Many people contributed to the puzzles within these pages, in a large international project that was coordinated via the internet over the course of a few months.

A few that I would like to thank individually are:

David Allen Wilson, who submitted dozens of unusual ciphers (including some in other languages!), and spent countless hours compiling glossary entries, writing up code tips, obsessing over proofreading, and testing hundreds of the other ciphers that came pouring in. David is a truly unique individual, whose skills and challenges have inspired me in my own quest for self-improvement. I am honored to be able to call him a friend.

Edward "Ted" Park for researching information on unsolved codes, and testing many puzzles throughout the book

Kurt J. Simmons II, author of the "Caesarean Section", and several other puzzles

Scott Kim for his creative description of a pencil and paper way to understand asymmetric key cryptography

Andy Finkenstadt who set up the MediaWiki database that allowed for the coordination of this massive project

Thorne Kontos, who researched dozens of quotes from British Prime Ministers throughout the centuries, and helped test many of the harder ciphers

Guillermo Oscar "Tordek" Freschi of Argentina and José Luis Saldías of Uruguay, who helped with the Spanish-language section of the book

Anatoly K and Natalia Prokhorovich for testing the Russian ciphers

Elizabeth H. Banks, MLS, who worked on the bibliography, and answered countless other questions about formatting and indexing details

Kathryn Kaufman for researching many of the quotes to be encrypted, as well as helping to test several puzzles

Mike Combridge for cleaning up some of the historical cipher graphics, and supplying additional information about the Dorabella Cipher

Other thanks go to:

Everyone who helped create and test the puzzles that went into this book, especially Andrew J. Bromage, Larry McElhiney, Michael Madison, Richard L. Robinson, Tim Judkins, Dan "Aestetix" McArdle, Rob Marston, and Jennifer Zipperer

Bryan Paschke for legal assistance and moral support

Bruce Schneier, Simon Singh, David Kahn, Jim Gillogly, the American Cryptogram Association, and Peter Wayner for their inspiring books and articles about cryptography

And many others who helped in many ways, both small and large, including:

Adam Vartanian, Aaron "Baudburn" Kobayashi, Alisha Dean, Angela J. Slick, Ben Carter, Bill Gage, Billy Goto, Carrie Pritchard, Casey Hall, Chris "Xenon" Hanson, Chris Speidel, Dan Kaminsky, Daniel Mallett, Dave Weinstein, David Halstead, David Whatley, Ed Gawrelak, Ed Scheidt, Evelyn Hirata, Graham Cox, Grant Guenter, Hannah Carter, Jackie Griffith, Jeff Gatlin, Jeri Ellsworth, Jim, Jonathan Tabor, John Wilson, Jonathan "Giezr" McCloud, Kyle Knight, Lane "Thé" Whatley, Maxwell Zeuster, Michael Niemeyer, pixelfairy, Randal L. Schwartz, Rachel Carter, Rhoda Hall, Robin McLaughlin, T.J. Dunin Vine, Tim MacDonald, Tj Fallon, Tontin, Virgil G., Wilhelm M. Plotz, and Wendy Despain

Thank you all!

Elonka Dunin

Page created: December 22, 2005