"The popular conception of, and reaction toward, the subject of cryptography in Poe's time - and to a certain extent today - are the remnants of a medieval point of view, which regarded it in somewhat the following light: A cryptogram is a piece of writing to which a meaning exists but is not immediately perceptible; its intelligibility is concealed, hence mysterious or occult, and thus supernatural. Therefore anyone practicing the art is of necessity the associate of forces governing supernatural phenomena. The mental portrait the average layman has even today of the professional cryptographer is that of a long haired, thick bespectacled recluse; a cross between a venerable savant and a necromancer who must therefore commune daily with dark spirits in order to accomplish his feats of mental jiu-jitsu." 1936 William Friedman Office of the Chief Signal Officer War dept. Washington D.C. Copyright 1997 by Slackers Union. Comments should go to any of the group members. Opinions reflected on this page are by no means opinions of UCSD. Go sue somebody else. Last Modified: June 1, 1997 |