When It Comes To Encryption, Our Policy Makers Could Learn Something From Thomas Jefferson
When It Comes To Encryption, Our Policy Makers…
Thomas Jefferson was so interested in cryptography that he may have developed his own enciphering device after his mail was inspected by postmasters when the revolution was looming. Indeed, codes and ciphers are as American as the American Revolution itself. In fact, the revolution may not have happened if confidential correspondence, both military and otherwise, had been compromised by the British. In December 1801, Jefferson received an encrypted letter from a mathematics professor (the two both served at the American Philosophical Society) that was so inscrutable that he was never able to decode it—in fact, it was not decoded until over 200 years later.
