Posted by Adam Quinan on April 29, 2013 at 02:29:59 user Adam.
In Reply to: Re: Semaphore Dancing Figures posted by Mike Jones on April 29, 2013 at 00:20:08:
Conan Doyle may have been aware of semaphore, but his Dancing Men did not use it. The Dancing men was a substitution code which could have been done with letter or numbers instead of random pictures. The advantage of using pictures was to disguise the fact that it actually was a message to the casual observer.
Semaphore as used by Ransome is similar but not as secure since once you know the trick anyone can read the message if they know semaphore or can look it up. On the other hand you don't have to remember 26 random images which is probably more tricky than just the 26 arm positions when you want to write or read a message quickly.