MISTY Mystery Tour

Uesugi Kenshin's
encryption

The method for this encryption is inscribed in the "Jihen Shi-Hachi no Okugi" of the Strategy Guide of Echigo “Bukei Yoryaku”. Written by a feudal lord’s general, Usami Sadayuki (1489-1564), he crafted a method that entered 48 letters of the Japanese alphabet (i, ro, ha,) into squares of a 7 x 7 chart where one letter represents a number in a row and column. Additionally, the bottom seven (seven sounds of a Japanese “waka”, afive line, 31-syllable poem) can be utilized for coordinate systems and further encryption that cannot be deciphered by outsiders.

Cipher of Mary Queen
of Scots

Mary Queen of Scots was beheaded for the crime of conspiring to assassinate Queen Elizabeth I. Mary and her co-conspirators exchanged messages using special coded symbols in place of letters, as well as sophisticated symbols for numbers and words that were frequently used. However Thomas Phelippes, the nation's foremost expert of breaking codes, deciphered the messages and Mary’s guilt was confirmed.

Trithemius's Cipher

In the later years of his life, German monk Johannes Trithemius (1462-1516) carried out research on cryptography and proceeded to propose an original poly alphabetic encryption. This encryption uses a square with 26 alphabets in which each alphabet is shifted one letter to the left from the one above. For example, an alphabet starting from “A” in the first row will have “B” in the second and “C” in the third. The concept was to encipher the first letter of the message using the first shifted alphabet and the second letter using the second row so that the next row is used for each successive letter. After the 27th letter, the decipherer will go back to the first row and start again from the top.

To convert MISTY to the Trithemius cipher:
The first letter, "M", will be changed to the letter "M" in the first row. The second letter, "I", will be changed to "J" in the second row, eventually forming the word "MJUWC".

Louis 14th's Cipher

One of France’s most famous kings, Louis 14th (1638-1715) is widely known for the establishment of the Versailles. He is also known to have ordained the creation of encryptions for use in critical documents to a father and son team named Antoine and Bonaventure Rossignol. This encryption, also known as the Great Cipher, was compiled of hundreds of numbers listed in rows and was the most complicated encryption to date. It could not be cracked by anyone outside of the Rossignol family until the French Commandant Etienne Bazeries finally deciphered it 200 years later.

Beale Cryptograms

Around 1820, a traveler by the name of Thomas J. Beale was resting in a Virginia hotel. Beale became a close acquaintance with the owner of the hotel and visited again in 1822. During that stay, Beale carefully handed a locked iron box and said, "If I, or my clientele do not come back for this box for 10 years, please open it". Time passed, but Beale did not return for his box. So, as promised, the lock was broken and 3 cryptograms with a letter from Beale were retrieved.

The letter contained information pertaining to $20 million in gold and jewels that Beale had excavated in a gold mine. The first page of the cryptogram stated the location of the hidden treasure, and the second page contained detailed information of the treasure. The third page contained information of the successor of the treasure, but the cryptogram only contained numbers listed in rows and could not be deciphered easily. This cryptogram was a "document encryption" that uses a "base" text as the entire "key" to the encryption. Although the second cryptogram could be deciphered with the Declaration of Independence as its key, the remaining 2 cryptograms have not been deciphered to this day, and it is said that the gold and treasures of Beale are still sleeping somewhere.