Famous Codes & Ciphers

Name:

Date:

Instructions: Code-breaking and cryptography in history

1.
What was the name of the German encryption machine that the Allies famously cracked during World War II?
A
SIGABA
B
Enigma
C
Purple
D
Lorenz
2.
Which British mathematician is credited as the lead figure in cracking the Enigma code?
A
Isaac Newton
B
Charles Babbage
C
Alan Turing
D
Stephen Hawking
3.
The Caesar cipher, one of the oldest known encryption methods, was used by which historical figure?
A
Augustus Caesar
B
Alexander the Great
C
Julius Caesar
D
Nero
4.
What is the Rosetta Stone, discovered in Egypt in 1799?
A
A mathematical puzzle
B
A stone inscribed with the same text in three scripts
C
An ancient computer
D
A treasure map
5.
What language did the U.S. Marines use as an unbreakable code during World War II in the Pacific?
A
Navajo
B
Apache
C
Choctaw
D
Cherokee
6.
What is the Voynich Manuscript?
A
A decoded medieval spy document
B
An ancient Greek mathematical text
C
A mysterious undeciphered illustrated book from the 15th century
D
Leonardo da Vinci's secret notebook
7.
What was Morse code originally developed for?
A
Naval flag signals
B
Lighthouse signals
C
Military communication
D
Telegraph communication
8.
Which ancient Greek device is considered one of the earliest known forms of military cryptography?
A
The scytale
B
The astrolabe
C
The abacus
D
The Antikythera mechanism
9.
What famous unsolved cipher has been sent by a serial killer to newspapers in the San Francisco area in the late 1960s?
A
The Kryptos code
B
The Beale ciphers
C
The Dorabella cipher
D
The Zodiac ciphers
10.
What is steganography?
A
Hiding a message within another message or image
B
The study of ancient writing
C
Writing in mirror image
D
Breaking complex codes
11.
Which secret CIA sculpture at their headquarters in Langley, Virginia, contains a still partially unsolved code?
A
The Agency Seal
B
Langley Stone
C
Kryptos
D
The Book of Secrets
12.
What was 'ULTRA,' the top-secret designation used during World War II?
A
A type of submarine
B
A new type of radar
C
Intelligence from decrypted enemy communications
D
A special forces unit
13.
What does the term 'plaintext' mean in cryptography?
A
The original unencrypted message
B
A simple font style
C
Text written in plain language
D
A type of cipher
14.
Which famous code-breaking facility was located at a country estate in Buckinghamshire, England?
A
Chartwell Manor
B
Station X at Blenheim
C
MI5 headquarters
D
Bletchley Park
15.
Mary, Queen of Scots, was convicted of treason partly based on encrypted letters she wrote. What was her cipher's weakness?
A
Her cipher was a simple substitution easily cracked by frequency analysis
B
Her scribe was a double agent
C
She used the same key for all messages
D
She accidentally sent the key with a message

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