Grid Cipher

Grid Cipher
By Maggie

Another way to send a secret message is by using a grid cipher. Grid ciphers are codes using numbers instead of letters. Two coordinates of numbers will stand for a certain letter. Look at the chart below to see an example of a grid cipher. The grid cipher has a translation for every letter, except the letter Z. That's because Z is the least used letter in the alphabet.

You send messages by using the coordinate numbers instead of letters. So, if you wanted to say "hello" to your friend, you would send this message: 3,2 5,1 2,3 2,3 5,3. Of course in order for this to work, your friend needs to have a copy of the grid too.

In order to keep your secrecy, you may want to create your own grids. For example, you could put the letters in backwards. In other words, you could start by putting the letter Y in the 1,1 space and so on. Have fun creating your own grids!

	1	2	3	4	5
1	A	F	K	P	U
2	B	G	L	Q	V
3	C	H	M	R	W
4	D	I	N	S	X
5	E	J	O	T	Y

Try to read this message!

2,1 5,5 5,1!

Citations

Book

Hill, Laban Carrick. Spy's Survival Handbook. New York, New York: Tangerine Press, 2003.