Tony Gaffney
Private Scholar
Klaus Schmeh
Freelanced Journalist
Download article
Published in: Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Historical Cryptology, HistoCrypt 2019, June 23-26, 2019, Mons, Belgium
Linköping Electronic Conference Proceedings 158:11, p. 97-105
NEALT Proceedings Series 37:11, p. 97-105
Published: 2019-06-12
ISBN: 978-91-7685-087-9
ISSN: 1650-3686 (print), 1650-3740 (online)
Ernest Rinzi (1836-1909), a Londonbased jeweler, goldsmith and miniaturist, left behind an encrypted journal, which went unsolved until 2017. Dozens of artistically designed illustrations, which interact with text written in tiny letters, make this 175 pages journal one of the most outstanding cryptograms in existence. In 2017 one of the two authors of this paper brought Rinzi’s journal to the attention of a wider audience, which led to the other author examining and breaking the encryption. The cipher Rinzi used proved a monoalphabetic substitution cipher (MASC) that replaces letters and numbers. The cryptanalysis work was complicated by the unusual and hard-toread miniature writing.
encrypted diary
encrypted journal
monoalphabetic substitution
cryptanalysis
Ernest Rinzi
Anonymous. 2017. Ernest Rinzi: All from God. http://illinoisrbml.tumblr.com/post/165049087613/emest-rinzi-all-from-god-emest-rinzi-bom-as.
Anonymous. 2017. Ernest Rinzi: Master of Miniatures. http://illinoisrbml.tumblr.com/post/164792448156/ernest-rinzi-master-of-miniaturesemest-rinzi
Király, Levente Zoltán; Tokai, Gábor. 2018. Cracking the code of the Rohonc Codex. Cryptologia Volume 42, 2018 - Issue 4, p. 285-315
Rinzi, Ernest. 1898-1903. Bound manuscript journal. From the Rare Book & Manuscript Library at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Post-1650 Manuscript Collection.
Royal Collection Trust. 2019. Ernest Rinzi ( 1836-1909): Queen Victoria (1819-1901) Signed and dated 1897. https://www.rct.uk/collection/422305/queen-victoria-1819-1901.
Schmeh, Klaus. 2017. A phantastic discovery: The encrypted journal of Ernest Rinzi. http://scienceblogs.de/klausis-kryptokolumne/2017/09/21/a-phantastic-discovery-theencrypted-joumal-of-emesto-rinzi/
Schmeh, Klaus. 2017. The mysterious paintings and cryptograms of Charles Dellschau. http://scienceblogs.de/klausis-kryptokolumne/2017 /01/31/the-mysterious-paintings-andcryptograms-of-charles-dellschau/
Schmeh, Klaus. 2018. The Top 50 unsolved encrypted messages: 10. James Hampton ’s notebook. http://scienceblogs.de/klausiskrypto-kolumne/2018/03/04/the-top-50-unsolvedencrypted-messages-10-j ames-hamptons-notebook/
