Exceptional A history & discussion of the science of Cryptogra A Brief History of Cryptography by RaymondJohn This is longer than my usual offerings. Hope you enjoy.

Category:  Essay Non-Fiction   Posted:  September 30, 2008      Views: 442

RAYMONDJOHN  IN PRINT   ABOUT RAYMONDJOHN  Raymond John is a hopeless FanStory addict who has at times spent as many as twelve hours in a single day reading, reviewing and writing for the site. His three purposes are based on three "Es" which are Explain, Enlighten and Entertain. His greatest fear is to take himself too seriously. He may not always smile, but he always has a twinkle in his eye. Knock his socks off with a fantastic write and he'll be your best cheerleader and give you a banner award, to boot. He has written two novels and numerous short works. His first book, The Cellini Masterpiece, has sold nearly 3,000 copies and received an Honorable Mention in the 2006 IPPY awards. It is now available in a Kindle edition from Amazon.com. An audio version (ISBN 9780615268125) is now available read by the renown actor, James Cada. MP3 edition, downloadable for IPOD, is 14.95. Order at www.raymondjohnbooks.com. His second mystery, Mix and Match Murder, which was originally scheduled for release in September of 2008 is now in print and available from Amazon.com, barnesandnoble.com and North Star Press. A scholar born in the golden age of radio, Raymond always appreciates hearing a well-told story, especially one with action and believable dialogue in a historical setting. I have written and received many reviews. I have a thick skin, so if constructive criticism is forthcoming, bring it on. He has won several contests. The contest submission Mousie, Kittie and Booger was the first place winner in the contest Tales of the Weird.. Gold In Them Thar Words was the first place winner in the contest Tales of the Weird.. Lot 386 was the first place winner in the contest Tales of the Weird.. He is a top ranked author and is currently holding the #22 position. Portfolio | Become A Fan I have always loved puzzles. Especially the ones I can solve. I expect that is the reason I have always been interested in cryptography, the construction of codes and ciphers. One of the best books written on the subject is The Code Book, by Simon Singh. In it, he lays out the whole subject in a nutshell by presenting this problem. Suppose this is the Fourteenth Century and you have a very valuable gem you want to send to a buyer in another country. You have a courier who will be paid on both ends of the journey, and he is allowed to make more than one trip. How do you get it to your buyer so that no one else can steal it? First, assume the courier will not be waylaid by thieves in transit, and the container is so secure he will not be able open it. Sending the gem in a locked container would be the most obvious answer. Unfortunately the recipient wouldn't be able to open the lock. Sending the key with the courier might be disastrous for obvious reasons. How do we solve the problem? There is only one way to be sure it arrives safely. Send it to your buyer in a locked bag. The recipient then places his own lock on the bag and sends it back to you. You then remove your lock and send it again. He now has the key to his own lock. This is the bare essence of a code. Both parties must have keys. In the earliest days of cryptography, each had the equivalent of a Little Orphan Annie decoder ring. With it, they could substitute letters. "Attack at midnight" might be encrypted as "rbblm rb xpdfposb." Surprisingly, this simple cypher method worked very well for centuries, even though the New York Times has used the same on their puzzle pages for years. An Arab named Abu Al-Kindi discovered its flaws in the Seventeenth Century. Due to the peculiarity of languages, certain letters and words occur more frequently than others. In English, the letter "e" occurs most often, followed by "s" and "t." Single letters would usually be "a" or "I." The most common three-letter words are "the" and "are," and both end in the letter "e." By analyzing the frequency of the letters, a skilled cryptographer usually could decode the message without Annie's decoder ring. The code maker responded by adding letters before the beginning of the actual message. These are called nulls and were used to disguise the letters of the message. Not leaving spaces between the letters helped, too. The decoders soon learned how to ignore the nulls and solve the cipher. Another code involved the use of an agreed upon document, say "War and Peace." Using numbers, the first digit(s) referred to the page number, the next to the paragraph, and the last to the words themselves. The big advantage to this is that you can send a message using numbers exclusively. These improvements made decoding more difficult for prying eyes. The easiest way to solve the problem was to kill or capture a Turk using the decoder ring in the act. In fact, this is is the biggest weakness in any cryptographic system, and happened often. When the key fell into the wrong hands, no message, no matter how well-encrypted, would be safe. The game doesn't stop here. Sooner or later the codemakers would discover their codes have been compromised, and the process of coming up with another would begin. This fascinating game of hide and seek played through many variants. With the coming of the machine age, the advantage went to the makers. Instead of humans figuring out how to hide information, a machine could do it. Much faster, and much more efficiently, too. The first code machines came into use not long after the First World War. Machines talked to machines in scrambled language, and the code-users reaped the benefits. As you might expect, the breakers devised their own