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Solving Cipher Secrets /t 2.V, >fZ,Y, SOLVING CIPHER SECRETS Edited by M. E. Ohaver HERE IS AN INTERESTING DISCUSSION ABOUT THE WORK OP ONE OF THE FATHERS OF CRYPTOGRAPHY, AENEAS TACTICUS HE origin of cipher writing /Eneas was one of the first to write on is lost in the mists of buried war tactics, and his treatises on the subject centuries. are mentioned by Polybius, and by an• The early history of the other ancient Greek tactician and author, subject is very fragmen• /Elianus Tacticus. tary, and the information Unfortunately, with the single exception to be had from the relatively few and wide• of a short Greek work generally attributed ly scattered records that have survived, does to /Eneas as having been written about the not point to any certain time or place as middle of the fourth century, B.C, dealing marking the beginning of the art. with methods of attack and defense of However, taking those ciphers known to strongholds, all of this author's works are have been used as fairly representative of lost. And with them are lost all of his contemporary systems, it is possible to form ciphers, excepting what may have been de• some idea of cipher writing as practiced scribed in this short work, and what has by the ancients, and a conception of the been mentioned by Polybius. progress reached in cryptography in these The several methods of secret communi• early times. cation thus so fortunately preserved will be The Laced(emoniati Scytale—described treated in this article, where they are in the first article of this series in FI.YNN'S, grouped into three classes: a military tele• for December 13, 1924—is one of the first graph; methods of concealment; and sys• ciphers of which there exists any record, it tems of secret writing, or ciphers proper. having been used in the fifth century, B.C. The telegraph of Eneas, as described by And one of the first vTiters known to Polybius, was a visual method of transmit• have enumerated and described various ting messages relative to the common events methods of secret writing was the Greek of war. The stations, both of which were author, /^in^as Tacticus, of the fourth cen• equipped with exactly similar pieces of ap• tury, B.C., who, according to Polybius— paratus consisting of earthen vessels, sup• Greek historian of the second century B.C.— plied with cork floats, could be at any dis• collected together about twenty different tance apart within sight of each other, and modes of writing not understood by any communication was effected by means of but those in the secret, some of which were torches, or other lights. original with /Eneas, the rest being the in• The vessels, made to contain water, were ventions of others. exactly alike in all their dimensions, and 952 SOLVING CIPHER SECRETS 953 were fitted with spouts or cocks, also of ihe Nevertheless, the Eneas telegraph con• same size, so that when both were opened tains the germ idea of the modem tele• the water would be discharged from the graphic code. For in the latter, the words two vessels at exactly the same rate. or phrases of the message are first replaced The floats were made to rest upon the by groups of letters or figures, which are water within the vessels, and each of them converted into dots and dashes for tele• supported a perpendicular stem marked graphic transmission by any method, as for longitudinally into several parts, upon each instance by the light flashes of the helio• of which divisions could be written a sen• graph ; while in the former the several mes• tence, as, 'for instance: The enemy is ad• sages on the stems are represented by vancing. Send reinforcements. The enemy certain volumes of water, converted by the has been repulsed; and so on. apparatus into intervals of time, these being To use the telegraph, the vessels were transmitted as light signals. filled to the same height with water, and In the Eneas telegraph any message could the floats were placed in position. thus be just as well represented by a num• Then the operator at the sending station ber—comparable to the modem code group raised a torch, and continued to hold it —signifying the amount of water required aloft until a torch was raised in like man• for that message in a given unit of meas• ner by the operator at the receiving station, urement." who thus informed the sender that he was As a variation, when possible to use a ready. messenger, to send a vessel containing the The second operator then lowered or re• required amount of the liquid itself might moved his torch, at which instant each oper• be suggested as an innocent way of com• ator opened the cock of his vessel, allow• municating a message. But this proposal ing the water to escape, and the cork floats might not always be entirely practicable. to descend. At the present time, and in this country, When the sending operator observed that for example, consider the plight of the man the division bearing the intended message with a message like this concealed in his on the floating stem had fallen to a level hip pocket; or, maybe, with a suit case full with the mouth of his vessel, he immediate• of them for delivery to his friends. Almost ly raised his torch again, whereupon both anything might happen to such a mes• operators shut the cocks of their vessels senger. simultaneously. Were Eneas alive to-day, he might be Since the cocks would thus have been able to meet the difficulties that might arise opened the same length of time, the water from such a situation, for, as you presently would have subsided equally in both vessels, shall see, he was also an adept at conceal• and the floats would have fallen through ment. It might be expecting too much to equal vertical distances, with the result that say that he could dispose of a whole suit the mouths of the two vessels would now case full of messages on short notice, but be at a level with identical divisions on that he was able in the art of hiding them, both stems. is revealed in his schemes for conveying Consequently the receiving operator need• intelligence into or from besieged towns. ed only to read the message so indicated As one method of accomplishing this, on the stem of his float to be in possession Eneas suggests the application to a sore of the intelligence the sending operator had leg of a manuscript bearing the desired desired to transmit. message, instead of a bandage or plaster. The Eneas telegraph was necessarily Another of his deceptions consisted of limited in use to the messages previously in• first inscribing the message upon thin sheets scribed on the stems. And in this sense of lead, which were then to be rolled into it is inferior to the later telegraph invented the form of earrings or other ornaments. by Polybius himself—see FLYNN'S for Again he mentions the sewing up of an March 28, 1925—by which it was possible epistle within the sole of the messenger's to communicate alphabetically. shoe, or the hiding of it under his armpit. 954 FLYNN'S Eneas also suggests the writing of a mes• designated Machiavellism. And it is this sage upon a bladder, which was then to be same Machiavelli that Benito Mussolini, placed in an empty bottle and inflated so Fascist dictator of present-day Italy, holds as to completely fill it, the bottle and blad• up as bis tutor and master. der then being filled with oil. This cipher is also said to have been for• By still another subterfuge the message merly much used in England by those who was scratched upon the wood of the ordi• wanted to avoid paying the excessive post• nary writing tablet used in those times. age rates on letters of a shilling or more This real message was then concealed by for each hundred miles. The sight of a covering over the tablet with wax, upon workingman writing to a friend by dotting which was written, in the usual way, an the letters in the closely printed columns apparent message of no importance. of a parliamentary debate in an old news• Messages so concealed could have been paper, which would travel free by the regu• still further obscured, if desired, by being lations then existing, is said to have been written in cipher, so that even if the courier not at all uncommon. were intercepted and the message discov• The cipher is, of course, susceptible of ered, it would avail the finder nothing if he many variations. Thus, the significant let• were unable to penetrate the cipher. ters, instead of being marked with ink or Compared with some of the ciphers sub• pencil, may be indicated by minute sequently devised, those of Eneas are rela• scratches, or pin punctures, the puncture tively simple. However, an account of the cipher being of German origin. few that have been preserved will bear still Better still, sympathetic inks may be further evidence of his ingenuity and re• used, when the marks will remain invisible sourcefulness. until the paper is heated, or dipped in water, A favorite method of his seems to have or treated scientifically with the proper consisted in affixing small dots to the let• chemical reagent. ters of a manuscript or epistle on a com• Further, the method of the cipher, in• mon subject, the letters so indicated ex• stead of the manner of writing it, may be pressing the secret message, and all the rest varied.
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