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Encryption Is As American As Apple Pie: The Founding Fathers Frequently Used It … And It Helped Win the Revolutionary War
Spying v. Privacy: An Ancient Battle
The NSA, FBI and other government agencies are pushing to outlaw encryption. And see this. On the other hand, most Americans want privacy.
This is the same battle fought by the Founding Fathers more than 2oo years ago.
After all, the NSA is doing to modern Americans what King George did to Colonial America … which was one of the main reasons the Founders launched the Revolution. And see this.
And Benjamin Franklin was called a traitor (like Edward Snowden) for blowing the whistle on the government’s actions.
Encryption During the Revolution
While encryption might seem like a new affair, it is actually very old school … and something which the Founding Fathers extensively used.
John Fraser noted in 1997 in the The Virginia Journal of Law and Technology (I’ve bolded names of Founding Fathers):
The generation of actors that framed the Constitution and the Bill of Rights were sophisticated users of secret communications, and … they used secret communications to protect and advance the political objectives that they most valued. Encryption was speech.
***
From the beginnings of the American Revolution in 1775 until the adoption of the United States Constitution, Americans used codes, ciphers and other secret writings to foment, support, and carry to completion a rebellion against the British government. In the words of one author, “America was born of revolutionary conspiracy.” Moreover, “[a]s rebels and conspirators, the young nation’s leaders … turned to codes and ciphers in an effort to preserve the confidentiality of their communications.” Americans also continued to use secret communications methods for purely private correspondence, and for political correspondence where a restricted audience was desired. The leading lights of the Revolution and the founding generation were frequent users of secret communications during the Revolution.
George Washington, as commander of the Continental Army, was forced to deal with encryption and espionage issues shortly after taking command of the Army when it was conducting a siege of the British forces in Boston…. Washington also was forced, through the circumstances of the War, to deal with encryption and decryption issues on a constant basis.
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John and Abigail Adams, his wife, used a cipher provided by James Lovell for family correspondence while John Adams was away from home.
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During the Revolution, [Thomas] Jefferson frequently made recourse to encrypted communications to protect his private thoughts, to convey confidential information, and to protect valuable political insights from prying eyes.
James Monroe … took a cipher with him to Paris in 1803, and used the cipher to communicate with Jefferson regarding the progress of negotiations concerning the Louisiana Purchase. A number of the codes that he used in communicating with Jefferson and others have survived.
James Madison was … a frequent and extensive user of secret communications during the Revolution, utilizing a number of different ciphers for private correspondence, correspondence with state officials in Virginia, and correspondence with fellow actors in the Revolution.
***
John Jay … used a secret code as early as October 1779, and he used a secret code to correspond, evidently on personal matters, while on government business in Europe, and was required to use a cipher for all significant diplomatic correspondence. Jay was instrumental early in the Revolution in obtaining “secret ink” from his brother James in London.
***
The “nomenclator” [i.e. cipher] used by [Benjamin] Harrison for correspondence with Madison and others has survived in the Virginia records, and much of the correspondence has been deciphered.
Edmund Randolph … and Madison conducted an extensive encrypted correspondence on private matters over a number of years.
William Lee … was the brother of Arthur and Richard Henry Lee, discussed infra. For correspondence between the brothers, a dictionary code was used.
***
While in Europe, Arthur Lee‘s encrypted correspondence and reports were repeatedly stolen or reviewed in transit by British espionage officers.
Richard Henry Lee, the third Lee brother in this paper, was a diplomat, Member of the Continental Congress, President of the Continental Congress, and United States Senator. The Lee brothers’ correspondence and their efforts to maintain secrecy are good examples of the wide knowledge and practical use of encryption from the Revolutionary era. It should also be noted that the Lee brothers’ enciphered correspondence remained unbroken until the 1920s, due to the complexity of the cipher.
Benjamin Franklin was not only the printer of the 1748 text on ciphers cited above, but was also a prominent diplomat, supporter of the Revolution, and inventor of a “homophonic substitution cypher” while representing the United States in Paris in 1781. Franklin worked with a number of other codes and ciphers in his international correspondence on behalf of the Continental Congress, and a number of examples of his coded correspondence have survived.
***
One of [Robert R.] Livingston‘s contributions to the Revolutionary cause was a 1700-part code that he designed for the Foreign Affairs Department in 1781. The same code was used for private correspondence as well as government business. Livingston sent George Washington a 1017-part code in 1782…. While Livingston was in Paris on government business in 1802, Jefferson sent him a private letter and a cipher that could be used for their correspondence.
