Caesar Boxes
What is a Caesar Box? It is a method of simple encryption invented by Juilius Caesar. Caesar invented this method in order to encode messages so that they wouldn't be able to be read if they fell into the wrong hands.
There is only one rule that a Caesar Box message must follow: the sum of the total number of characters has to be a perfect square, or a number whose square root is an integer. For example, an 9-character message is encryptable using Caesar boxes, because the message would have to be written in a 3 by 3 grid from top to bottom as follows:
| H | A | Y |
| O | R | O |
| W | E | U |
Example of Caesar Box Encryption.
The message is "HOWAREYOU" (the spaces have been omitted to make the message nine characters long.) To encode the message, read it back horizontally from left to right in the grid, and you'd end up with "HAYOROWEU". Because of the nature of Caesar boxes, encrypting an encrpyted message decrypts the original message.
The java applet at the top of this page, that was co-authored by this page's creator, will encrypt a valid message that you type in.
You can download an executable JAR archive of the CaesarBox program (source code is included.)
This page was written and is maintained by Joshua Dick and was last updated on July 1, 2005.
