"The Reader of Gentlemen's Mail", by David Kahn
My wife was channel-surfing and ran across David Kahn talking about his recent book "The Reader of Gentlemen's Mail: Herbert O. Yardley and the Birth of American Codebreaking". ISBN 0300098464 , Yale University Press, March 2004 Amazon's page has a couple of good detailed reviews http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0300098464/qid=1105254301/sr=2-1/ref=... ---- Bill Stewart bill.stewart@pobox.com
Kahn's is a quite interesting and entertaining book. Among other tales about Yardley and his admirable battles with the USG, Kahn tells how through hilarious Gonzales-grade legal shenanigans the only time a US law has been by enacted against revealing cryptological information, in 1933, to prevent Yardley from publishing a book, and the one-man-law it is still in effect. Chapter 15 A Law Aimed at Yardley, pp. 158-72: The law: An Act For the Protection of Government records Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That whoever, by virtue of his employment by the United States, shall obtain from another or shall have custody of or acess to, or shall have had custody of or access to, any official diplomatic code or any matter prepared in such code, or which purports to have been prepared in any such code, and shall willfully, without authorization or competent authority, publish or furnish to another any such code or matter, or any matter which was obtained while in the process of transmission between any foreign government and its diplomatic mission in the United States, shall be fined not more than $10,000 or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both. Approved June 10, 1933 Franklin D. Roosevelt See: USC Title 18 Section 952 http://assembler.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode18/usc_sec_18_00000952-- --000-.html Note the orignal $10,000 amount for the fine has been removed.
In message <6.0.3.0.0.20050108230829.03c33ed8@pop.idiom.com>, Bill Stewart writ es:
My wife was channel-surfing and ran across David Kahn talking about his recent book "The Reader of Gentlemen's Mail: Herbert O. Yardley and the Birth of American Codebreaking".
ISBN 0300098464 , Yale University Press, March 2004
Amazon's page has a couple of good detailed reviews http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0300098464/qid=1105254301/sr=2-1/ref=... _ka_b_2_1/102-1630364-0272149
I have the book. For the student of the history of cryptography, it's worth reading. For the less dedicated, it's less worthwhile. It's not "The Codebreakers"; it's not "The Code Book"; other than the title quote (and I assume most readers of this list know the story behind it), there are no major historical insights. The most important insight, other than Yardley's personality, is what he was and wasn't as a cryptanalyst. The capsule summary is that he was *not* a cryptanalytic superstar. In that, he was in no way a peer of or a competitor to Friedman. His primary ability was as a manager and entrepreneur -- he could sell the notion of a Black Chamber (with the notorious exception of his failure with Stimson), and he could recruit good (but not always great) people. But he never adapted technically. His forte was codes -- he know how to create them and how to crack them. But the world's cryptanalytic services were also learning how to crack them with great regularity; that, as much as greater ease of use, was behind the widespread adoption of machine cryptography (Enigma, M-209, Typex, Purple, etc.) during the interwar period. Yardley never adapted and hence he (and his organizations) became technologically obsolete. One of the reviews on Amazon.com noted skeptically Kahn's claim that Friedman was jealous of Yardley's success with women. I have no idea if that's true, though moralistic revulsion may be closer. But I wonder if the root of the personal antagonism may be more that of the technocrat for the manager... --Prof. Steven M. Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb --------------------------------------------------------------------- The Cryptography Mailing List Unsubscribe by sending "unsubscribe cryptography" to majordomo@metzdowd.com
participants (3)
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Bill Stewart -
John Young -
Steven M. Bellovin