On Mar 4, 3:09pm, Adam Shostack wrote:
Markoff shouyld know better than this. There is a long history of business use of codes & ciphers, going back hundereds of years, and durring the heyday of the telegraph, there were fair size companies that created codebooks with (locally configurable) superencipherment systems for the market.
Michael Helm writes:
I thought that, for the most part, the telegraph systems described above were to reduce cable charges (1 code word instead of a 15-word sentence, a huge savings in those days).
At 8:00 PM 3/4/96 -0500, Perry E. Metzger wrote:
Totally untrue. The use of encryption for business purposes goes back centuries, and there were commercial providers of blank telegraph code books all through the 19th century. The use of crptography to protect communications only declined with the end of telegrams and the reduction in the perception that large numbers of strangers would be handling your missives. See "The Codebreakers" for a history of this.
"The Codebreakers" describes (Footnote p516) that in 1939 the Allies prohibited the use of any codes, but business pressure made them relent and allow a fixed set of published commercial codes. On page 842, "The code compilers strove constantly to find new ways of reducing cable tolls for users -- this was, after all, their raison d'etre. ..." It also mentions (p839) a class of commercial code, mostly numeric, which lent themselves easily to superencipherment, which seemed to aim quite as much at secrecy as at economy. It also mentions that (p850) after WW2 the rising cost of labor (compared with communication) delt codes a mortal blow. It seems that both uses were important, with different emphasis for different users. Regards - Bill ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Bill Frantz | The CDA means | Periwinkle -- Computer Consulting (408)356-8506 | lost jobs and | 16345 Englewood Ave. frantz@netcom.com | dead teenagers | Los Gatos, CA 95032, USA