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James Lovell … designed codes and ciphers for the Continental Congress and for use in private correspondence by members and their families. David Kahn refers to Lovell as the “Father of American Cryptanalysis.” One of Lovell’s codes was used by Madison and Randolph to replace a code that was compromised by a mail robbery.
***
John Laurens used the codes supplied to him by Robert Livingston while he was in France.
***
Numerous other examples of the use of ciphers and codes during and shortly after the Revolution could be provided, but the materials cited so far should amply demonstrate that the Revolutionary era was a time of intense use of ciphers and codes by the Founders.
Encryption After the Revolution
Fraser shows that the Founding Fathers continued their use of encrypted communication after the Revolutionary War:
After the adoption of the Constitution, and before the ratification of the Bill of Rights, codes, ciphers and other forms of secret communication were used by the Founders to speak freely only to those people they wanted to address. For example, in March 1789, after the Constitution was ratified and before the new President took office, George Washington corresponded with Henry Innes on the topic of the threatened secession of Kentucky from the newly-formed federal Union. Washington promised to send Innes a “cypher” for their correspondence, and enjoined Innes to use it to cover their concerted efforts to defeat the secessionists.
***
George Washington and the Marquis de Lafayette, a French nobleman and Brigadier General of the Continental Army under Washington, used a cipher for correspondence while LaFayette was in Paris in 1785.
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Another example from the period prior to the adoption of the Bill of Rights is compelling evidence of the importance of codes and ciphers to the Founders. While Jefferson was in Paris representing the new Republic, James Madison was a member of the House of Representatives. In the First Session of the First Congress, Madison introduced legislation that, when ratified by the states, became the Bill of Rights. The correspondence between Jefferson and Madison from the period covering the introduction and the Congressional debates over the Bill of Rights is partially enciphered. It is revealing that Jefferson’s August 28, 1789 letter to Madison in which he comments on the proposed First Amendment is partially enciphered, and that the comments about the text that became the First Amendment are contained in a paragraph immediately following a partially enciphered paragraph.
Prior to the adoption of the Bill of Rights, Madison and Jefferson also used a 1700-word code for confidential discussion of sensitive personal and political issues.
***
From 1791 through the patenting of Samuel Morse’s telegraph and beyond there has been widespread and common use of codes, ciphers, and other modes of secret communication. Perhaps the most compelling example of continued use of secret modes of communication is provided by the correspondence of James Madison and Thomas Jefferson during the administration of John Adams, who served as President from 1793 to 1801.
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There is evidence that Alexander Hamilton and his relatives and political associates used ciphers for secret communications at least between 1800 and 1803. On June 6, 1799, Hamilton’s father-in-law General Philip Schuyler wrote to Hamilton promising to send him a “cypher” for their correspondence. Hamilton wrote to Rufus King on January 5, 1800, conveying some information and indicating that he would wait for a cipher before communicating other information.
***
Aaron Burr, a former Vice President, sent a “political code” to Congressman Edward Livingston in 1806, and Burr and his associates used secret, enciphered correspondence ….
Before taking office as President in 1801, Jefferson invented one of the most sophisticated cipher devices of the Nineteenth Century. It was a “cipher cylinder,” and has been described as “far ahead of its time,” and as a device that “would have withstood any cryptographic attack of those days.”
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“In the years after 1780, Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, and a covey of other political leaders in the United States often wrote in code in order to protect their personal views on tense domestic issues confronting the American nation.
***
The need for secrecy and confidential communications has continued throughout American history.
The Courts Have Always Treated Encryption As Lawful
Fraser notes that the courts have always treated encryption as legal:
The Constitution protects all forms or types of expression or communication that meet the following three-part test. Those modes of expression or communication are protected which (1) are historically demonstrated to have been in widespread use as of the adoption of the Bill of Rights; which (2) are shown to have been sanctioned in use by the Framers of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights; and which (3) are shown to have long continued in use. Those modes of expression or communication which meet this three-part test may not be prohibited to the people, and may only be regulated when they are abused to accomplish some otherwise illegal purpose.
***
The courts have not treated those persons who have used encryption, ciphers, and codes with any presumption of illegality.
So the government is on the wrong side of history … and acting in an extremely anti-American manner. See this and this.
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It is good if US gov. says encryption is an isue.
