Microsoft® Windows® 2000 Security Handbook

History of Cryptography

The earliest recorded discussion of code-breaking has been found in a thirteenth century Arabian encyclopedia. The use of those techniques rapidly spread throughout Europe. Although most countries were using codes, the most successful ones were also breaking them. Julius Caesar is credited with creating one of the earliest cryptographic systems used to send military messages. TheCaesar Cipher used a substitution algorithm similar to the one in our example to secure his military message traffic. In fact, the military has long been the source of the best encryption algorithms because they typically are responsible for not only encrypting messages, but also with breaking enemy encryption. Since the fourteenth century, the ...