The use of secret codes and ciphers dates back to ancient civilizations, where rulers, generals, and diplomats employed various techniques to encode their messages. The Spartans, for example, used a device called the scytale, a rod of a particular diameter around which a strip of parchment was wound to reveal the hidden message. As societies progressed, so did the sophistication of these methods, leading to the birth of classical ciphers and, eventually, modern cryptographic techniques.