TheCodeBreakers
foot of Wall Street in the very heart of the financial district, stands a
tombstone with an epitaph partly in cipher. Under it lies James Leeson,
who died September 28, 1794, aged 38. The cipher inscription is in the
ancient pigpen cipher, whose use goes back hundreds of years, and it
reads Remember Death. Why Leeson had it carved there no one, perhaps,
will ever know, but his motive may well have been that of the ancient
Egyptians who first used cryptography in their sepulchral inscriptions: to
stay passersby and bring the dead to life in their memory.
More obscure are the motives that led several people to encipher
entries in church registers, though the conjectures can be tantalizing. At
Cleator, Cumberland, England, someone used the very simple cipher
ae ioulmnr 123456789
with the rest of the plaintext letters left unenciphered to record in Latin
the baptism on January 1, 1645, of Janet Barne, daughter of William
Barne, curate of the parish
annaabi.ee 
