Abstract
You can do a lot with a book, besides read it! In fact, we know that by 1526 — some 70 years after Gutenberg printed his first Bible — at least one of out forebears, Jacobus Silvestri, was thinking of how a book might be used for cryptographic purposes. Silverstri wrote of a sort of code book, or dictionary, which he recommended as a means to encipher written communications. For Silvestri, we can trace the development of book ciphers over a period of at least 400 years.
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See example in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle “The Hound of the Baskervilles”, The Complete Sherlock Holmes. Garden City, N.Y., n.d., p. 801.
Aeneas Tacticus. 31.1–3. Albert C. Leighton, “Secret Communication among the Greeks and Romans,” Technology and Culture. Vol. 10, No. 2, Apri1 1969, p. 149.
Article “Cento,” Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th ed., New York, 1910, p. 674.
David Kahn, The Codebreakers, New York, 1967, pp. 873–4.
William F. and Elizebeth S. Friedman, The Shakespearean Ciphers Examined. Cambridge, 1957, p. 97.
Kahn, Codebreakers, p. 869.
Kahn, Codebreakers, p. 773.
Blaise de Vigenere, Traicte des Chiffres ou Secretes Manieres d’Escrire, Paris, 1586, pp. 208–9.
The grill cipher had already been invented by Girolamo Cardano in the 1550s. See Charles J. Mendelsohn, “Cardano on Cryptography,” Scripta Mathematica, Vol. 6, 1939, pp. 164–5.
Vigenere, Traicte, pp. 208–9.
Charles J. Mendelsohn, “Blaise de Vigenere and the ‘Chiffre Carre’.” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. 82, No. 2, March 1940, pp. 117–8.
Jacobus Silvestri, Opus Novum, praefectis arcium, Rome, 1526.
Philip M. Arnold, “An Apology for Jacopo Silvestri.” Cryptologia, Vol. 4, No. 2, April 1980, pp. 96–103.
Mary E. D’Imperio, The Voynich Manuscript. National Security Agency, Ft. Meade, Maryland, 1978, pp. 67–8, 118.
Mendelsohn, “Cardano on Cryptography,” pp. 161–2.
Giovanni Battista Porta, De Furtivis Literarum Notis, vulgo de Ziferis libri IV, Naples, 1563, pp. 106–7.
Vigenere, Traicte, pp. 208–9.
Francis Bacon, Tvvoo bookes of Francis Bacon of the Proficience and Advancement of Learning, Divine and Humane, London, 1605, p. 61.
Ignatius Donnelly, The Great Cryptogram, Chicago, 1888.
On this and other pseudo-ciphers see Friedman and Friedman, Shakespearean Ciphers.
Kahn, Codebreakers, p. 773.
Christian Breithaupt, Ars decifratoria sive scientia occultas scripturas solvendi et legendi, Helmstadt, 1737, p. 20–21.
Philip Thicknesse. A treatise on the art of decyphering and of writing in cypher, London, 1772, pp. 111–12
Franklin Papers, Philadelphia, 1982, Vol. 22, p. 470.
National Archives Microfilm Publications, Microcopy no. 247, Papers of the Continental Congress, 1774–1789, Roll 121, Item no. 93, Letters Received from Charles W. F. Dumas. Washington, 1959.
Le Droit des Gens par M. de Vattel, Amsterdam, 1775, pp. iii–v.
Franklin Papers, Vol. 22, p. 464.
William F. Friedman, Six Lectures on Cryptology, National Security Agency, Ft. Meade, Maryland, 1963, pp. 41–3.
A List of the Genera1 and Field Officers as they rank in the Army, London, 1778.
Public Archives Canada, Haldimand Papers MG 21. Additional Manuscripts 21807 and 21808, Microfilm Roll A-741, Correspondence with Sir Henry Clinton and others at New York, 1777–1783.
Carl van Doren, Secret History of the American Revolution, New York, 1969, pp. 200, 204. Kahn, Codebreakers, pp. 177–8, 183, 186.
A Dictionary, to enab1e any two persons to maintain a. correspondence, with a secrecy, which is impossible for any other person to discover. Hartford, 1805.
Johann Ludwig Kluber, Kryptographik, Tubingen, 1809.
Kluber, Kryptographik, p. 349.
Albert C. Leighton, “Ciphers in Bavarian Archives,” Proceedings of the Second Beale Cypher Symposium, Washington, 1979, p. 79.
James B. Ward, The Beale Papers, Lynchburg, 1885.
Albert C. Leighton and Stephen M. Matyas, “The Search for the key book to Nicholas Trist’s book ciphers.” Cryptologia. Vol. 7, No. 4, October 1983, pp. 297–314.
Friedman Lectures, p. 75.
Examples of dictionary codes are found in G.P.B. (George Parker Bidder), “Ciphers and Cipher-Writing,” Macmillan’s Magazine, Vol. 23, 1871, p. 330; (Anonymous) “Missives in Masquerade,” Cornhill Magazine, Vol. 29, 1873, p. 179; (Anonymous) “The Art of Secret Writing,” The Practical Magazine, Vol. I, 1873, p. 318; (Anonymous) “Writing to Conceal One’s Thoughts,” All the Year Round (conducted by Charles Dickens), Vol. 35, 1875, p. 510; T.J.A. Freeman, “Cipher,” American Catholic Quarterly Review, Vol. 18, 1893, pp. 863–4; George Wilkes, “Cryptography,” Cosmopolitan, Vol. 36, 1903, p. 716.
William W. Payne, “Astronomical Cipher Messages,” The Sidereal Messenger, Vol. 4, No. 6, pp. 161–3.
Arthur Conan Doyle, “The Valley of Fear,” Complete Sherlock Holmes, p. 904.
Arthur Conan Doyle, Complete Sherlock Holmes, Preface, p. x.
Kahn, Codebreakers, p. 371–3.
Herbert O. Yardley, The Chinese Black Chamber, Boston, 1983, pp. 114–24, 129.
Robert Graves, I, Claudius, New York, 1934, Chapter 17, pp. 232–33.
Kahn, Codebreakers, p. 375. William F. Friedman, Methods for the Solution of Running-Key Ciphers, Riverbank Publication, No. 16, Geneva, Illinois, 1918.
David Kahn, Kahn on Codes, New York, 1983, pp. 139–44. Barbara Harris of new York solved the simple numerical substitution for the plain text with the following result: 8 2 0 6 4 9 1 e s t a d o y 3 b c f g h i j 7 k l m n n p q 5 r u v w x z Note that it was not the one-time system that was cryptanalyzed but only the simple substitution of the worksheet.
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Leighton, A.C., Matyas, S.M. (1985). The History of Book Ciphers. In: Blakley, G.R., Chaum, D. (eds) Advances in Cryptology. CRYPTO 1984. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 196. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-39568-7_11
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