Cryptology

Ever since humans have created language codes have been used to disguise and obscure it from unwanted eyes. The Greeks and Egyptians used codes to transfer secret communications, forming the modern codes used today.Cryptology is the study of codes and the art of writing and solving them. In a world of subterfuge its always good to have a way to see through the mist.

1. First begin looking for single letter words:

most codes useing a simple substitution are most easily deciphered using the swap out method, working out letters one by one and slowly working out the code based on educated gueses.

single letter word in the english language are "a" and "i" so start by looking for patterns in which these fit in to the hidden message. when playing hangman if you have the letter a solved you can guess that this "a--" is most likly going to be and or are but if not go back and try somthing different, you will get there eventually.

It doesnt matter if you decode the whole code the main goal is to understand it.

2. look for the most often used letters or symbols:

The most frequently used letter in the English language is "e" folloed by "t" and then "a". When trying to carck these code use your knowledge of this to help you make educated guesses. It is quite rare that you will feel certain that a letter is in the right place but the point is to think logicaly and assume its the right one, if its not just swap it out for another letter. Make small steps first and look for small words such as "in" or "at" or "an" it is much easier than starting of with "national".

3. look for apostrophies:

Apostrophies are one of the most useful things you will find in code breaking.Apostrophies will almost always be followed by the letters S, T, D, M, LL, or RE.So, if you've got two identical symbols after an apostrophe, you've solved for "L"

4. figure out what kind of code you have:

If as you are working out your secret message and you recognise one or some of the code types from above you can stop your trial and error and fill in the rest based on your code. This will rarely happen but the more familiar you get with basic or common codes this will happen more and more.Number-substitutions and keyboard codes are especially common among basic everyday secret messages

5. learn to observe substitution cipher:

A substitution cipher involves substituting one letter for another letter, according to some predetermined rule. This rule is the code, and learning and applying the rule is the way to "break" the code and read the message.

6. understand square cipher method:

Square cipher method involves creating a grid of letters that all corosponded to numbers, it is then the numbers that are used to create the secret messages.If you have a code that has a long string of numbers it is mopst likely this method used to create the code.

7. learn Cesar shift:

Cesar shift is one of the more difficult codes to crack but one of the most simple to understand and use. In this method you simply shift the whole alphabet several places to create a linking alphabet so if i was to move the code four places "A" would become "E", "B" would become "F" so on and so on.

Conclution:

To conclude code breaking is a complex and puzzeling affair but with time and trial and error any code can be cracked or broken, you just need the understanding to do so.