Cryptograms collection

In cryptography, a substitution cipher is a method of encryption by which units of plaintext are replaced with cipher text. This means that each letter used in the original text has been substituted with another (A becomes Z, B becomes Y, etc.). Letter and word positions, spaces and punctuation remain unchanged.

So, having the phrase:

"Welcome to ciphers and cryptograms world"

If we would like to encrypt it using a substitution cipher say:


Alphabet : ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
Ciphertext: DEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZABC


Here, A replaced with D, B with E and so on until Z that replaced with C. So the phrase above enciphers to:

ZHOFRPH WR FLSKHUV DQG FUBSWRJUDPV ZRUOG

Cryptograms have been used as a means of protecting sensitive information for thousands of years, one famous substitution cipher known as the Caesar Cipher (or The Shift Cipher) after its inventor the great Roman general and statesman.
Caesar cipher simply shifts the place of each letter with the letter x positions down the alphabet. The above cipher for example is a Caesar shift cipher of 3 (each letter replaced with the third letter ahead in the alphabet)

With our computing power today substitution ciphers become much less practical (especially at bottle field). Still, they live on in magazines and puzzle books as a popular form of brain exercise and become very important mind training and sharpening tool. Beside that they are fun (even social) game and of course challenging gift.

Cryptogram Solving

Method A: Pattern recognition.

Start from the easy part in the text. Single-letter words are the easiest to recognize, mostly are A or I. Two-letter words are also easy because they are limited in number. Words such as: IS, AS, WE, US, IT, AN etc. Another possible start is to look for the common TH- words, i.e. THERE, THAT, THEN, THEY, THE, THEIR. These actions give you few letters to start with and you can continue by guessing other short words with the letters you already have, using trial and error or trying method B.

Method B: Letter frequency. (For Advanced)

ETAOIN SHRDL – E, T, A … in that order are the twelve most frequently-used letters in the English language. The least common are J, X, Q, Z in that order. If you notice a certain letter being used again in again in any given cryptogram, at a frequency much higher than any other letter, it is a good bet that its unencrypted form will be one of the ETAOIN group.

Anyone who loves to flex their mental muscle challenge their code cracking abilities Decode funny quips and clever comments will find plenty of challenges in these cryptograms books that provides go-anywhere cranial crunches.

Each puzzle rated at least a smile and at most a belly laugh. For the novice, a clue is provided for each puzzle at the end of these books. There's a real reward doing these puzzles, I can assure you that besides getting a healthy workout for your mind, you will also find, at the end of each puzzle, a gratifying laugh, chuckle or smile.