[Cryptography] RIP Claude Shannon

Jerry Leichter leichter at lrw.com
Tue Feb 23 17:48:07 EST 2016


>> At the time Shannon was working, we were fighting for our lives.  That tends to bring out actual leaders and actual understanding of the realities.  While politics is never absent, it's usually submerged somewhat when the survival of the country is at stake.  (At least it is in countries that survive....)
> 
> So far as I know, neither the Germans nor the Japanese used 1x pads (I seem to recall that there was a Japanese agent who tried, but didn't use good OPSEC & got caught).
> 
> The Soviets used them, but they were our *allies* during WWII.
In the period shortly after WW II, there was no doubt in anyone's mind that we were at war with the Soviets.  It just wasn't a shooting war - except perhaps in Greece and later in Korea.  Yes, there's tons of revisionist history on the issue today, but none of it matters to how things looked then.

Oh, and the Soviets may have been allies in WW II, but they were allies of convenience - competition with them (and deep spying) was well under way before the war.  (Of course, at the time the US was a relatively minor player on the world stage.)  Most of the Venona decrypts where of messages intercepted between 1942 and 1945 - i.e., *during the time the Soviets were allies*.

                                                        -- Jerry




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