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Ciphers encrypt data using predetermined words or algorithms. The word cipher comes from sifra and sifr meaning “zero”. Ciphers range from simple decoder rings to complex military-grade encryption requiring a key to decrypt.
Ciphers, at their most basic level, are methods and tools for encrypting various types of data. It is important to note that cipher codes differ from the more commonly known code in that ciphers use a predetermined set of words or numbers to convey short messages or orders. In contrast, ciphers transpose or replace the actual letters and data with data determined by a certain algorithm. For example, when the Japanese launched their attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, the code phrase they used to signal the attack was “Climb Mount Nitaka.” Had the Japanese commander used cipher codes, the message might look something like “A1XT3 11-3sD 22XD”.
The origin of the word cipher comes from the Latin word sifra and the Arabic word sifr, both meaning “zero”. It is not known how these words came to be associated with cryptography and cipher codes in general. Historians have speculated that because the concept of zero was such a foreign and confusing idea to medieval Europeans, whenever it was mentioned in conversation it was like hiding the true meaning of the message in a confusing concept. Other origin theories suggest that, since zero was an Arabic numeral, the more conservative of European Catholics identified it with dark secrets.
Ciphers come in all sorts of complexities. The simplest of these was once readily available in a cereal box. Decoder rings, popular throughout much of the 1950s and 1960s, offered a simple transposition cipher in which the rings were used to replace a letter of the alphabet with a letter or number. This allowed children to send secret messages to their friends, which also had decoder rings.
On the other end of the spectrum, however, is military-grade encryption which uses computer-created algorithms to create ciphers of such complexity that often the only way to crack them is through the use of a key. An encryption key contains the algorithm used to create the corresponding encryption key. When used in conjunction with encrypted data, the key will decrypt the data and make it usable again.
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