A History of U.S. Communications Security

[Marcus Brinkmann]

Pehr Söderman wrote:
> Freshly declassified and a rather interesting read:
> 
> A History of U.S. Communications Security (Volumes I and II, 1973)
> David G. Boak Lectures, National Security Agency (NSA)
> 
> http://www.governmentattic.org/2docs/Hist_US_COMSEC_Boak_NSA_1973.pdf
> 
> (From Bruce Schneier/Governmentattic)

I like the informal style of the document, it's an easy read, even if
one is not an intelligence buff.  In the first volume, all but the first
and last chapters are redacted (what is left is an introduction and
TEMPEST).  The second volume is more intact, and has some history DES,
and a view on public key cryptography before affordable general
computers.  Certainly other things of which I don't realize the
significance...

Some of the redactions may be easily guessable, I fancy "iron curtain",
"embassy", and later "Russia" on page 97.  Why do they even bother?
This would be a good exercise for some student to write a program doing
a dictionary attack on the text using the properties of the used font.

The last page has a puzzle, an "innocent text system" (steganography).
Didn't solve it yet, but I think I found the clue, a misspelling of "be
advised" to "he advised".

Thanks,
Marcus

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