NYT on Crypto Bills

[Perry E. Metzger]

Michael Helm writes:
> 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.
> 
> 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).

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.

Perry