NYT on Crypto Bills

[Bill Frantz]

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


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