Have you ever sent a secret message to a friend? Or tried to use a clever code to protect a secret? Have you ever tried to crack a code? There are many ingenious ways to conceal, and reveal, a secret message.

Keeping secrets, and code breaking, can be a matter of life and death, as Mary, Queen of Scots found out to her cost. Alan Turing's work as a code breaker during WW11 may have shortened the war by two years and saved 14 million lives. Today super-fast computers give us new ways to encrypt messages but, as ever, there is a constant race between those who create new methods of encryption and those who want to break it. 

This podcast is read by Luke Irwin, with sound editing by Max Watson. The script was written by Nicola Kličková and Tomáš Klička, and produced by Camilla Akers-Douglas and Henrietta McMicking. Our theme music is by James Burrell

To contact us, email camilla@wonderaudio.co.uk or henrietta@wonderaudio.co.uk 

Social media  

Twitter @wonder_podcast

Facebook @wonderpodcasts

Instagram @wonderpodcasts