Item No: #362346 La cryptographie militaire, ou, Des chiffres usités en temps de guerre: Avec un nouveau procédé de déchiffrement applicable aux systèmes à double clef. Aug Kerckhoffs, Auguste.
La cryptographie militaire, ou, Des chiffres usités en temps de guerre: Avec un nouveau procédé de déchiffrement applicable aux systèmes à double clef
La cryptographie militaire, ou, Des chiffres usités en temps de guerre: Avec un nouveau procédé de déchiffrement applicable aux systèmes à double clef
La cryptographie militaire, ou, Des chiffres usités en temps de guerre: Avec un nouveau procédé de déchiffrement applicable aux systèmes à double clef

Foundational Work in Cryptography and Cybersecurity

La cryptographie militaire, ou, Des chiffres usités en temps de guerre: Avec un nouveau procédé de déchiffrement applicable aux systèmes à double clef

Notes: The foundational book of modern military encryption and cybersecurity. Kerckhoffs, a Dutch linguist, realized that the telegraph, in which messages travel over wires and through the hands of clerks fundamentally changed the needs of cryptography. He proposed six rules to govern transmission of messages that were subject to interception. His second rule, known as Kerckhoff's Principle, was that the encryption system should not require secrecy—it should only depend on the key.

This idea is the underpinning of Internet security protocols like HTTPS, which can pass through public networks while still preserving secrecy. Cryptographie militaire was the most important advance in cryptography in centuries, when it was published at the end of the 19th century. At least one expert argues that it is the single most important work on the subject:

"Had Kerckhoffs merely published his perceptions of the problems facing post-telegraph cryptography and his prescriptions for resolving them, he would have assured a place for himself in the pantheon of cryptography. But he did more. He contributed two techniques of cryptanalysis that, while not as wrenching to the science as Kasiski's, play roles of supreme importance in most modern solutions....[La cryptographie militaire] stands perhaps first among the great books of cryptology. Its incisiveness, its clarity, its solid base of scholarly research, its invaluable new techniques, but above all its maturity, its wisdom, and its vision elevate it to that rank."—David Kahn, The Codebreakers.

Kerckhoff's work originally appeared in the Journal des Sciences militaires in the January and February 1883 issues. This is the first separate edition and it adds a preface by the author which is not included in the journal version.

vii, [blank], 1–64 pages. Illustrated with figures and diagrams.

Edition + Condition: First edition (first separate printing). Pages foxed, else very good. In a late 19th century binding of quarter calf over paper-covered boards. Bound without the original green printed wrappers. Very scarce, with no listing in the auction results of recent decades.

(NB: In this copy there is a paper stub following the table of contents that looks as if a plate were removed. However, Harvard has digitized its copy, which retains the front wrapper, and it does not have a plate; none of the OCLC records mention a plate; and the original journal publication does not have a plate. I think the stub comes from the binding process.)

Publication: Paris: Librairie militaire de L. Baudoin, 1883.

Item No: #362346

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