Brief Outline: History of Cryptology

* Cryptology has been used since ancient times.

* There is not much known about the mathematical aspects of cryptology before the twentieth century (Koblitz).

* Around 50BC- Julius Caesar would send encrypted messages using the 3 letter shift method (Tapson).

* Leon Battista Albeti is considered the father of cryptology. Around the 1400s he wrote the treatise ‘De componendis cifris’: in it he embodied the example of polyalphabetic substitution with mixed alphabets and variable period. He is also attributed for being the inventor of “the earliest Western exposition of cryptanalysis, the invention of polyalphabetic substitution, and the invention of enciphered code” ( Barr).

* In 1586 a French diplomat Blaise de Vigenere published his description of a polyalphabetic cipher which was "considered practically impossible to be broken for almost four centuries"(History of Cryptography). During the nineteenth century, the Kaisiski's method was first published in "Die Geheimschriften und die Dechiffrierkunst”.

* During wars- Cryptanalysts needed to decode telegraph messages in order to prepared and know the plan of attack of the enemy (Morain).

* During the last fifty years, the development of computers have extended the link between computer science and mathematics, some new applications of cryptology have appear in electronic trade, money, and notarial deeds (Morian).