Cracking Codes

Codes and why we love them

Whether we want to keep insider information or gossip secret, gain power by holding desirable knowledge, or simply want to give our brains something to play with, we are hooked on codes and the possibility of breaking them.

Curiosity

Human beings are naturally inquisitive creatures. From prehistory to the modern playground, we have always been desperate to find out how to do things that we don't already know how to do. It's the driving force of our species, that inherent quest for knowledge and skill. It's why we have evolved to dominate our planet. Over thousands of years, we've become addicted to the overwhelming feeling of discovery that we experience when we finally learn a new skill or achieve a hard-fought goal.

If we all agree that we're naturally knowledge-seeking, nosey, ambitious, driven creatures, it stands to reason that anybody with any ambition will want to get hold of the key element to success: information. It's that primeval curiosity, and stubborn refusal to be foxed, that gets us hooked on codes.

Comic codes

Even children's comics use codes or hidden word games to try and spice up their educational content. A word search grid or simple crossword is usually enough to grip the average young person, who instinctively refuses to be beaten when there's some hidden information to be revealed. Crosswords and word searches may not be real codes, but they hold the essence of intrigue that fuels our fascination for codes.

'Code breaking is a kind of treasure hunt, where the code conceals something and you get a real buzz from working out the answer,' says curator Katie Eagleton of the British Museum. 'I guess it's the same reason that I love doing the cryptic crossword – that feeling of satisfaction when I manage to work out some particularly fiendish clue.'

Codes hold a particular instinctive challenge for us, one that few people can resist.

Straight from the horse's mouth

Holding, transporting and receiving information used to be a difficult business. Back in the 17th century, getting a written message from London to Edinburgh could take five days by speedy horse. Today it takes less than a second via email (depending on connection speed and server reliability – the Lone Ranger and Silver never had that problem).

Now, communicating information is one thing, but what if that information is sensitive? What if your speedy horse, carrying a message to say that war is imminent, has to cross enemy territory to deliver the note? That's when you need a code.

Codes essentially protect information by hiding it from any third party. Once that third party gets an inkling that a message has been encoded they will want to find out what it is. Of course they do – they're only human. And the constant drive for increasingly complicated codes, and ever-deepening subversive counter-measures, excites us even more.

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