Ever since privacy became an issue for those with sensitive writing materials and even spoken language, people have been creating secret coded languages to help disguise and confuse those who do not know how to decode the messages. In time, many of these secret codes became more complex and allowed for people to communicate in a more secure manner. Some infamous criminals even used coded language to perplex police from catching them, as in the Zodiac murders. Other uses for coded language has made it possible to get certain messages across enemy lines in wartime as well as providing a method of communication that you otherwise would not be capable of on the field.
A code consists of two variables, an encoder and a decoder. To encode a message to secretly pass on requires codex, or encoding method. This allows for the encoder to process the message into the code before it gets to the decoder. The decoder basically reverses the process of encoding, making it possible to understand the message. This is especially useful if all parties involved know the secret code instead of having to use a decoder, that way messages can be destroyed before others have a chance to figure them out.
Many people used codes throughout history. The codes were mostly used in war and espionage, as they contained sensitive data. Morse code was developed to carry messages over the first long distance areas through telegraph so news was able to spread throughout the world at an amazing pace. Morse code uses a systematic sequence of short and long notes processed through a device that carries the signal through wires or over sound waves. Many secret codes used Morse code to make their messages even stronger, as people who were able to have access to the Morse code stream, were not able to decode what it meant.
During war times between Japan and the United states, over 400 Navajo Native Americans joined the war effort by using their unique language as a code. The Japanese were unable to decode the strange messages that they were hearing through the radio transmissions. They were never able to decode the messages and it brought them to a disadvantage. There were no military based words in the Navajo language, so they associated words in the language with their English counterparts such as humming bird with fighter jet and iron fish with submarine then translated by other code talkers easily.
There are some even more difficult codes that are near impossible to crack by even the most seasoned individuals. The Vigenere Cipher was created by a French man named Blaise de Vigenere, it took over 200 years to crack and was very similar to a more simpler code called the Caesar Cipher. The Caesar Cipher simply made use of shifting the alphabet a few letters over so that the messages would be unreadable at a first glance. The Vigenere Cipher used the Caesar Cipher, but many times within the same message, so a single letter in the message could be encoded many times.
Everyone who needed privacy or identity theft protection in their message transmissions would look into encoding them. The greatest codes are yet to be cracked and still leave us in the dark, unless of course the dark is where you can decode them.
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