Editing Hebern rotor machine (section)

==History==

[[Edward Hebern|Edward Hugh Hebern]] was a building contractor who was jailed in 1908 for stealing a horse. It is claimed that, with time on his hands, he started thinking about the problem of encryption, and eventually devised a means of mechanizing the process with a typewriter. He filed his first patent application for a cryptographic machine (not a rotor machine) in 1912.<ref>Hebern, Edward H. [http://pdfpiw.uspto.gov/.piw?Docid=01086823 "Cryptographic attachment for type-writing machines"] U.S. Patent no. 1,086,823 (filed: 3 June 1912; issued: 10 February 1914).</ref> At the time he had no funds to be able to spend time working on such a device, but he continued to produce designs.   Hebern made his first drawings of a rotor-based machine in 1917,<ref name=Bauer>Bauer, FL. The origin of the rotor idea. 14.1.3.1 Hebern. In:''The History of Information Security: A Comprehensive Handbook'', Karl Maria Michael de Leeuw & Jan Bergstra, eds. Elsevier, 2007, p. 385.</ref> and in 1918 he built a model of it.  In 1921 he applied for a patent for it, which was issued in 1924.<ref>Hebern, Edward H., [http://pdfpiw.uspto.gov/.piw?docid=01510441&PageNum=1  "Electric coding machine,"] U.S. Patent no. 1,510,441 (filed: 1921 March 31; issued:  1924 September 30).</ref>  He continued to make improvements, adding more rotors.<ref>Hebern, Edward H. [http://pdfpiw.uspto.gov/.piw?Docid=01683072 "Electric code machine"] U.S. Patent no. 1,683,072 (filed: 1923 November 20; issued: 1928 September 4).</ref><ref name=Bauer/>  [[Agnes Meyer Driscoll|Agnes Driscoll]], the chief civilian employee of the US Navy's cryptography operation (later to become [[OP-20-G]]) between [[World War I|WWI]] and [[World War II|WWII]], spent some time working with Hebern before returning to Washington and OP-20-G in the mid-'20s.

Hebern was so convinced of the future success of the system that he formed the '''Hebern Electric Code''' company with money from several investors. Over the next few years he repeatedly tried to sell the machines both to the [[United States Navy|US Navy]] and [[United States Army|Army]], as well as to commercial interests such as banks. None was terribly interested, as at the time cryptography was not widely considered important outside governments. It was probably because of [[William F. Friedman]]'s confidential analysis of the Hebern machine's weaknesses (substantial, though repairable) that its sales to the US government were so limited; Hebern was never told of them. Perhaps the best indication of a general distaste for such matters was the statement by [[Henry Stimson]] in his memoirs that "Gentlemen do not read each other's mail."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Stinson |first1=Henry L. |last2=Bundy |first2=McGeorge |title=On Active Service in Peace and War |date=1948 |publisher=Harper & Brothers |location=New York, New York, USA |page=188 |url=https://archive.org/stream/onactiveservices006603mbp#page/n219/mode/2up}} From p. 188:  "Stinson, as Secretary of State, was dealing as a gentleman with the gentlemen sent as ambassadors and ministers from friendly nations, and as he later said, 'Gentlemen do not read each other's mail.' "</ref> It was Stimson, as Secretary of State under Hoover, who withdrew State Department support for [[Herbert Yardley]]'s [[American Black Chamber]], leading to its closing.

Eventually his investors ran out of patience, and sued Hebern for [[stock manipulation]]. He spent another brief period in jail, but never gave up on the idea of his machine. In 1931 the Navy finally purchased several systems, but this was to be his only real sale.

There were three other patents for rotor machines issued in 1919, and several other rotor machines were designed independently at about the same time. The most successful and widely used was the [[Enigma machine]].