02-01-2021, 10:25 PM
Fontana wrote his book in cipher for the same reason everyone else did in his time.
The bulk was in plain text. The "secrets" were in ciphertext.
The idea was not to create a secret unbreakable vault. Rather, it was to keep his secrets within his circle of professionals and friends, the people he would have sent copies of his manuscript to. By writing the professional secrets bits in cipher, it stopped the uninitiated from casually skimming the book and learning trade secrets. But at the same time, he wasn't stopping the initiated from accessing his information, as the cipher wasn't that difficult.
The bulk was in plain text. The "secrets" were in ciphertext.
The idea was not to create a secret unbreakable vault. Rather, it was to keep his secrets within his circle of professionals and friends, the people he would have sent copies of his manuscript to. By writing the professional secrets bits in cipher, it stopped the uninitiated from casually skimming the book and learning trade secrets. But at the same time, he wasn't stopping the initiated from accessing his information, as the cipher wasn't that difficult.