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List of cryptographers
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==Pre twentieth century== * [[Al-Khalil ibn Ahmad al-Farahidi]]: wrote a (now lost) book on cryptography titled the "''Book of Cryptographic Messages''". * [[Al-Kindi]], 9th century [[Arabic]] polymath and originator of [[frequency analysis]]. * [[Athanasius Kircher]], attempts to decipher crypted messages * [[Augustus the Younger, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg]], wrote a standard book on cryptography * [[Ibn Wahshiyya]]: published several cipher alphabets that were used to encrypt magic formulas.<ref>{{cite book |last=Whitman and Mattord |title=[[Principles of Information Security]] |publisher=Course Technology |year=2010 |isbn=978-1111138219 |edition=4th |page=351}}</ref> * [[John Dee]], wrote an occult book, which in fact was a cover for crypted text * [[Ibn 'Adlan]]: 13th-century cryptographer who made important contributions on the sample size of the frequency analysis. * [[Duke of Mantua]] [[Francesco I Gonzaga]] is the one who used the earliest example of homophonic [[Substitution cipher]] in early 1400s.<ref>David Salomon. [https://books.google.com/books?id=A88kvYwIVu0C&dq=homophonic+cipher+mantua+1400s&pg=PA224 Coding for Data and Computer Communications]. Springer, 2005.</ref><ref>Fred A. Stahl. "[http://www.computer.org/csdl/proceedings/afips/1973/5081/00/50810565.pdf A homophonic cipher for computational cryptography]" Proceedings of the national computer conference and exposition (AFIPS '73), pp. 123–126, New York City, 1973.</ref> * [[Ibn al-Durayhim]]: gave detailed descriptions of eight cipher systems that discussed substitution ciphers, leading to the earliest suggestion of a "tableau" of the kind that two centuries later became known as the "Vigenère table". * [[Ahmad al-Qalqashandi]]: Author of ''Subh al-a 'sha'', a fourteen volume encyclopedia in Arabic, which included a section on cryptology. The list of ciphers in this work included both substitution and transposition, and for the first time, a cipher with multiple substitutions for each plaintext letter. * [[Charles Babbage]], UK, 19th century mathematician who, about the time of the [[Crimean War]], secretly developed an effective attack against [[polyalphabetic substitution]] ciphers. * [[Leone Battista Alberti]], [[polymath]]/universal [[genius]], inventor of [[polyalphabetic substitution]] (more specifically, the [[Alberti cipher]]), and what may have been the first mechanical encryption aid. * [[Giovanni Battista della Porta]], author of a seminal work on [[cryptanalysis]]. * [[Étienne Bazeries]], French, military, considered one of the greatest natural cryptanalysts. Best known for developing the "[[Jefferson disk|Bazeries Cylinder]]" and his influential 1901 text ''Les Chiffres secrets dévoilés'' ("Secret ciphers unveiled"). * [[Giovan Battista Bellaso]], Italian cryptologist * [[Giovanni Fontana (engineer)]], wrote two encrypted books * [[Hildegard of Bingen]] used her own alphabet to write letters. * [[Julius Caesar]], Roman general/politician, has the [[Caesar cipher]] named after him, and a [[Lost literary work|lost work]] on cryptography by Probus (probably Valerius Probus) is claimed to have covered his use of military cryptography in some detail. It is likely that he did not invent the cipher named after him, as other [[substitution cipher]]s were in use well before his time. * [[Friedrich Kasiski]], author of the first published attack on the [[Vigenère cipher]], now known as the [[Kasiski test]]. * [[Auguste Kerckhoffs]], known for contributing cipher design principles. * [[Edgar Allan Poe]], author of the book, ''A Few Words on Secret Writing'', an essay on cryptanalysis, and ''[[The Gold Bug]]'', a short story featuring the use of letter frequencies in the solution of a cryptogram. * [[Johannes Trithemius]], mystic and first to describe ''tableaux'' (tables) for use in [[polyalphabetic substitution]]. Wrote an early work on [[steganography]] and cryptography generally. * [[Philips van Marnix, lord of Sint-Aldegonde]], deciphered Spanish messages for [[William I of Orange|William the Silent]] during the Dutch revolt against the Spanish. * [[John Wallis]] codebreaker for Cromwell and Charles II * [[Charles Wheatstone|Sir Charles Wheatstone]], inventor of the so-called [[Playfair cipher]] and general polymath.
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