As discussed above, however, although the Caesar cipher provides a great introduction to cryptography, in the computer age it is no longer a secure way to send encrypted communications electronically.

Object Details Author Churchhouse, R. F Contents 1. Introduction -- 2. From Julius Caesar to simple substitution -- 3. Polyalphabetic systems -- 4. Jigsaw ciphers -- 5. Two-letter ciphers -- 6. Codes ...

Some ciphers have simple keys, others, complex ones. The key for a cipher used by Augustus Caesar, some 2,000 years ago, was simple enough: The receiver just had to shift the alphabet one position.

You could do worse than to confuse the meanings of "code" and "cipher"—even cryptographers sometime use the terms as though they had the same meaning. There is, however, a definite distinction ...