A Cultural History of Early Modern English Cryptography Manuals

Ellison, Katherine

doi:10.4324/9781315458212

Cited by 8 publications

(6 citation statements)

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“…1575-1625), whose manual influenced Ashmole's shorthand (Josten, 1967). Ashmole, following the tradition of figures like Dee, showed interest in mathematics and ciphering from a scholarly perspective, suggesting an evolution towards greater cipher literacy (Ellison, 2016) in alchemy.…”

Section: Results: Circulating Scribal Secrets Through Encryptionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The lack of emphasis on privacy as a virtue in individual life in the medieval era was not due to the persistence of the notion of public virtues and private vices from Plato (Reeve, 2004), but was in a sense proportional to the growth of the power of secret knowledge in the Church, which naturally dealt with secrets due to the lack of public literacy in Latin (Innis, 2022). With the decline of empires and the rise of the power of the church came the rise of cryptology being applied to esoteric biblical secrets (Ellison, 2016), and the quest to discover the 'true' (Adamic) names of beings, a tradition transmitted in part from the Arabic medieval world to the early alchemists (Al-Hassan, 2004). However, the relationship between the spread of literacy and the need for cryptography by empires returned to the historical scene with widespread literacy in Arabic in the Middle East and Africa.…”

Section: Secrecy As the Foundation Of The Statementioning

confidence: 99%

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Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Historical Cryptology HistoCrypt 2020

2021

Linköping Electronic Conference Proceedings

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Following the tradition of previous HistoCrypt conferences, HistoCrypt 2024 will address all aspects of historical cryptography and cryptanalysis. It is inherently crossdisciplinary, incorporating work from various fields such as mathematics, history, history of ideas, computer science, AI, computational linguistics, linguistics, and image processing. The conference's topics include, but are not limited to, the use of cryptography in military, diplomacy, business, and other areas, analysis of historical ciphers using modern computerized methods, unsolved historical cryptograms, mechanical encryption machines, the history of cryptography, the roots of modern ciphers in historical cryptology, linguistic aspects of cryptology, the influence of cryptography on the course of history, cryptology's connections to neighboring fields of study, and teaching and promoting cryptology in schools, universities, and the public.The scientific program was compiled by an international scientific program committee, consisting of researchers in cryptology, history, intelligence, language technology, and linguistics. The program committee welcomed submissions in two tracks: regular papers up to 10 pages (including appendices, excluding references) on substantial, original, and unpublished research, including evaluation results, where appropriate; and short papers up to 4 pages (including appendices, excluding references) on smaller, focused contributions, work in progress, negative results, surveys, tutorials, or opinion pieces. This year's conference received a record high of 42 submissions, a 75% increase compared to the average of 24 submissions in previous HistoCrypt conferences from 2018 to 2023. The submissions came from authors in European countries including Austria,

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Section: Results: Circulating Scribal Secrets Through Encryptionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Secrecy As the Foundation Of The Statementioning

confidence: 99%

Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Historical Cryptology HistoCrypt 2020

2021

Linköping Electronic Conference Proceedings

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“…The early modern cryptography manual Steganographia is a good exemplar. Steganographia was published in 1606 by the German cryptographer Trithemius, and for years was held up as an example that tied the emerging discipline of cryptography to the practices of early modern magic (Ellison, 2017, Kahn, 1967. This historical interpretation is understandable -the text of the manuscript makes claims about instructing the reader in the use of spirits to send messages over great distances.…”

Section: Encryption and The Occultmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cryptographic imaginaries and the networked public

West¹

2018

Internet Policy Review

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This paper interrogates discourses associated with encryption in contemporary policy debates. It traces through three distinct cryptographic imaginaries -the occult, the state, and democratic values -and how each conceptualises what encryption is, what it does, and what it should do. Situating each imaginary in time through historical research, I consider how they foreground distinct configurations of power and authority. It concludes by describing the development of a new cryptographic imaginary, one which sees encryption as a necessary precondition for the formation of networked publics.

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“…Gerhard F. Strasser examines 17th century handbooks published in Germany, although with a focus on universal languages schemes, seeStrasser (1988). For England seeEllison (2017).…”

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confidence: 99%

On the Combination of Cryptography and Steganography in 17th Century Germany

Szarka¹

2023

Linköping Electronic Conference Proceedings

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Assessing and averting possible interception lies at the heart of cryptology. In handbooks printed in 17th century Germany, the authors suggested combining steganography and cryptography to increase information security. This article discusses several techniques for concealing ciphers and demonstrates that the authors of instructional literature had to consider complex interplaying factors when it came to combining cryptography and steganography. Overall, these examples show that the cryptological literature of the 17th century mirrors an increased discussion about the visibility of ciphers.

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A Cultural History of Early Modern English Cryptography Manuals

Cited by 8 publications

References 0 publications

Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Historical Cryptology HistoCrypt 2020

Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Historical Cryptology HistoCrypt 2020

Cryptographic imaginaries and the networked public

On the Combination of Cryptography and Steganography in 17th Century Germany

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