Communication is a wonderful thing, we all like it to be in a clear concise language. However, what we like and we receive can be two different things. In today’s political language the important aspect is to stay on message as if the message has been delivered from a high and needs to filter down to the masses. For generations, there has been codes between people so others do not know what is going on. There has been secret messages which lead to actions – sometimes offensive, sometimes defensive. For as long as there has been rulers and would be rulers, there has been plots to transfer power from one to another. If you are not in the position of advising leaders, perhaps you have seen coded messages where treasure is buried or could be buried. In order for the plots to work, secret messages have to be sent back and forth. How these secret messages are written is the book The Code Book by Simon Singh, Random House, NY, 1999.

Behind the all Presidents are people very interested in codes, both making them and breaking codes from the other side, in order to know what the other side is thinking. There have been interesting movies about Code Breakers for they generally operate out of the spotlight in the Second War, the British working on breaking the German code and getting a machine so they would have know what the Germans were planning. In the South Pacific the Navajo language was used as a code and Nicolas Cage played in a movie called Windtalkers – his character was assigned to protect the Navajo speaker. If you go further back in history, the great cryptanalysis were Islamic. The master was al-Kindi who wrote in 815, one way to solve an encrypted message, if we know its language, is to find a different plaintext of the same language long enough to fill one or so, and then we count the occurrences of each letter. This is known as frequency analysis. Using the English text, the most common letter is e, t, a and so forth. Thus to make and break codes codes an  understanding of math, statistics, linguistics is required. The reason for these requirements is is all codes are based on some sort of pattern which allows for the code to be formed as well as to break. The more the code is used, the greater the chance to break the code.

Privacy for your emails is the basis of encryption and companies employ those skilled in math, statistics, and linguistics help keep the important elements of your business for those in the business. In every takeover, the company who wants to win calls the project something secret or in a code to try to ensure laws are not broken and secrets not stolen.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, while at times it may seem you need to break the code of Wall Street, the language to success is easier than it seems. If you tend to stay away from the company with the breakthrough new method or device and stick to proven winners or companies already making profits, it becomes easier. If you invest in profitable companies which pay a dividend, the choices become easier and more profitable for you.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.