The article establishes the boundaries of this relatively new area of poetics: the proximity and at the same time the discrepancy of this concept with such as “autobiographical subtext”, “Aesopian language”. Various types of suggestive targeting inherent in cryptographic works are shown: a contemporary who closely knows the details of the author's personal life or a future “providential” reader. Many variants of the “key&8j1; / cipher to the cryptographic text are also analyzed. The specificity of cryptographic texts is considered, as it manifests itself, on the one hand, in epic, and on the other hand, in lyrical works. It is highlighted what cryptographic means the lyrical gender has (meter, rhyme, stanza; acrotext, acrostic, etc.). Particular attention is paid to symbolist poetry, which, like cryptography, has magical, cult roots. The specific material for the analysis was the digital symbolism in one of the early poems by A.A. Blok and his introduction to the collection of poems “The Earth in the Snow”. The relationship of the meanings of the symbol “comet” is shown, which are constituted in the dialogue of two epigraphs of the preface and in the lyrical plot of the cycle “Snow Mask”.