The most interesting thing for me to learn about at the guest lecture was the extent that cryptography was used in the Church. I had no idea the Church leaders used it so much, although it makes sense that they would have a lot of information that they didn't want to be compromised. I was also intrigued by the pseudo-names used in the Doctrine and Covenants. In Alma 37:23 we read "I will prepare unto my servant Gazelem, a stone..." I had wondered what that meant and now it makes sense. (The guest lecturer mentioned in her lecture that Gazelem was a code name for Joseph Smith.) I was also intrigued by the Deseret language. I had not heard of that before.
The lecture wasn't too difficult for me to follow (it wasn't very mathematically dense), although it did leave me with some things to ponder about. I had never thought of using code words to minimize telegram expenses by minimizing words, and I never knew Lewis and Clark used cryptography to send messages back to D.C. Cryptography has been around for a long time and despite being somewhat primitive it has been very effective for a wide variety of organizations. Its uses definitely go beyond military purposes, which I did not think about before this lecture.
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