’t worry… you have not wasted your money buying something you cannot solve.
In order to make this interesting, and a little bit more challenging, we have 'hidden' the 12 one-time pads, used to create the 12 CIPHERS, amongst 100 individual 500 letter one-time pads. Your task is to try and identify which one-time pad is used for which individual message.
If it all proves too much for you.... we have included the SOLUTIONS TO THE ONE-TIME PAD CIPHERS at the back of this book.
So settle in, get comfortable and enjoy....
