[2010] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
Re: Cryptographer examines Kaczynski's journal
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Jim Gillogly)
Sat Dec 27 16:47:48 1997
Date: Sat, 27 Dec 1997 04:39:31 -0800
From: Jim Gillogly <jim@acm.org>
To: "Perry's crypto list" <cryptography@c2.net>
William Knowles quoted John Howard's AP article:
> Sources familiar with the journal describe it as a sophisticated
> jumble of numbers, an intricate enigma wrapped in a riddle ...
>
> But code experts aren't so sure. They believe Kaczynski, who shunned
> computers and electronic devices in his cabin without electricity,
> may actually have cloaked the journal in a ``hand code'' that would
> have been relatively easy to break, even without the key.
...
> ``A checkerboard cipher with nothing else going on is no harder to
> crack than the simple substitution system used in a newspaper,''
> added James Gillogly, president of the American Cryptogram Assoc.
> He is an employee of the Westwood-based Mentat Inc., which develops
> security software.
I did say the latter, but the "aren't so sure" part above is an
overstatement insofar as it suggests doubt in the conclusions of
those who have seen the journal. I haven't seen the journal, and
have no opinion on the cipher's sophistication. I was asked
whether a numeric hand cipher is inherently more difficult to solve
than an alphabetic one, and I responded that it's not: that either
numeric or alphabetic hand ciphers can be dead simple or
very complex, depending on the amount of effort the writer is
willing to undertake. I do not conjecture that Kaczynski's
cipher was a checkerboard; I simply used that as an example of a
simple numeric cipher.
--
Jim Gillogly
Mersday, 5 Afteryule S.R. 1998, 12:22
12.19.4.14.5, 2 Chicchan 3 Kankin, Sixth Lord of Night
