The Woman Who Smashed Codes

by Jason Fagone

No solution was given. “The meaning of the cipher which now follows will never be solved by any one,” the author wrote, concluding that the lock “has now closed and firmly shut its fastenings.” Naturally, William grabbed a pencil and began trying to pick the lock. “Well,” Elizebeth writes, when William “met up with that message, he took the challenge and set his teeth into the tough nut with a snap. And would you believe it, he deciphered the message, short as it was, and the key, in 15 minutes!” The key relied on a single repeated word: “courage.” The plaintext read: “He who fears is half dead.” It’s a convincing piece of testimony to his greatness: William Friedman, the smartest man who ever lived. But instead of ending the story here, Elizebeth goes on: “Of course, when I learned that, I too had to try my hand” at the cryptogram. “I unlocked the forever-to-be-hidden secret in 17 minutes.”