The famous new money Bitcoin is classified as a technical informational money (TIM). Besides introducing the idea of a TIM, a more extreme notion of informational money will be developed: exclusively informational money (EXIM).The informational coins (INCOs) of an EXIM can be in control of an agent but are not owned by any agent. INCOs of an EXIM cannot be stolen, but they can be lost, or thrown away. The difference between an EXIM and a TIM shows up when considering a user perspective on security matters. Security for an EXIM user is discussed in substantial detail, with the remarkable conclusion that computer security (security models, access control, user names, passwords, firewalls etc.) is not always essential for an EXIM, while the application of cryptography based information security is unavoidable for the use of an EXIM.Bitcoin seems to meet the criteria of an EXIM, but the assertion that "Bitcoin is an EXIM", might also be considered problematic. As a thought experiment we will contemplate Bitguilder, a hypothetical copy of Bitcoin, cast as an EXIM and its equally hypothetical extension BitguilderPlus.A business ethics assessment of Bitcoin is made which reveals a number of worries. By combining Bitguilder with a so-called technical informational near-money (TINM) a dual money system, having two units with a fluctuating rate, may be obtained. It seems that a dual money can remedy some, but not all, of the ethical worries that arise when contemplating Bitcoin after hypothetically having become a dominant form of money.The contributions that Bitcoin's designers can potentially make to the evolution of EXIMs and TIMs is analyzed in terms of the update of the portfolio of money related natural kinds that comes with Bitcoin.

Many historians and linguists are working individually and in an uncoordinated fashion on the identification and decryption of historical ciphers. This is a time-consuming process as they often work without access to automatic methods and processes that can accelerate the decipherment. At the same time, computer scientists and cryptologists are developing algorithms to decrypt various cipher types without having access to a large number of original ciphertexts. In this paper, we describe the DECRYPT project aiming at the creation of resources and tools for historical cryptology by bringing the expertise of various disciplines together for collecting data, exchanging methods for faster progress to transcribe, decrypt and contextualize historical encrypted manuscripts. We present our goals and work-in progress of a general approach for analyzing historical encrypted manuscripts using standardized methods and a new set of state-of-the-art tools. We release the data and tools as open-source hoping that all mentioned disciplines would benefit and contribute to the research infrastructure of historical cryptology.

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. This article reveals the existence of a hitherto unknown Black Chamber in the Dutch Republic and the identity of its principal codebreaker, Abel Tasien d 'Alonne ( -), acting also as private secretary to Grand Pensionary Heinsius. On the basis of an analysis of a number of previously unidentified worksheets, three cases are put together that merited d 'Alonne's attention, one related to a French diplomat at the court of the Bavarian Elector during the years -, one related to an undercover agent of the Bavarian Elector in the Dutch Republic during the years -and one related to a French emissary to the state council in Brussels during the period -. The emergence of a Black Chamber in The Hague is remarkable because the Dutch could always call upon the Black Chamber of Hanover for the solution of any intercepted, coded documents. This indicates that the development of inter-allied relations during the war played a more important role in the rise of the Dutch Black Chamber than one would expect.* I should like to express my gratitude to H. J. Hardy, Hans van der Meer and A. J. Veenendaal jr, who all yielded in their own way a vital contribution to the writing of this article. " Christopher Andrew, ' The nature of military intelligence ', in Keith Nelson and B. J. C. McKercher, eds., Go, spy the land : military intelligence in history (Westport, CT, and London, ), pp. - ; David Kahn, The codebreakers (New York, ), pp. -. '! Schnath, Geschichte Hannovers, , p. . '" Hanover, Niedersa$ chsisches Hauptstaatsarchiv, Cal. Br.\, fos. -, Robethon to Georg Ludwig, The Hague,  June . '# The Hague, Algemeen Rijksarchief (ARA), Legatiearchief Barbarije, inv. nr . The folder was identified in the course of a general survey of all code material in Dutch archives. '$ This attribution was first made by A. J. Veenendaal jr and subsequently corroborated by H. J. Hardy, a specialist in the field of identification of handwriting working at the Forensic Laboratory of the Justice Department. '% Robert Fruin, ed., Overblyfsels van Geheugchenis der besonderster voorvallen uit het leeven van den Heere Coenraet Droste (Leiden, ), pp. -.