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SOLVING CIPHER SECRETS Edited by M SOLVING CIPHER SECRETS Edited by M. E. Ghaver IF YOU HAVE ANY TROUBLES, HERE'S A WAY TO FORGET THEM; IF YOU HAVEN'T, HERE'S A WAY TO KEEP AWAY FROM THEM T is not often that a little In Scotland a device called the maiden skill in deciphering would was introduced by the Regent Morton, who be the deciding factor in himself afterward was executed by it. The saving a man his life; maiden was somewhat similar in construc• nevertheless, it was the tion to the guillotine, with the exception lack of just this knowledge that the blade was fixed in the apparatus that cost a certain eminent gentleman his with the sharp edge upward, the neck of the head about two and a half centuries ago. victim being forced down upon it by a heavy Before entering into the why and where• descending weight. fore of this man losing his head^ however, a In England the Halifax gibbet was used few remarks about how heads were officially for beheading until 1650. lost in the olden days might not be out But the best known of all these machines of order. is the French guillotine, devised by Dr. An- It seems that beheading has thrived as toine Louis, and first called the louison or a r'^de of capital punishment from yery louisette, later being named after Dr. Guil• ear.y times. It was practiced in the days of lotine, who proposed it as a method of de• ancient Greece and Rome, both with the capitation before the Constituent Assembly ax and the sword. on December i, 1789. Beheading was introduced into England This proposition did not at first meet with in 1076. It was the accepted mode of favor. But it gradually gained support, punishment for offenders of high rank, but the machine finally coming into use by a also was occasionally used for common law effective October 6, 1791. After a few malefactors or thieves. It was common in successful experiments upon corpses in the those days to accompany the execution with hospital of Bicetre, the machine was set up certain barbarous features, such as drawing on the Place de Greve, where it was used and quartering, which were not fully abol• for the first time on the 25th of April, 1792, ished until 1870. in the execution of the highwayman, Pelle- Decapitating machines are likewise said tier. to be of very ancient origin. Some authori• The guillotine was thus but a revival of ties attribute the first of these to the Per• ancient methods that had already fallen into sians, saying that the idea was later intro• disuse in many parts of Europe for half a duced into various European countries. century. Nevertheless, it is still used to in• A machine of this kind was used in Ger• flict the death penalty in France, Belgium, many during the Middle Ages. and some parts of Germany, its general SOLVING CIPHER SECRETS 795 adoption seeming to have been hindered by is an absolute certainty, provided it is not the horrors of the French Revolution. too short. This much sets the stage for the enact• The brevity of the above message would ment of our little drama. Enter now the thus tend to make its solution more diffi• hero himself, Louis de Rohan-Guemcnee, cult, but it is still of sufficient length to the Chevalier de Rohan. resolve without the key. In fact, one ac• Rohan was the name of one of the most customed to working with ciphers should illustrious of the feudal families of France. not need more than a few minutes to de• Of the younger branches the most famous is cipher it. that of Guemenee, which furnished in the But De Rohan's skill was not adequate eighteenth century the celebrated Cardinal to this simple task. And his limited experi• de Rohan, who was involved as the prin• ence in cryptography worked his ruin, for, cipal actor in the affair of the diamond despite his every effort, he could make necldace, later immortalized in fiction by nothing out of the message, even though Alexandre Dumas. his life depended on it. The Chevalier de Rohan, notorious for For full twenty-four hours he puzzled his dissolute life, was of this same brandi, over this cipher in vain. The light faded, being the grandson of Hercule de Rohan, and the whole night through he tossed on made Governor of Paris by Henry IV. his hard bed, sleeplessly revolving the mys• In the year 1674, as the story goes, the tic letters in his brain, but all to no avail. chevalier was sent to the Bastille on sus• Day dawned, and with the first pale picion of having entered into treasonable gleam of light he was again poring over conspiracy with the Dutch during the Third the cryptic message, but as uselessly as Dutch War, against Louis XIV, King of before. France. At length, failing in all his attempts, and At the time of his commitment there wearied and exhausted by his many efforts, was no evidence against him except what De Rohan decided with many mi.sgivings might be obtained from his accomplice, a to confess, and to throw himself upon the M. Latruaumont, who had been apprehend• mercy of the crown. ed and imprisoned at the same time as the He, accordingly, admitted his guilt, but chevalier. the crown knew no mercy. He was behead• But Latruaumont proved himself a faith• ed on the 27th day of November, 1674. ful and courageous ally, in that he endured The cipher, as printed above, is the orig• a most severe examination, and suffered inal in French. Below will be found the execution without having confessed. same message translated into English, and De Rohan's friends wanted to inform him enciphered in the same key as the original, that his associate had died without having insofar as the cipher alphabet reconstructed admitted anything, and accordingly, in from the original specimen would permit. sending him some fresh body linen, they In trying to solve this cryptogram one succeeded in passing the following cryptic should endeavor to work it out under con• message into his dungeon, written on one ditions similar to those most probably ex• of the shirts: perienced by De Rohan himself. Remember that you are without paper or MG DULHXCCLGU GHJ YXUJ, LM CT ULGC ALJ. pencil, for more than likely De Rohan had neither. All of your work must be done This cipher, as it happens, is one of the mentally. Before you is a brief cipher mes• simple substitution type with normal word sage that spells life or death in its few cryp• divisions, in which any given letter in the tic letters. normal alphabet is invariably represented If you would wear your head in the usual by the same substitute in cipher, any given way to-morrow, you must perforce decipher cipher substitute, conversely, always denot• this cryptogram to-day. ing the same letter in the message. Would you be able to save your own To solve such a cipher without the key head? 796 FLYNN'S Or, in De Rohan's place, could you have of going awry in long ciphers, not to men• saved his? tion short ones. Some method not depend• Here's your opportunity to try! ent upon frequencies will therefore be found CIPHER No. I. not only of value with the former, but JWG DULHXCGU LH AGTA, WG WTH practically indispensable with the latter. JXMA CXJWLCZ. Fortunately there is available a very sim• De Rohan must not be judged too harsh• ple expedient. To illustrate with tlie De ly for his inability to solve this cipher. In• Rohan cipher, if the groups be numbered formation on this subject is none too preva- for purposes of reference from i up, thus: 13 3 4 S (> 7 8 JWG DULHXCGU LH AGTA. WG WTH JXMA CXJWLCZ. lent to-day, and it must be borne in mind The following short groups will be found that in De Rohan's time it was still more to have certain characters in common: inaccessible. I a W G It is true that at that time some progress 5 W G had been made in methods of deciphering, 6 WTH but such knowledge was not common prop• 3 L H erty. Even such a simple specimen as the From the above it will be seen that the above was looked upon as an impenetrable last two letters of group i are as the same as mystery. the two letters of group 2; tlrat the initial This department has already given two letters of groups 5 and 6 are identical; and methods of solving such ciphers. In that the final letters of groups 3 and 6 are FLYNN'S for September 12 was described also alike. Further, groups 5 and 6 must a method depending upon the initial, final, represent two words that may be used in and total frequencies of letters. And in sequence. the May 16 issue of this magazine there The problem now resolves itself into the was described a method of determining question: what short words will satisfy all words according to their frequencies. of these conditions? There might possibly Both of these methods require a speci• be more than a single set of words that men of some length for their most effective would do this; but there can be but a single application. Nevertheless, they are of some correct assumption. value even in so short a cipher as the above. Some consideration of affixes may also be For example, in a longer cipher the char• advantageous in connection with this meth• acter for E would more than likely predomi• od.
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