One-Time Pod

Should people have the right to have their personal data deleted from databases and websites?

After Edward Snowden's revelations about the NSA's surveillance programs, how can Americans trust their government again?

Did the US government create a surveillance state in its response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks?

Can the US Constitution keep up with changing surveillance technology?

What might happen if all modern encryption techniques are rendered useless?

Who is behind one of the internet's most intricate and mysterious scavenger hunts?

Why are privacy rules for people entering the US so different from the rules that apply within the US?

What happens if facial recognition technology is used to exert government power?

How might our lives change when we can be identified just by the way that we walk?

How much privacy does the American public deserve?

Is it legal for police to track suspected criminals using location data from their cellphone providers?

Should users of apps like TikTok fear that their data may fall into the wrong hands?

Welcome to Season 4 of One-Time Pod. Each student-produced episode tells a story from the recent history of cryptography, one that explores the role of encryption in the world today.

How can you hide a message in a piece of music? Today on One-Time Pod, Audrey explores musical steganography, with examples from classical to trance.

Sure, breaking the Enigma was hard. But breaking the Lorenz cipher? Without having even seen a Lorenz machine? That’s impressive. Spencer takes us to Bletchley Park in today’s One-Time Pod.

His death was mysterious enough. But when encrypted messages were found on his body, things got weird. Chandu explores the McCormick cipher on today’s One-Time Pod.

Thomas Jefferson… diplomat, politician, and cryptographer? On today’s One-Time Pod, Stella hops in her time machine to talk with a founding father about his little known cipher machine.

It took 150 years, but a cipher challenge posed by none other than Edgar Allen Poe was finally solved. Who was W. B. Tyler and why were his cryptograms so hard to crack? Wayne explores the mystery of Tyler’s cryptograms on today’s One-Time Pod.

Twenty years after the Unabomber’s arrest, the FBI published his encrypted journals. Kellia steps into the mind of a killer on today’s One-Time Pod.

In today’s One-Time Pod, Daniel explores the parallels between breaking codes and uncovering a lost language.

In today’s One-Time Pod, Max dives into the history of hash functions, exploring how cybersecurity tries to stay ahead of hackers.

How to keep US secrets safe? Maybe make a deal with the devil… or at least a little start-up called IBM. Shivam explores the history of Lucifer (and the Data Encryption Standard) on today’s One-Time Pod.

“You can’t be afraid of spies, just like you can’t be afraid of flies. Because they’re everywhere.” Hannah tackles the mystery of numbers stations in the latest One-Time Pod.

Secret messages encoded using telephone touch-tones, passed between anti-apartheid activists in London and South Africa? Miles shares Operation Vula, a little-known 1980s crypto story, in today’s One-Time Pod.

Any sufficiently advanced cryptography is indistinguishable from magic. At least, that’s what Johannes Trithemius, 16th century German monk, found out. The hard way.

Welcome to Season 3 of One-Time Pod, a podcast on the history of cryptography produced by students in Derek Bruff's first-year writing seminar at Vanderbilt University. Each episode considers a different code or cipher, how it works, and why it's interesting.

Charlie tells the tale of the Dreyfus affair, a contentious moment in French history that illustrates the unintended effects of enciphering messages.

Jojo explores the mystery of the Voynich manuscript, a 15th century text filled with mystical images and written in an unknown alphabet.

Jerry shares the history and codes of America's first intelligence agency, the Culper Ring.

Adrian offers a different take on the coded message attached to the leg of a carrier pigeon found in a chimney 70 years after World War Two.

Arnie unveils the mystery of the Copiale cipher and the secret society rituals it hid for hundreds of years.

Kyle shares the story of the UK's answer to the German Enigma machine: Typex. Spoiler: Unlike Enigma, Typex was never cracked.

Leah matches wits with Sherlock Holmes over the mysterious cipher in the "The Adventures of the Dancing Men."

Elton Song describes the Fanquie code, a Chinese cipher that works with sounds instead of letters.

Kolapo Dairo dives into the history of invisible ink, used for centuries to hide messages.

Colin Snell tells a tale about a dead man found in 1948 on Somerton Beach in Australia whose pockets contained a mysterious encoded message.

Xinyi Zhang tells the story of a boy who found a hollow nickel and the encrypted message, sent by Russian spies, hidden inside.

Carson McRae shares the story of a World War Two carrier pigeon found 70 years later in the chimney of a home in England with an encrypted message still attached to its leg.

Welcome to Season 2 of One-Time Pod, a podcast on the history of cryptography produced by students in Derek Bruff's first-year writing seminar at Vanderbilt University. Each episode considers a different code or cipher, how it works, and why it's interesting.

Maria Sellers examines the claim that Francis Bacon wrote the works of William Shakespeare, signing his name to them in code.

Sandra Shaw shares the stories of female agents who knitted in code to share messages from behind enemy lines during World War Two.

Alex Young explains the Playfair cipher, invented in 1854 by Charles Wheatstone.

Romy Pein takes a philosophical approach to cryptography with a look at possible secret messages in James Joyce's novel Finnegan's Wake.

Rachael Osman shares the story of Purple, a Japanese cipher machine used during World War Two.

Jackson Kelley provides another take on the unsolved ciphers left by the Zodiac serial killer.

Shalin Naik tells the story of Olivier Levasseur, a French pirate known as the Buzzard, whose final message hides the location of millions in treasure.

Ejhazz Milford explains the pigpen cipher and its use across generations in keeping secrets.

Sharjeel Khan pulls back the curtain on the Copiale cipher and the secret society that created it.

Safwaan Khan relates the story of British codebreaker George Scovell and his role in breaking the Great Paris Cipher.

Junhao Cai shares the story of the Dorabella cipher, an unsolved mystery left by English compose Edward Elgar.

Kelsey Brown explores the mystery of the Zodiac ciphers, unsolved mysteries left by the infamous serial killer.