Passwords

We have all created passwords for various things at some point in our lives.  Most of the time, passwords are used to protect ourselves on the internet and on computers.  When I go to create a password, I try to make it complex and confusing. This way, nobody will be able to hack into my account or into my computer.  This is a lot like writing a code.  You don't want to use a simple code like a single substitution.  It is just too easy to decrypt.  Instead, it is always a good idea to use a more advanced type of code. Always try to use numbers and capital letters in your passwords.  It make them a lot more difficult to guess.

The Wire

The Wire is my favorite TV show of all time.  Each season of The Wire focuses on a different facet of the city of Baltimore.  In season 4, cryptography is used.  Drug kingpin Marlo Stanfield develops a special type of code to communicate with other people in his gang.  He and his men take photographs of clocks and send them via picture message.  The number at which the hour and minute hands point to represents a location using coordinates.  The Baltimore police department works extremely hard to break the code.  They are given permission to use a wiretap and after weeks and weeks of hard work, the code is broken.  As a result, Stanfield is convicted and sentenced to a a lot of time in prison.

The Maya Code

I was absolutely amazed at the movie we watched last class.  It is hard to believe people were able to crack the Mayan code.  Hieroglyphics are such an interesting language.  The amount of symbols and different variations of symbols is mind-boggling.  This is what made the Maya code so difficult to crack.  Unlike english, spanish, italian, etc., the Maya language consists hundreds of symbols, as opposed to 26 letters.  It took over 100 years to break the Maya code, proving that it was an extremely unique and confusing language.  What amazed me most was the fact that Spanish conquistadors forced the Mayans to stop writing with hieroglyphs. Everything that the Mayans created was lost for hundreds of years.

Library Books

As I was sitting in the library, I found myself staring at the thousands of books available.  That got me thinking about the organization system used to store books on the shelves. It is most commonly referred to as the Dewey Decimal Classification System.  It can be thought of as a very simple type of code.  Each number, or set of numbers, represents a specific book.  The number also reveals the location of the book.  The Dewey Decimal System is a great way to classify books because it is simple and easy to use.

Navajo Codebreakers

I was amazed at the story of the Navajo code breakers of WWII.  I had never heard anything about their story, which I found a little strange.  Their skills and ability to communicate using an unbreakable code were extremely important during the war.  What I found really interesting was that the code was never broken.  It was such a brilliant idea to use the Navajo language.  None of the enemies had any understanding of Navajo words so the code was unbreakable.  This is an amazing piece of history that I wish I knew more about.

Rosetta Stone

The Rosetta Stone is an extremely important piece of history.  Without it, we would have very little understanding of hieroglyphics.  This document contains writings in three different languages: Greek, Demotic, and Hieroglyphs.  It helped unlock the secrets of Egyptian hieroglyphs.  A man named Jean-Francois Champollion was the first man to completely break the code.  He spent most of his life studying the Rosetta Stone and working to unlock it's secrets.  In 1822, Champollion solved the code.  He was so surprised by his efforts that he fainted and was hospitalized for five days.  The decryption of the Rosetta Stone was one of the most important moments in history and it has revealed so many secrets about the ancient Egyptians.  Without cryptanalysis, this would have never happened.

James May and Autocar

James May is one of three hosts of BBC's hit TV show Top Gear.  He is an established automotive journalist, having written for The Engineer and Autocar magazines. In 1992, however, May was fired from his position at Autocar.  In one issue of the magazine, each spread featured four reviews and each review started with a large red letter.  Take a look at a picture of the magazine.  Each large red letter is part of a phrase hidden within the magazine.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/6b/JamesMayAutocar.jpg

The hidden message is a simple type of cryptography.  Try and read what it says!

The Mentalist

My favorite TV show is The Mentalist.  For those of you who have not seen it, here is a short summary: "The Mentalist follows Patrick Jane, an independent consultant for the California Bureau of Investigation (CBI) based in Sacramento, California. Although not an officer of the law of any sort, he uses skills from his former career as a successful psychic medium to help a team of CBI agents solve various crimes, with the hope of one day bringing Red John, the murderer of his wife, Angela, and daughter, Charlotte, to justice"(Wikipedia). The show is interesting because some of the episodes involve cryptology.  Jane sometimes receives notes and letters that contain a secret meaning.  He always manages to solve the codes because he is basically a genius.  I hope you all get a chance to watch The Mentalist some time.  Thursdays at 10pm on CBS.  Isn't it amazing how much cryptography is in the media and entertainment industries!