Auguste Kerckhoffs

Jean Guillaume Auguste Victor François Hubert Kerckhoffs of Nieuwenhof ( born January 19, 1835 in Nuth (now the Netherlands), † 1903 in Paris ) was a Dutch linguist and cryptographer.

He shortened his name when he took up his studies at the Université de Liège (Liège ), from which he graduated with Docteur en lettres. He stayed some time in France and the Netherlands, where he worked as a teacher of German at the École des Hautes Études Commerciales in Paris and the École Arago.

Kerckhoffs as a cryptologist

His treatise La Cryptography militaire he work finally published in 1883 after two years, is a milestone of cryptography of the 19th century, which was then engaged in confidential communications over telegraph lines.

The work includes Kerckhoffs ' principle for the "strategic cryptology ", after understanding damaligem a military science. It will set up additional rules and requirements for confidential communications:

  • An encrypted message may not be efficient to decipher without a key;
  • The communication partner may suffer harm if the encryption system is known;
  • The key must be easy to remember and be interchangeable;
  • The cryptograms must be transferable, which was then called " telegraphierbar " his;
  • The Chiffrierapparat and the documents must be transportable;
  • The system must be easy to use ( without expert assistance);
  • The cipher should be well studied by experts.

The first inventors of cipher machines, these findings should hardly have been known: Edward Hugh lifters (1869-1952), Artur Scherbius (1878-1929), Hugo A. Koch (1870-1928) - as a Dutchman already more possible - and Arvid Damm (1881? -1928 ).

These rules, if one makes a careful interpretation of problems of today, is still valid. The easy-to -remember key would be more of a password or a PIN today. Transportability is for software solutions, of course, given trivial in hardware (for example, implementation on smart cards ) but also still a challenge.

Kerckhoffs as Inter Linguist

As of 1885, Kerckhoffs for the world auxiliary language Volapük became interested and was for some years also Volapük Secrétaire général de l' Association française pour la propagation du. He propagated this in Spain and Scandinavia and published a textbook. Differences over a simplification of the Volapük led to a break with its creator, the priest Johann Martin Schleyer, who wanted to know his rights to the language preserved. This resulted in a cleavage of the Volapük.

Works

  • Auguste Kerckhoffs: La cryptographie militaire. Journal of Sciences and Military, Vol 9, pp. 5-38, January 1883, pp. 161-191, Feb. 1883 PDF. ; 0.5 MB
  • La Militaire Cryptography, Ou, Des Chiffre Usits En Temps de Guerre: Avec Un Nouveau ProCD de Dechiffrement Applicable Aux system Double Clef. New edition. Publisher: Nabu Press (February 23, 2010) ISBN 978-1145264670
  • International Commercial Language: Abridged Grammar of Volapük. New edition. Publisher: BiblioBazaar (17 July 2009) ISBN 978-1113311931
  • Examination critique de la Langue Musicale Universelle de Sudre

Source

  • Biography Auguste Kerkhoffs
  • Auguste Kerhoffs Biography
  • Cryptologist
  • Military person (Netherlands)
  • Netherlander
  • Born in 1835
  • Died in 1903
  • Man
Verbal arithmetic Edward Hebern Arvid Gerhard Damm Integrated Authority File
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