The complex algorithms cryptographers use ensure secrecy for now. That will change ifquantum computingbecomes a reality. Quantum computers could find the factors of a large number much faster than a classic computer. If engineers build a reliable quantum computer, practically every encrypted message on the Internet will be vulnerable. To learn more about how cryptographers plan to deal with problem, read How Quantum Encryption Works.

To decipher, the recipient would first look at the first letter of the encrypted message, a "K" in this case, and use the Trimethius table to find where the "K" fell in the "D" row -- remember, both the cryptographer and recipient know beforehand that the first letter of the key will always be "D," no matter what the rest of the message says. The letter at the top of that column is "H." The "H" becomes the next letter in the cipher's key, so the recipient would look at the "H" row next and find the next letter in the cipher -- a "V" in this case. That would give the recipient an "O." Following this method, the recipient can decipher the entire message, though it takes some time.A person who communicates through secret writing is called a cryptographer. Cryptographers might use codes, ciphers or a combination of both to keep messages safe from others. What cryptographers create, cryptanalysts attempt to unravel. Modern high-level encryption methods rely on mathematical processes that are relatively simple to create, but extremely difficult to decipher. Public-key encryption is a good example. It uses two keys -- one for encoding a message and another for decoding. The encoding key is the public key, available to whomever wants to communicate with the holder of the secret key. The secret key decodes messages encrypted by the public key and vice versa. For more information on public-key encryption, see How Encryption Works. Information is an important commodity. Nations, corporations and individuals protect secret information with encryption, using a variety of methods ranging from substituting one letter for another to using a complex algorithm to encrypt a message. On the other side of the information equation are people who use a combination of logic and intuition to uncover secret information. These people are cryptanalysts, also known as code breakers.

In the late 1500s, Blaise de Vigenère proposed a polyalphabetic system that is particularly difficult to decipher. His method used a combination of the Trimethius tableau and a key. The key determined which of the alphabets in the table the decipherer should use, but wasn't necessarily part of the actual message. Let's look at the Trimethius tableau again: In 1990, Jim Sanborn created a sculpture called Kryptos for the CIA headquarters in Langley, Va. Kryptos contains four enciphered messages, but cryptanalysts have solved only three. The final message has very few characters (either 97 or 98, depending on whether one character truly belongs to the fourth message), making it very difficult to analyze. Several people and organizations have boasted about solving the other three messages, including the CIA and the NSA.

Breaking the code carved into the ceiling of the Rosslyn Chapel inScotland reveals a series of musicalpassages. The more complex Vigenère system didn't catch on until the 1800s, but it's still used in modern cipher machines [source: Kahn]. One such scholar was Johannes Trimethius, who proposed laying out the alphabet in a matrix, or tableau. The matrix was 26 rows long and 26 columns wide. The first row contained the alphabet as it is normally written. The next row used a Caesar Shift to move the alphabet over one space. Each row shifted the alphabet another spot so that the final row began with "Z" and ended in "Y." You could read the alphabet normally by looking across the first row or down the first column. It looks like this: