History of cryptography and cryptanalysis. Questions that wish to ask about the history of cryptography should use this tag; if you're asking about historical ciphers you may also wish to use the classical-cipher tag.
3
votes
1answer
77 views
Any historical accounts of cryptanalysis of Jefferson's wheel cipher?
David Kahn in his book "The Codebreakers" wrote about Jefferson's wheel cipher, saying
that "To this day the Navy uses it" (the book was first published in 1967). Are there any historical accounts of ...
5
votes
1answer
151 views
Did Merkle invent cryptographic hashing?
Chapter II of Merkle's 1979 PhD thesis is titled "One Way Hash Functions." The chapter appears to be the first reference to cryptographic hashing. The chapter has no references. Is there an earlier ...
7
votes
4answers
483 views
Cracking WWII-era codes - code found on a pigeon's leg in Surrey
A recent BBC article entitled WWII code 'may never be cracked' posted a code:
AOAKN HVPKD FNFJW YIDDC
RQXSR DJHFP GOVFN MIAPX
PABUZ WYYNP CMPNW HJRZH
NLXKG MEMKK ONOIB AKEEQ
WAOTA RBQRH DJOFM TPZEH
...
2
votes
1answer
302 views
How were the AES key and block length subsets of Rijndael selected?
My intuition tells me it's a trade off between speed and security, but how did the standardisation process select these three seemingly arbitrary key lengths (namely, AES-128, AES-192, AES-256).
10
votes
2answers
391 views
How long would the 100 Year Cryptography Project have secured its data had it been started 100 years ago?
The goal of the Tahoe-LAFS 100 Year Cryptography project is to "enhance Tahoe-LAFS's cryptographic system so that Tahoe shipped today/next year might remain safe from cryptographic attacks for a 100 ...
