The Volokh Conspiracy
[Eugene Volokh, July 2, 2009 at 5:42pm] Trackbacks
"Buried Deep Within Thomas Jefferson's Correspondence and Papers,

there lay a mysterious cipher -- a coded message that appears to have remained unsolved. Until now." That's the start of a very interesting article in Wall Street Journal. Thanks to my friend Prof. Haym Hirsh for the pointer.

rick.felt:
Oh sweet Lord may it not be about that moose.
7.2.2009 5:48pm
Jon Rowe (mail) (www):
OMG: Leo Strauss is right. Philosophers did write in code. I bet Jefferson is saying, "I am really a secret atheist."
7.2.2009 6:09pm
rosetta's stones:
Heck, all you need to decipher the Constitution's hidden ciphers is a black robe. We doghn need no steeeen-keeeng math professors.
.
.
.

Those cryptanalysts are an interesting bunch. You really can't keep things secret from them, or at least you couldn't pre-computers, and maybe not even now.
7.2.2009 7:59pm
DennisN (mail):
There are a few code types that are unbreakable, one time pads come to mind, but they are generally too cumbersome for general use.
7.2.2009 8:09pm
mariner:
Professor, thank you for that pointer.

That particular coding method may not have been unbreakable, but I doubt it could have been broken within the lifetime of its author, and that's "good enough" for most applications.

Today we have a much more sophisticated understanding of ciphers, codes and language in general than we did in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Entire branches of mathematics used today in developing and breaking codes didn't even exist then.
7.2.2009 8:46pm
Dave N (mail):
rick.felt,

It isn't.
7.2.2009 8:49pm
Hauk (mail):
Without having read the article, that introduction sounds like the teaser for a "National Treasure" movie, or maybe a Dan Brown novel.
7.2.2009 8:56pm
wm13:
It's funny to me to think that there are apparently people who don't read the Journal every day (and therefore need pointers). In fairness to Prof. Volokh, he almost never writes on business or commercial law topics, so if he doesn't want to read the Journal regularly, that's his choice.
7.2.2009 9:05pm
http://volokh.com/?exclude=davidb :

It's funny to me to think that there are apparently people who don't read the Journal every day (and therefore need pointers).

I know exactly what you mean! I absolutely howled the other day when I met a guy who didn't read The Economist. Who knew that such people existed?!? Clutch the pearls!

In fairness to Prof. Volokh, he almost never writes on business or commercial law topics, so if he doesn't want to read the Journal regularly, that's his choice.

Well that is awfully fair of you.
7.2.2009 10:07pm
Dave N (mail):
By the way, read the article. The code really is kind of cool.
7.2.2009 11:08pm
Please stop banning TtheCO:
Journal kicks the Economist down and makes fun of it in the dirt. Economist is for poseurs and middlebrows. the kind that think NPR is smart.
7.3.2009 7:36am
Mikeyes (mail):
And Jefferson apparently invented a prototype of the Enigma machine. Who knew he was a Nazi?
7.3.2009 10:23am
blcjr (mail):
Without having read the article, that introduction sounds like the teaser for a "National Treasure" movie, or maybe a Dan Brown novel.
Brad Thor has already done it in his novel "The Last Patriot." A reviewer blurb inside the paperback even calls it "A cross between The Da Vinci Code and National Treasure!"
7.3.2009 11:24am
Anon321:
I was hoping that the cipher, once broken, would read, "It was I, Robert Patterson, who flatulated at the dinner party and blamed the dog. Apologies."
7.3.2009 11:31am
dearieme:
"In Congress, July Fourth, one thousand seven hundred and seventy six." When did Americans start to drop that "and"?
7.3.2009 11:59am
Dave N (mail):
dearieme,

I am guessing that in 1776, some people used the and while others did not.

When 2000 came around, I decided to quietly observe when people stopped using "Two thousand" followed by the year and started using "Twenty" followed by the year.

(By the way, from my observation most people will switch in 2010. In casual conversation it is "two thousand nine" but next year is "twenty ten")
7.3.2009 12:10pm
Milhouse (www):

When 2000 came around, I decided to quietly observe when people stopped using "Two thousand" followed by the year and started using "Twenty" followed by the year.

I've been using it since 1-Jan-2001. (I briefly considered saying "twenty hundred", but that was just silly.) But I've rarely heard anyone else use it, and it amazes me. I mean, we call 1909 "nineteen-oh-nine", not "nineteen hundred and nine", so why is this year "two thousand and nine" instead of the shorter (by one syllable) "twenty-oh-nine"?
7.3.2009 1:45pm
guest:
"Be sure to drink your Ovaltine."
7.3.2009 2:22pm
New Pseudonym:

There are a few code types that are unbreakable, one time pads come to mind, but they are generally too cumbersome for general use.


There is only one code type that is unbreakable (one time pads qualify if generated by truly random numbers and used properly). That is a code in which the key is at least as long as all the information transmitted in the code. Since that faile to meet one of the codemaker's other criteria (that it be easy to remember), there is no code that can meet the stated criteria.

And the writer of the article does not understand that a cipher is not a code.
7.3.2009 7:56pm
Malvolio:
And Jefferson apparently invented a prototype of the Enigma machine. Who knew he was a Nazi?
In the interest of outraged pedantry, I want to point out that Enigma was invented by Arthur Scherbius in 1918, long before the Nazi Party was even founded. After Scherbius died in a traffic accident, the patent went through a number of hands before the Nazis, as was their wont, just stole it.

(All this vaguely remembered, and probably misremember, from Simon Singh's beautifully written and informative Code Book, a must-have for every cypherpunk on your Xmas list.)
7.4.2009 1:57am
Fub:
Mikeyes wrote at 7.3.2009 10:23am:
And Jefferson apparently invented a prototype of the Enigma machine. Who knew he was a Nazi?
And so was the U.S. Army. They called it M-94. But as usual, it was all some Italian's fault.
7.4.2009 12:31pm

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