Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1898-08-10
CIPHER SECRETS.
The ingenuity Which Mas Been Used in Dc.
vising Combinations.

All important dispatches which pass he
tween our government and Its displomat-
ic agents and its military and naval an
GERS. Wnen III service. are written In ci-
pher. Since the dispatches are usually
transmitted by telegraph. the Characters
used In them are restricted necessarily to
the letters of the alphabet, or numerals
or combination of both. the point about
session of the key it is pure g;bberish.
IL 1t consists of words. the words convey
no meaning; or 1t may not consist even
of words, but may be a. confused and
confusing tumble of letters.
CIPHER messages, or cryptograms, as
they are sometimes called are construct
ed upon an almost indefinite variety of
plans. vast deal of ingenuity has been
expended in deyising methods Of secret
writing which. while being of sufficiently
great simplicity to he practically service
abie--to permit message to be written
easily and to be easily read by enc in
possession of the key--shau still he OF
such complexty as to battle the unin-
itiated. The plans upon which are con-
structed the ciphers used by our own gov
eminent are. of course. Il well-guarded
secret; but that the ciphers are Of great
| complexity may be judged from the time
| required recently to read a short dis
patch received from Commodore Dewey
announcing his victory at Manila The
message was received at Washington al
| > "A. M. Saturday, May Z. yet it was not
until nearly noon, as we all remember
well, that it's meaning had been found
| and its plain English was impaired to tn,
waiting newspaper correspondents.
The idea of writing a message in such q
way that no one can read 1t except the
| recipient for whom it is intended is one
| so likely to suggest itself on occasion and
| so easy to be carried out IN "A variety oi
| ways that we are not surprised to find
| ciphers employed at very early period
| The methods first adopted, however
| though they probably subserved their end
| well enough, were 50 exceedingly crud,
| as really to afford little protection
| against the prying eye of any one pos
sessed of the average amount of ingcn-
uty. Polynius describes method lopt-
| ed by the Lacedemonians. When the
Spartan state officials wished to cnmmu-
| nicate with a general in the field they
| would slant wise narrow strip OF parcn-
ment upon Il wand SO Tat the edges mel
| closely, and the message was then added
| in such a way that the center of the lines
of writing was on the edges of the parch-
ment When unwound the message CON
| sisted of broken letters AMI in that CON
! dition it was dispatched to its destina-
| ton The general to whose hands It
came deciphcred it by means of wanc
corresponding in size to that used II.
writing it.
| one of the simplest and most common
| of ciphers is that in which the writer
I selects in place of the proper letters 9th
| cr characters, the use of which has pre-
| Niously been agreed upon with his cor
| respondent. who thus holds the key
! He may either use for this purpose let
tiers of the alphabet. arranged out OF
| their usual order, or arbitrary symbols
numerals, crosses dasheS erc-elrh
character always standing In this schem,
/ for the same letter This method Is satd
| to have been employed 10y Julius Caesar
| his practice being to use instead Of tht
| proper letter that which stood in tn,
! fnffr AL in, h.. a, .i...,