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List Of Cryptographers
This is a list of cryptographers. Cryptography is the practice and study of techniques for secure communication in the presence of third parties called adversaries. Pre twentieth century * Al-Khalil ibn Ahmad al-Farahidi: wrote a (now lost) book on cryptography titled the "''Book of Cryptographic Messages''". * Al-Kindi, 9th century Arabic polymath and originator of frequency analysis. * Athanasius Kircher, attempts to decipher crypted messages * Augustus the Younger, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, wrote a standard book on cryptography * Ibn Wahshiyya: published several cipher alphabets that were used to encrypt magic formulas. * John Dee, wrote an occult book, which in fact was a cover for crypted text * Ibn 'Adlan: 13th-century cryptographer who made important contributions on the sample size of the frequency analysis. * Duke of Mantua Francesco I Gonzaga is the one who used the earliest example of homophonic Substitution cipher in early 1400s. * Ibn al-Durayhim: gave detailed d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cryptography
Cryptography, or cryptology (from grc, , translit=kryptós "hidden, secret"; and ''graphein'', "to write", or ''-logia'', "study", respectively), is the practice and study of techniques for secure communication in the presence of adversarial behavior. More generally, cryptography is about constructing and analyzing protocols that prevent third parties or the public from reading private messages. Modern cryptography exists at the intersection of the disciplines of mathematics, computer science, information security, electrical engineering, digital signal processing, physics, and others. Core concepts related to information security ( data confidentiality, data integrity, authentication, and non-repudiation) are also central to cryptography. Practical applications of cryptography include electronic commerce, chip-based payment cards, digital currencies, computer passwords, and military communications. Cryptography prior to the modern age was effectively synonymo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ahmad Al-Qalqashandi
Shihāb al-Dīn Abū 'l-Abbās Aḥmad ibn ‘Alī ibn Aḥmad ‘Abd Allāh al-Fazārī al-Shāfiʿī better known by the epithet al-Qalqashandī ( ar, شهاب الدين أحمد بن علي بن أحمد القلقشندي; 1355 or 1356 – 1418), was a medieval Egyptian encyclopedist, polymath and mathematician. A native of the Nile Delta, he became a Scribe of the Scroll (''Katib al-Darj''), or clerk of the Mamluk chancery in Cairo, Egypt. His magnum opus is the voluminous administrative encyclopedia ''Ṣubḥ al-Aʿshá''. ''Ṣubḥ al-aʿshā'' ''Ṣubḥ al-Aʿshá fī Ṣināʿat al-Inshāʾ'' ('The Dawn of the Blind' or 'Daybreak for the Night-Blind regarding the Composition of Chancery Documents'); a fourteen-volume encyclopedia completed in 1412, is an administrative manual on geography, political history, natural history, zoology, mineralogy, cosmography, and time measurement. Based on the ''Masālik al-abṣār fī mamālik al-amṣar'' of Shihab al-Umari, it ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Giovanni Fontana (engineer)
Giovanni Fontana, also known as Johannes de Fontana (ca. 1395 – ca. 1455) was a fifteenth-century Italian physician and engineer. He was born in Venice in the 1390s and attended the University of Padua, where he received his degree in arts in 1418 and his degree in medicine in 1421. University records list him as "Master John, son of Michael de la Fontana". His most famous promoter at the University was the scholastic Paul of Venice. He tells us that the Doge of Venice sent him to Brescia to deliver a message to the condottiere Francesco Carmagnola. He was also employed as the municipal physician by the city of Udine. Works Fontana composed treatises on a diverse array of topics, including measurement of heights or depths by falling stones. We have early works of his on water-clocks (with wheels), sand-clocks and measurement. Fontana studied trigonometric measurements, mentioned in ''De trigono balistario'', and through his own designed instrument, also explained in a larger tr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Giovan Battista Bellaso
Giovan Battista Bellaso (Brescia 1505–...) was an Italian cryptologist. The Vigenère cipher is named after Blaise de Vigenère, although Giovan Battista Bellaso had invented it before Vigenère described his autokey cipher. Biography Bellaso was born of a distinguished family in 1505. His father was Piervincenzo, a patrician of Brescia, owner since the 15th century of a house in town and a suburban estate in Capriano, in a neighborhood called Fenili Belasi (Bellaso's barns), including the Holy Trinity chapel. The chaplain was remunerated each year with a regular salary, and a supply of firewood. The family coat of arms was ‘‘On a blue field three red-tongued gold lion heads in side view”. Bellaso received a degree in civil law at the University of Padua in 1538. The French author, Blaise de Vigenère, reported that he was serving as a secretary in the suite of Cardinal Rodolfo Pio di Carpi and credited him with the invention of the reciprocal table, now called the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jefferson Disk
The Jefferson disk, also called the Bazeries Cylinder or wheel cypher as named by Thomas Jefferson, is a cipher system using a set of wheels or disks, each with the 26 letters of the alphabet arranged around their edge. The order of the letters is different for each disk and is usually ordered randomly. Each disk is marked with a unique number and a hole in the center of the disks allows them to be stacked on an axle. The disks are removable and can be mounted on the axle in any order desired. The order of the disks is the cipher key, and both sender and receiver must arrange the disks in the same predefined order. Jefferson's device had 36 disks.Kahn, p. 194 Once the disks have been placed on the axle in the agreed order, the sender rotates each disk up and down until a desired message is spelled out in one row. Then, the sender can copy down any row of text on the disks other than the one that contains the plaintext message. The recipient has to arrange the disks in the agreed- ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Étienne Bazeries
Étienne Bazeries (21 August 1846, in Port Vendres – 7 November 1931, in Noyon) was a French military cryptanalyst active between 1890 and the First World War. He is best known for developing the " Bazeries Cylinder", an improved version of Thomas Jefferson's cipher cylinder. It was later refined into the US Army M-94 cipher device. Historian David Kahn describes him as "''the great pragmatist of cryptology. His theoretical contributions are negligible, but he was one of the greatest natural cryptanalysts the science has seen.''" (Kahn 1996, p244) Bazeries was born in Port-Vendres, France, the son of a mounted policeman. In 1863 he enlisted in the army, and fought in the Franco-Prussian War, where he was taken prisoner, although he later managed to escape disguised as a bricklayer. In 1874 he was promoted to lieutenant, and sent to Algeria in 1875. He returned to France the following year and married Marie-Louise-Elodie Berthon, with whom he would father three daughters: Cé ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cryptanalysis
