[Cryptography] What is the difference between a code and a cipher?

[Richard Outerbridge]

> Old chestnut - is it being intended to be hard to decrypt? Having a variable key? Something else?
> 
> I don't know whether there is a definitive answer, but opinions are sought.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> — Peter Fairbrother

I’ll bite.

Codes can have variable length plaintext symbols, and also variable length ciphertext symbols.

Ciphers have same length plaintext symbols, but can have variable length ciphertext symbols.

It’s akin to the difference between ’but’ & ’and’ :)

On 2014-09-03 (246), at 23:16:16, Peter Fairbrother <zenadsl6186 at zen.co.uk> wrote:
__outer