They voice, that :
1. THEY ARE a BUNCH OF CRIMINALS.
2. THEY HAVE A PROBLEM.
3. USA is not a free country and has nothing to do with democracy.
the best encryption is no communication.
the JH15 full spectrum dominance system can decrypt ANYTHING you encrypt.
just sayin...don't get some warm & fuzzy sense of security.
correct.
and if u communicate, then use GnuPG & Linux & chineese HW.
Chineese HW is tight against NSA and FBI, sure not tight against chineese cops.
But I do not live in China and do not care about chineese cops, therefor is chineese HW the choice No.1 for me.
David Cameron is a total sell out of democracy and the people.
You have to wonder whats in it for these politicians. I think just to feel part of the 'in' group of 'Oligarch pets' gives them their thrill. A pat on the head from an Oligarch is enough for these politicians to sell out their country.
I can imagine that a phone call from Obama, Soros, Buffet etc etc must give Cameron a super hard raging horn, and if he could he would be trying to fuck their legs like a randy puppy dog.
Only criminal governments need spy on the people.
While I am pro encryption, and utilize it myself--I have even learned the math and methods of it--it is only a panacea against tyranny.
"No! requires no encryption, and should be loudly proclaimed in all directions.
Liberty requires no encryption, and should be exercised far and wide.
Guillotines require no encryption, and must be utilized widely.
Liberty is a demand. Tyranny is submission..
Sign on my guillotine: "Do you hear me now?!"
Amen George.
When that creep with the eye liner came out and said encryption was a threat to democracy I wanted to shoot the T.V.
Encryption? What the hell do you think you know that would be soooo important? Nothing raises a red flag in front of the NSA than the use of encrypted email. Question: Does the US produce any decent mathematics geniuses? Last time I checked, Matt Damon stuck with making movies about crazy scientists in space. And, y'all can't read...so what's the fuss?
Find me the NSA bot that can understand Lil'Wayne and anything that little runt yaps about in those damn videos.
The gathering of information on all people is useful to them if one of those people get into a useful position in life, and then can be taken advantage of.
Say if somebody is sending an email to a lover(s), cheating, expresses racism, homophobia, hatred toward a person or place...you know stuff that would be very embarassing to person in a position of authority.
THIS is why they want to gather everything, its a blackmail extortion tool of Govt. And it is no doubt already happening across all areas.
And of course what is to stop CIA/FBI/NSA then changing emails to make them look nastier? Say an email from 9 years ago...are you gonna have a copy.
Encryption? What the hell do you think you know that would be soooo important? Nothing raises a red flag in front of the NSA than the use of encrypted email. Question: Does the US produce any decent mathematics geniuses? Last time I checked, Matt Damon stuck with making movies about crazy scientists in space. And, y'all can't read...so what's the fuss?
Find me the NSA bot that can understand Lil'Wayne and anything that little runt yaps about in those damn videos.
Although using encryption does raise a red flag, it can also tie up the resources of a snooper. Since I do not like snoopers, I use PGP as much as I possibly can. And I have converted a few friends to using it in the past years.
Now a modest percentage of my communication is encrypted - plus I record many things in encrypted email that I send to myself. The more use of PGP you can generate, the harder it is for snoopers to work out which messages have anything that might interest them.
Many people do not realise that you can use Google email (or Hotmail or .... anyone) as your offsite storage for important records... just email them, encrypted, to yourself.
For a true paranoia approach, have a few email addresses, each with their own unique PGP setup, and split things up. One for stuff where you will hand on the keys to your executor as part of your estate, another for the family to be given access to after you die, and at least one that will never be revealed for your own private records.
Oh ... and have messages between the accounts too, and sometimes BCC from other places too.... the more random the arrangement, the less useful the metadata is.
Cool. I got to vote you down twice :)
You are correct in that we are not saying anything worth while, but please understand the Panopticon. When people know they are being watched, they don't act the same. We are only free to be and act as our true selves if big brother is not watching.
Unbreakable encryption is very easy but everyone is hung up on mathematical encryption. One time pads are almost unbreakable and work very well but the best method, and one of the older ones, is simply using two copies of a book. The NSA must know real spies don't use I-phones to communicate.
One-time pads are unbreakable if used properly.
A bit of a pain to set up, though.
I have this on good authority - someone who worked at Bletchley Park teaching those going behind German lines in WW2 how to use them.
The book method is pretty good too.
I encypt my thoughts, just in case they are reading my mind.