Cryptanalysis (from the Greek ''kryptós'', "hidden", and ''analýein'', "to analyze") refers to the process of analyzing information systems in order to understand hidden aspects of the systems. Cryptanalysis is used to breach cryptographic security systems and gain access to the contents of encrypted messages, even if the cryptographic key is unknown. In addition to mathematical analysis of cryptographic algorithms, cryptanalysis includes the study of side-channel attacks that do not target weaknesses in the cryptographic algorithms themselves, but instead exploit weaknesses in their implementation. Even though the goal has been the same, the methods and techniques of cryptanalysis have changed drastically through the history of cryptography, adapting to increasing cryptographic complexity, ranging from the pen-and-paper methods of the past, through machines like the British Bombes and Colossus computers at Bletchley Park in World War II, to the mathematically advanced comput ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Giovanni Battista Della Porta
Giambattista della Porta (; 1535 – 4 February 1615), also known as Giovanni Battista Della Porta, was an Italian scholar, polymath and playwright who lived in Naples at the time of the Renaissance, Scientific Revolution and Reformation. Giambattista della Porta spent the majority of his life on scientific endeavors. He benefited from an informal education of tutors and visits from renowned scholars. His most famous work, first published in 1558, is entitled '' Magia Naturalis (Natural Magic).'' In this book he covered a variety of the subjects he had investigated, including occult philosophy, astrology, alchemy, mathematics, meteorology, and natural philosophy. He was also referred to as "professor of secrets". Childhood Giambattista della Porta was born at Vico Equense, near Naples, to the nobleman Nardo Antonio della Porta. He was the third of four sons and the second to survive childhood, having an older brother Gian Vincenzo and a younger brother Gian Ferrante.Giambatti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alberti Cipher
The Alberti Cipher, created in 1467 by Italian architect Leon Battista Alberti, was one of the first polyalphabetic ciphers. In the opening pages of his treatise ' he explained how his conversation with the papal secretary Leonardo Dati about a recently developed movable type printing press led to the development of his cipher wheel. Cipher disk Alberti's cipher disk embodies the first example of polyalphabetic substitution with mixed alphabets and variable period. This device, called ''Formula'', was made up of two concentric disks, attached by a common pin, which could rotate one with respect to the other. The larger one is called ''Stabilis'' [stationary or fixed], the smaller one is called ''Mobilis'' [movable]. The circumference of each disk is divided into 24 equal cells. The outer ring contains one uppercase alphabet for plaintext and the inner ring has a lowercase mixed alphabet for ciphertext. The outer ring also includes the numbers 1 to 4 for the superencipherment of a c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Genius
Genius is a characteristic of original and exceptional insight in the performance of some art or endeavor that surpasses expectations, sets new standards for future works, establishes better methods of operation, or remains outside the capabilities of competitors. Genius is associated with intellectual ability and creative productivity, and may refer to a polymath who excels across diverse subjects. There is no scientifically precise definition of a genius. The term is also defined as the exceptional ability itself, as simply genius without the article. In that sense of the word, sometimes genius is associated with talent, but several authors such as Cesare Lombroso and Arthur Schopenhauer systematically distinguish these terms. Walter Isaacson, biographer of many well-known geniuses, explains that although high intelligence may be a prerequisite, the most common trait that actually defines a genius may be the extraordinary ability to apply creativity and imaginative thinki ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Polymath
A polymath ( el, πολυμαθής, , "having learned much"; la, homo universalis, "universal human") is an individual whose knowledge spans a substantial number of subjects, known to draw on complex bodies of knowledge to solve specific problems. In Western Europe, the first work to use the term polymathy in its title () was published in 1603 by Johann von Wowern, a Hamburg philosopher. Von Wowern defined polymathy as "knowledge of various matters, drawn from all kinds of studies ... ranging freely through all the fields of the disciplines, as far as the human mind, with unwearied industry, is able to pursue them". Von Wowern lists erudition, literature, philology, philomathy, and polyhistory as synonyms. The earliest recorded use of the term in the English language is from 1624, in the second edition of ''The Anatomy of Melancholy'' by Robert Burton; the form ''polymathist'' is slightly older, first appearing in the ''Diatribae upon the first part of the late History ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Leone Battista Alberti
Leon Battista Alberti (; 14 February 1404 – 25 April 1472) was an Italian Renaissance humanist author, artist, architect, poet, priest, linguist, philosopher, and cryptographer; he epitomised the nature of those identified now as polymaths. He is considered the founder of Western cryptography, a claim he shares with Johannes Trithemius. Although he often is characterized exclusively as an architect, as James Beck has observed, "to single out one of Leon Battista's 'fields' over others as somehow functionally independent and self-sufficient is of no help at all to any effort to characterize Alberti's extensive explorations in the fine arts". Although Alberti is known mostly for being an artist, he was also a mathematician of many sorts and made great advances to this field during the fifteenth century. The two most important buildings he designed are the churches of San Sebastiano (1460) and Sant'Andrea (1472), both in Mantua. Alberti's life was described in Giorgio Vasari's '' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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