For one who is not well-versed in “cryptography,” hearing the word might simply bring to mind the language game Pig Latin. However, Singh is trying to convey, in layman’s terms, that cryptography is not a child’s game for all; in Mary Queen of Scots’ case, it was literally an instance of life or death. The issue at hand is that while encryption is meant to show that one’s guard is up, it actually creates a false sense of security when utilized poorly.

For instance, there has been a time in every person’s life when he or she whispered something to a neighbor in the hopes of keeping the message a secret. Unbeknownst to them, spectators who speak the same language were either able to eavesdrop and hear the secret or possibly even lipread bits and pieces. Yet, to the two that were whispering in their own world, it was as if they had been speaking a foreign language. Babington and Mary were in this same little world, where they had a false sense of reality and security. As Singh stated, this was honestly an unfortunate time for Mary to be communicating through cryptography because the first true cryptanalysts were emerging. The two did little to alter their patterns and believed that only they could read what was intended for one another. The problem is, in an ever-changing world, it is naive to think that one should not have to adapt to remain undiscovered. Like two people whispering, Babington and Mary let their guard down at a critical point of their mission

By trusting her basic encoding system at an essential turning point in the history of cryptanalysis, Mary left herself vulnerable to decryption and was caught openly aligning with the rebels attempting to free her. Had she been writing without encryption, she would not have directly given her blessing for the assassination. Singh wants other cryptographers to be aware that they cannot expect to simply lay encryption over their messages like some form of a safety blanket. If a message is truly meant to be a secret, cryptographers should work to ensure that their ciphers are unbreakable.