Sustainability CryptoQuest!

To celebrate the International Women’s Day theme of ‘Changing Climates: Equality today for a sustainable tomorrow’ students aged 10 to 14 years were invited to participate in a CryptoQuest. Students were taken through the evolution of cryptography and how to encrypt and decrypt messages before embarking upon 6 exciting sustainable cryptography challenges.

Cryptography is the science of protecting information by transforming it into a secure format. Today cryptography is used to:

verify ATM or bank cards
sign into online accounts such as Facebook, internet shopping and banking
protect the health data of society
protect the private information of customers in large organisations.

One of the most famous uses of cryptography took place in ancient Rome with Julius Caesar. Caesar used cryptography to send secret messages to his army and he even invented a cipher called the ‘Caesar Cipher’. To encrypt messages using the Caesar Cipher you need to move each letter of the plain text three places ahead in the alphabet. For example, the letter A will become D, the letter B will become E, the letter M will become P and so forth. To decrypt requires a person to do the reverse by shifting the letters three places back. For example, L will become I and H will become E.

Can you use the Caesar Cipher to decrypt the message below? (The solution will be published on Shelly news next week).

Vkhoirug Jluov' Judppdu zdv rshqhg dv Vkhoirug Jluov' Vfkrro lq 1898 eb Plvv Hplob Glarq

Year 7 students Olivia M (left) and Vanshika G (right) deciphering one of the challenges secret code using the Caesar Cipher

Thank you to all the girls that participated in this year’s CryptoQuest.

Jessica McKenzie

Head of Science