In code: we could say: Iss-thay, iz-way, ee-thay, onnection-kay. But you'd probably figure it out. Since time began warriors, lovers, plotters and kids have been encrypting messages. Until recently, though, code-breakers have been more marvelously clever than code-makers.
One of the very few military codes that proved undecipherable was the Navajo language used by the American troops that took Iwo Jima from Japan. The Germans in World War 2 thought their Enigma machine spoke in unbreakable code, but the Brits with a heroic effort cracked Enigma, then had to work just as nimbly not to let on that they'd located and were listening to Hitler's U-boats.
In the digital age, code-making and breaking is everybody's business, guarding the personal secrets and oceans of money passing back and forth on the net. Simon Singh's history of secrets will make you wonder if even quantum cryptography is secure, or ought to be. The Code Book is our second hour story on The Connection.
Codes and ciphers have a history that goes back for thousands of years, but they've never been so widely used as today. Once the realm of generals, presidents, kings and queens, now anyone who wants to shop online needs code to keep them safe. This ubiquity comes with a quandry: who gets to hold the key? (Hosted by Christopher Lydon)
