I am inloved in books of mystery novels specifically in Wattpad stories and one of the things that I've learned is deciphering a code. Cryptocurrency? Uhh let's forget it for the meantime and let's talk about cryptography!   

What is cryptography?

Cryptography is from the Greek word kryptos which means "hidden secret" in English language and graphein which means "to write" or "study". It is one of the way to communicate secretly and giving a hidden secret or meaning through writing. There's a lot of types of cryptography such as ROT cipher, atbash and many more! But today, I'm going to teach you the one of the easiest cipher which is Polybius Square.   

What is Polybius Square?

Polybius square is also known as the Polybius Checkerboard is one of the cryptography invented by Polybious, an Ancient Greek historian and scholar.   

How to use Polybius square? We can use polybius square by simply creating a 5x5 grid that has a set of numbers and letters.  You can use different grid such as 6x6, 7x7 and more but the commonly used by people are 5x5 grid. Now, how can we use it? It is very simple! First, you need to look on the number columns and number rows. Let me give an example. As you can see the color blue is on the number 2 column and the red ones is on the number 4 row. The violet color is the equivalent letter of their number so if we will use it in a cipher, the code is 24 and when we decipher it, the result will be letter R. Meaning, the position where the given row and column overlapped, it is their equivalent letter. Let's have an another example so you will get it. Look at the table above for the reference.    Let's try to decode this: 32-51-13-13-43 In this example, we have a lot of numbers since we have a word to decipher. If you look on the square [photo], the number 32 is equal to letter H, 51 is E, 13 is L and 43 is O. With the use of substitution; 32-H 51-E 13-L 13-L 43-O

The answer is HELLO. Great! Shall I call you a cyrptographist now? Just kidding, I don't know if the word cryptographist exist. Take your time to read. You will decipher a code at the end of this article.   

Do you think I am doing this for nothing? Of course not! I am here to share how this cryptography helpful and can be use in real life situation. Personally, I am using cryptography in real life, how? I am using it as my password. Commonly, people are memorizing their passwords so they can always write it in the input box but personally, I am not memorizing my password, why? because I am using cryptography as my password. Well, I don't want to say anything because password is a serious topic.   

Weakness

Despite of having a lot of numbers and quite complex, Polybius square has also a weakness. Its weakness is it is easy to crack or decipher especially when you know how to do it. By just substituting their value, you can crack the code immediately.  

APPLY WHAT YOU HAVE LEARNED! Can you do it by yourself now? If yes, then let's have a game! This game is entitled "I AM JUMBLED" in this game, all you need to do is to decipher the code and get the hidden word! I will give some clues in a form of conundrum so it is not that obvious.                     

I AM JUMBLED                                 

51-42-51-41-11-31-24-11-11-23-24

 CLUE: You need me, everyone needs me. I am one of the foundation of people.  

Note: Clues are everywhere.    

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