Real Life Cryptology / Benedek Lang.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Láng, Benedek, 1974- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Cryptography--Hungary--History.

Cryptography.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (224 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Amsterdam : Amsterdam University Press, [2018]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

A large number of enciphered documents survived from early modern Hungary. This area was a particularly fertile territory where cryptographic methods proliferated, because a large portion of the population was living in the frontier zone, and participated (or was forced to participate) in the network of the information flow. A quantitative analysis of sixteenth-century to seventeenth-century Hungarian ciphers (300 cipher keys and 1,600 partly or entirely enciphered letters) reveals that besides the dominance of diplomatic use of cryptography, there were many examples of ŸprivateŒ applications too. This book reconstructs the main reasons and goals why historical actors chose to use ciphers in a diplomatic letter, a military order, a diary or a private letter, what they decided to encrypt, and how they perceived the dangers threatening their messages.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Table of contents

Abbreviations

Note on terminology

Note on names

1. Introduction

2. Uncovered fields in the research literature

3. Secret writings and attitudes - research questions

4. Theory and practice of cryptography in early modern Europe

5. Ciphers in Hungary: the source material

6. Ciphers in action

7. Ways of knowledge transfer

8. Scenes of secrecy

9. Summary

10. Appendix

Acknowledgements

Earlier publications

Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

This eBook is made available Open Access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0https://www.aup.nl/en/publish/open-access

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 30. Apr 2019)

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

9789048536696

9048536693

OCLC:

1076750916