“Analyzing the frequency and contacts of letters is the most universal, most basic of cryptanalytic procedures.” — David Kahn Analyzing Copy Share Image
“Extremist sects in Islam cultivated cryptography to conceal their writings from the orthodox.” — David Kahn Extremist Copy Share Image
“Ibn ad-Duraihim, according to Qalqashandi, gave seven systems of cipher:” — David Kahn Copy Share Image
“Also of great importance in the discovery of linguistic phenomena that led to cryptanalysis was the development of lexicography.” — David Kahn Language Copy Share Image
“they employed a device called the “skytale,” the earliest apparatus used in crypto-logy” — David Kahn Skytale Earliest Copy Share Image
“one of the essential elements of cryptography: a deliberate transformation of the writing.” — David Kahn Change Copy Share Image
“soon as a culture has reached a certain level, probably measured largely by its literacy, cryptography appears spontaneously—as” — David Kahn Copy Share Image
“Vātsyāyana’s famous textbook of erotics, the Kāma-sūtra, lists secret writing as one of the 64 arts, or yogas, that women should know… — David Kahn Art Copy Share Image
“For written messages, the Chinese would often write on exceedingly thin silk or paper, which they rolled into a ball and covered… — David Kahn Silk Paper Copy Share Image
“Tradition attributes to St. Boniface, the Anglo-Saxon missionary who founded monasteries in Germany in the eighth century, the importation to the continent… — David Kahn Boniface Copy Share Image
“Suetonius, the gossip columnist of ancient Rome, says that Caesar wrote to Cicero and other friends in a cipher in which the… — David Kahn Ancient rome Copy Share Image
“The task of the cryptanalysts consisted primarily of reconstructing the wiring and switches of the coding wheels—a task made more burdensome by… — David Kahn Change Copy Share Image
“the most famous of all those who had an acquaintance with cryptology in the Middle Ages was an English customs official, amateur… — David Kahn Chaucer Copy Share Image
“The only writer of the Middle Ages to describe cryptography instead of just using it was Roger Bacon, the English monk of… — David Kahn Art Copy Share Image
“Hildegard von Bingen, an 11th-century nun who saw apocalyptic visions and was later canonized, had a cipher alphabet which she claimed came… — David Kahn Dreams Copy Share Image
“Another steganographic system was still in use in the 20th century: Aeneas suggested pricking holes in a book or other document above… — David Kahn Invisible ink Copy Share Image
“Cryptology was born among the Arabs. They were the first to discover and write down the methods of cryptanalysis. The people that… — David Kahn Copy Share Image
“The association of magic and cryptology was reinforced by other factors. Mysterious symbols were used in such esoteric fields as astrology and… — David Kahn Esoteric Copy Share Image
“All this stained cryptology so deeply with the dark hues of esoterism that some of them still persist, noticeably coloring the public… — David Kahn Public image Copy Share Image
“The technique was at least moderately well known, for Ibn Khaldūn wrote in The Muqaddimah: “Occasionally, skillful secretaries, though not the first… — David Kahn Programming Copy Share Image
“cryptology is black magic in itself springs ultimately from a superficial resemblance between cryptology and divination. Extracting an intelligible message from ciphertext… — David Kahn Black magic Copy Share Image
“Much of the history of cryptology of this time is a patchwork, a crazy quilt of unrelated items, sprouting, flourishing, withering. Only… — David Kahn History Copy Share Image
“The multiple human needs and desires that demand privacy among two or more people in the midst of social life must inevitably… — David Kahn Cybersecurity Copy Share Image
“General Joseph O. Mauborgne, who became Chief Signal Officer in October, 1937. Mauborgne had long been interested in cryptology. In 1914, as… — David Kahn World war Copy Share Image
“From the early days of its existence, cryptology had served to obscure critical portions of writings dealing with the potent subject of… — David Kahn Life Copy Share Image
“The more a cipher deviates from the simple form in which one ciphertext letter invariably replaces the same plaintext letter, the harder… — David Kahn Cipher Copy Share Image
“For almost a thousand years, from before 500 to 1400, the cryptology of Western civilization stagnated.” — David Kahn Thousand years Copy Share Image
“Every weapon of cryptanalytic science—which in the stratospheric realm of this solution drew heavily upon mathematics, using group theory, congruences, Poisson distributions—was… — David Kahn Mathematics Copy Share Image
“He served as a cryptanalyst with the American Expeditionary Forces in World War I, and returned to River-bank to write an 87-page… — David Kahn First time Copy Share Image
“His method resembles George Bernard Shaw’s way of using the /f/ sound of GH in “tough,” the /i/ sound of o in… — David Kahn Bernard shaw Copy Share Image
“If two direction-finders take bearings like that on a signal and a control center draws the lines of direction on a map,… — David Kahn Copy Share Image
“Plaintext a might be represented in a long message by all 26 letters. Conversely, any given ciphertext letter might stand for any… — David Kahn 26 Letters Copy Share Image
“Cryptology served magical purposes frequently throughout the Middle Ages, and even in the Renaissance was still disguising important parts of alchemical formulas.” — David Kahn Middle ages Copy Share Image
“This kind of work, particularly in the early stages of a difficult cryptanalysis, is perhaps the most excruciating, exasperating, agonizing mental process… — David Kahn Known To Man Copy Share Image
“But of any science of cryptanalysis, there was nothing. Only cryptography existed. And therefore cryptology, which involves both cryptography and cryptanalysis, had… — David Kahn Science Copy Share Image
“Its coding wheels, stepping a space—or two, or three, or four—after every letter or so, did not return to their original positions… — David Kahn Thousands Letters Copy Share Image
“since military operations are usually accompanied by an increase in communications, traffic analysis can infer the imminence of such operations by watching… — David Kahn Analysis Copy Share Image
“This list encompassed, for the first time in cryptography, both transposition and substitution systems, and, moreover, gave, in system 5, the first… — David Kahn First time Copy Share Image