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

Peter Gutmann pgut001 at cs.auckland.ac.nz
Fri Sep 5 02:32:07 EDT 2014


Dave Horsfall <dave at horsfall.org> writes:

>And some of those Q codes can be *really* obscure, such as something like
>"Shall I hoist a windsock to indicate in which direction you ought to land?"
>etc.

At least it doesn't have a code for "Sentence of a Court Martial to be put
into execution" ("oh, misread that, it was actually 'Sail to the Northward the
first fair Wind'.  Terribly sorry old chap, we'll send flowers to your
widow").

Those Q-codes can (or at least were) at one time quite useful, not far from
here there's an informal air museum containing a handwritten note dropped by
Guy Menzies, the pilot of the first trans-Tasman Ocean flight that asks "Where
can I land?  Point to nearest town".  He ended up mistaking a swamp for flat
land and crashed, flipping his aircraft.  A Q-code or two would have helped
quite a bit there.

Peter.


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