The will never know what I want for dinner.
Fear is their and our controlling tool. The government wants you to fear its knowledge and power. The government fears those it wants to control.
A defense is; "I encrypt because I know government lies to control. I cannot trust them to accurately report my words."
Never speak to the FBI because of their policy of not recording your answers with an agent writing what you said later. http://www.forbes.com/sites/harveysilverglate/2011/07/27/constructing-tr...
Never speak with the FBI. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgDsbjAYXcQ
Encrypt because the government can and will lie about what you said or wrote.
All government testimony is likely lies. All prosecutors removed in Orange County. http://www.lawlessamerica.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&...
This story fascinated me.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2226203/Skeleton-hero-World-War-...
One of my future projects is to start raising homing pigeons. When ZH is finally shut down, we will have communication between the FEMA camps.
Miffed;-)
..
The NSA, FBI and other government agencies are pushing to outlaw encryption. And see this. On the other hand, most Americanswant privacy.
The logic of this is simply that people are not permitted to have private thoughts. If you put your most private thoughs in writing, and encrypt them so none can read them, basically your private mind on paper........The FBI demands that they be able to read them.
One can imagine then that if there were a mind-reading technology that the NSA/FBI would demand that it be able to have it, and all are no longer permitted to hold private personal thoughts.
Worse is that fools trust what the government agencies might report of what you wrote.
Even the Romans used encryption - 2000 years ago.
Yeah, they called it Latin.
Well all them there are racist Foundin Fathers that we gotsta erase from history, blow up their monuments, and burn their rightins! The County was founded by rapin Africa and built on the backs of slaves!
So encription is bad bad bad. Obama is the Messiah and we gotta support him!
By every definition of the word they were terrorist.
encryption shit
The Matrix
corp
sold US out
This is not your father's socialism
..-. ..- -.-. -.- / -.-- --- ..- / -. ... .-
You forgot
-.-- . .-.. .-.. . -.
Morse is not really a code, just an alphabet, but I do agree with your sentiments
Question for George Washington:
Do you have any links to the actual encryption techniques used during this period in American history? I occasionally still make half-hearted attempts at cracking the 4th section of the Kryptos statue at the CIA...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kryptos
I already knew about Thomas Jefferson's work in cryptography.
https://franceshunter.wordpress.com/2011/09/07/thomas-jefferson-the-cryp...
Send me links for anything else you come across.
Encrypt or end up in crypt. State is enemy of individual and privacy.
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Earday SaNay, UckFAy OuYay!
Earday, BeeEyeFay, UckFAy OuYay!
EarDay, OtherMay UkingFay BamaOay, UckFay OuYay!
Earday, IACay, UckFAy OutYay!!
Iay opehay ouyay ieday nian uclearnay olochausthay enteredcay noay uorya ocatiionlay. Otaltay ninalationay nday bliterationoay.
Ucksay ethay niteduay mericanuay ollectivecay ockcay.
othermay uckersfay.
opehay ouyay ieday. Ooklay orfordfay otay diay.
Isskay ymay ssay.
{Edit, since we all know that 'hacking' totally collapses everything in our systems...and various codes are hacks of that system, and Zero Hedge has bazillions of idiots, that need feeding form time to time....so here's the secret translator ring, psst don't tell anyone!]
Dear NSA, Fuck you.
Dear FBI, fuck you.
Dear Mother Fucking Obama, Fuck you.
Dear CIA, Fuck you.
I hope you die in a nuclear holocaust directly centered on your location. Total annihilation and obliteration.
Suck the united american collective cock.
Mother fuckers.
Hope you die. Look forward to the day.
Kiss my ass.
[EDIT] When I was a Marine boot, they gave us a test on morse code. After all the other guys in my platoon, 1978, left I was given morse in a speed that was super human. I had only heard morse that fast from the old Blauplunkt we used to listen to when there was no UHF televison reception (often back in the late 70's in the middle of no where). Back in the day, I could read, interpret, and transcript almost instantaneously as morse was sent. Except for shit sent through that Blauplunckt. The speed of transmission was so fast I had no way to keep up. Marine basic top test had the same speed...I was lost. Last asshole standing and I didn't make the cut. Today, I can barely recogonize ...---...
Pathetic.
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This time it's different.......
"Wolf! Wolf! The Wolf is chasing the sheep!" said the shephard boy.
Sounds like Duckduckgo will get a boost out of this.