Arab/Muslim contributions to crypto

[Tiarnán Ó Corráin]

'The Origins of Cryptology: The Arab contributions', by Ibrahim A Al-Kadi 
Cryptologia, volume 16, no 2 (April 1992), pages 97-126.
 A discussion of recently discovered Arab manuscripts.


http://www.networkcomputing.com/netdesign/1007part1comp.html
Ever since man started communicating with one another, there has been a need 
to keep secrets. Cryptography is defined as the principles, means, and 
methods for rendering information unintelligible, and for restoring the 
encrypted information back into intelligible form. In other words, 
cryptography is the science of writing in secret. Examples of cryptography 
have been discovered in the writings of Egyptians over 4,000 years ago. The 
ancient Greek, Chinese, and Roman civilizations used surprisingly advanced 
cryptography techniques. The use of cryptography, and the analysis of 
cryptography (cryptoanalysis), flourished in the Arab world during the Middle 
Ages. While lovers and theologians have long made use of secret messages, the 
overwhelming use of secret writing has historically been in diplomacy and the 
military. 

http://www.nytimes.com/books/99/11/07/reviews/991107.07ossermt.html
The first big breakthrough in decipherment was made in the ninth century by 
the Arab philosopher al-Kindi in a treatise only recently rediscovered. For a 
thousand years or more, a message coded in a random monoalphabetic cipher was 
considered undecipherable unless one had the key to the code.


Remember, 'algorithm' and 'algebra' are Arabic in origin.

-- 
Tiarnán Ó Corráin       <ocorrain at esatclear.ie/ocorrain at yahoo.com> 
Alliance: In international politics, the union of two thieves who have
their hands so deeply inserted in each other's pocket that they cannot
separately plunder a third.
				-- Ambrose Bierce