machines. By the early thirties, The U.S. State Department was reading the Japanese diplomats' mail. The Germans had a better system. The Poles, fearful of Hitler's intentions, devised machines to unscramble the messages, though not completely. That task was left for Turing and his crowd at Bletchley Park in Britain. Building on the Poles framework, Turing hooked several machines together, giving them the ability to talk to each other. Some scientists have argued that they developed the basis for the modern computer, and would have advanced the computer age by several decades if the government hadn't ordered its dismantling. Having several machines work on a problem was useful, but the Germans themselves often gave the codebreakers a hand. The operators had their own distinctive "fist," their way of encoding messages. Many of them would preface their sendings with "Heil Hitler," or would use Hitler's birthday as part of the decoding settings. By 1943, Churchill and Roosevelt knew what the Germans were planning as soon as the Germans did themselves. This brings us to our next problem. Knowing what the Germans were about to do wasn't a be-all and end-all. If the Germans were continually thwarted, sooner or later they would realize their system had been compromised and start all over again. That would mean a lot of work for both sides. Much better to not let the enemy know that you know. It could sometimes have painful consequences. Winston Churchill knew about the bombing raid planned against Coventry before it took place. He didn't use the information, and the beautiful city was essentially leveled. Modern historians say Franklin Roosevelt knew the Japanese were planning to attack Pearl Harbor but didn't act because he didn't want the Japanese to know we had cracked their diplomatic code. In other words, the only way information gained could be used safely was to build in what the CIA calls "deniability." An American submarine showing up as a German convoy was leaving Skaggerak could be plain bad luck. So could the fighters that arrived at the Cliffs of Dover just as the bombers arrived. Sometimes the prize was worth a gamble. Such was the case of Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto when he planned to make an inspection tour of the bases in New Guinea. Yamamoto was the architect of the attack on Pearl Harbor, and the head of the Japanese Navy and in the position of head of the Japanese military. Yamamoto went to Harvard, spoke perfect English, played poker and puffed on cigars with his fellow students. He also had a great fondness for the American people. Even more important, he was certain the emperor greatly underestimated the Americans' willingness to fight back when attacked. He was certain the Japanese couldn't win. When informed of the Emperor's intent to declare war on the U.S., he fought against it. Unable to change Hirohito's mind, Yamamoto went to work to devise a strategy. The only plan to success was to make a succession of rapid strikes and wipe out the American Navy. If successful, it would make it impossible for the U.S. to stay in the war. The first strike was at Pearl Harbor, the American naval hub in the Pacific. His plan might have succeeded but for two fatal flaws. The attack was supposed to occur simultaneously with the breaking off of diplomatic relations and a declaration of war in Washington. The messages from Tokyo were delayed, and the raid on Pearl was considered a sneak attack. The charge shamed him for the rest of his life. It also enraged the American people. The second flaw, thank heavens, was that the aircraft carriers weren't in Pearl Harbor at the time of attack. If they had been, he might well have been successful. After Pearl Harbor, he was public enemy number one with the American people and almost as large a target as Hirohito was himself. Unfortunately for him, the American codebreakers discovered he would be making an inspection of the New Guinea bases, and he would be traveling to Rabaul. The Japanese, wanting to make sure everything was perfect for his arrival, publicized his whole itinerary. To make it worse, they not only didn't put it out by messenger or by secure wire, they broadcast it on their radio. Finding out about Yamamoto's impending visit touched off a tremendous argument in our Pacific command. Rabaul was a world away from their positions. There wasn't even any assurance the P-38 Bandits could reach that far. Even if they could, their presence could be a clear indication that our cryptographers had broken their code. Fortunately, there had been long range sorties before. Survey planes had fought it out with Japanese planes, so it was entirely possible a fighter force could be in the sky when he arrived. The attack was successful. The Japanese continued to use their compromised code, and, ultimately, we won the war. Today, codebreakers aren't working to crack enemy's codes. The bad guys use the Internet. Usually by the time the code is broken, it's already too late. The modern usage is to safeguard credit card purchases. Your password is digitized and multiplied by a very large number to come up with an extremely large product of up to a million places. If the product matches, the sale goes through. Modern cryptographers are also working continuously to make codes that are good for years, and perhaps even decades. The numbers get larger as computers are built that can handle them. My guess is that their safe codes will not be as safe as they might imagine. Technological advances and ingenuity may again let the codebreakers catch up with them. Thus, the game goes on. Recognized Share your own writing! - Information on our membership for writers. Pays one point and 2 member cents.

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