Talk:cipher

I am not very familiar with the usual way of doing things on wiktionary, so I didn't know where to place this, but I wanted to add that the last two definitions come from the use of the word "cipher" to refer to any circle (in addition to zero and the letter "O") in the terminology of the Five Percent Nation. These uses of the word has spread throughout hip-hop culture and has been adopted by non-Five Percenters in the two cases mentioned. --Tinyfolk 21:13, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Merely protecting something with a password or something like that also qualifies as encryption.

Someone or something of no importance.

I was surprised to not see a usage here for using cipher to describe a person who is reclusive, secretive or mysterious, especially if they are deceased and little is likely to ever be known about them because they took their secrets with them. As in, 'he will forever remain a cipher." Another example can be found by googling The Cipher in Room 214, the story of woman who killed herself in a hotel room, apparently far from her home and after taking some steps to hide her identity (iirc, even asking that police and others not try to identify her.) I've seen that usage several times, but then I saw this one, for 'someone of no importance' and I can see how it applies to the cases I mentioned, in that the subjects were either very withdrawn or antisocial, and left few marks upon the world, and I'm now wondering if have been misinterpreting what was meant all along.