DAN TOMA DULCIU 500 Years of Romanian Cryptography

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500 YEARS OF ROMANIAN CRYPTOGTOGRAPHY

This study is dedicated to celebrating The first Book of Cryptography in Romania . (1511 2011)

500 Years of Romanian Cryptography

- The

Romanian scholars of the Middle Ages mastered enough cryptography

as historical documents dating back to the 15th and 16th centuries prove it: The Psalm of Scheia, The Codex of Voronet, The Common Worship Texts of Evstatie, the Chorister of Putna (1511) - The documents also show that the copysts used some encoded writing on a daily basis in the SCRIPTORIA of Moldavia. - They prove that in some church schools Cryptography was a subject for study in a Quadrivium type curriculum.

500 Years of Romanian Cryptography

-In Walachia, the Romanian School of Cryptography has been under the Byzantine influence. - These influences were passed down by Christian Ortodox clergymen who were in contact with various spiritual training centers, the core of which was probably the Patriarchal Academy of Constantinople.

500 Years of Romanian Cryptography

- In Moldavia, cryptographic practice could be found mainly among Jesuits monks who knew encoded writing and a part of them were close to the Moldavian Court.

500 Years of Romanian Cryptography

-The greatest encyclopedists of the late 17th and 18th centuries, Nicolae Milescu (1665), Constantin Cantacuzino (1667) and Dimitrie Cantemir (author of The Hieroglyphic History), used cryptograhic science in theyr chancellery to encode the diplomatic correspondence. -Dimitrie Cantemir has a famous mentor in this field: Greek monk Ieremia Cacavelas, a polylglot theologian, philosoper and preacher, who has studied at the Universities of Leipzig and Viena.

500 Years of Romanian Cryptography

The development of the Romanian Cryptography depended on the following two factors: 1. The existence of a functional diplomatic institution;

2. The development of a fast and a secure communication network.

500 Years of Romanian Cryptography

- The end of 17th century and the beginning of the next century marked the official birth of the function of cryptographer and of the so-called black chamber .
- They functioned within the Romanian Princes Courts in Moldavia and Walachia.

500 Years of Romanian Cryptography

cryptographers specialised in reading and breaking the seals of diplomatic letters, were foreign citizens, who knew Greek, Turkish, Latin, French, Polish, Russian, German or Italian.
- The

500 Years of Romanian Cryptography

-During the 18th century, the first Masonic Lodges in Romania, like the one established by Anton Maria del Chiaro (1734), highly valued the secret writing. - The next century, the revolutionary movements such as ETERIA and FRATIA (The Brotherhood) were using encrypted writing, as means of protecting the secrecy of their activities.

500 Years of Romanian Cryptography

-Alexandru Ioan Cuza, the founder of United Romanian Principalities (1859), used the encoded diplomatic correspondence as an attribute of sovereignty. -The oldest surviving code book created by French specialists can currently be found at the National Library - Dictionnaire Ciffre - dated 1863. -The Prince Alexandru Ioan Cuza turned to French cryptographers

who provided consultancy for the Romanian authorities.

-So that, for nearly 80 years, Romania has used diplomatic codes of French inspiration.

500 Years of Romanian Cryptography

- Even after the arrival to the throne of Prince Charles of Hohenzollern, the Romanian officers continued to be sent to famous military schools in France, so the Romanian School of Cryptography is tributary to the French School of Cryptography as thought and practice. - This cooperation increased especially during the 1877 Independence War when the Romanian Army was the first in the world to use codes on the battlefield.

500 Years of Romanian Cryptography

-Around World War II, the Romanian cryptography goes through two important moments, namely the first attempt to legally regulate this field, resulting in the unitary organization of the State Encryption System (1940), and the creation of the first
Romanian cipher machine, a local replica of the famous Enigma code machine.

500 Years of Romanian Cryptography

- After the end of Second World War, Romania was forced for 15 years to follow the Soviet model of the rules and principles governing encryption. - Post 1960, Romania started to promote a national policy, so the first step was the field of Cryptology. Since 1964, the state authorities

gradually proceeded to produce cryptographic equipment by their own means.

- The Romanian schools of mathematics provided the theoretical support and the human potential to have been used in Cryptology in Romania.

500 Years of Romanian Cryptography

- In the mid -70, Romania acquired western telecommunications

equipment, made by prestigious companies, technical devices and components being used for national enryption system. -For internal or less important lines of communications, Romania produced cryptographic machines and developed new technologies. -At the end of 1966, a new legislation that unitary regulated the crytologic activity appeared and it remained in force for almost 25 years, but was substantially modified after the transformations that took place post 1989 in Romania.

500 Years of Romanian Cryptography

Telecommunication systems
- As a result of interest of the two European poles of power of the mid 19th century (France and Austria) to have communications lines in this part of the continent, Romania quickly became part in a pan-european telegraph network. - So, we can say that, in the mid 19th century, the emergence of the communications network in Romania was quasi - synchronic with the Central European communications system, placing our country in the first echelon of the technologically advanced countries in Europa.

500 Years of Romanian Cryptography

Achievements
We can divide the history of contemporary Romanian Cryptology in the following periods:
1859 1866: Alexandru Ioan Cuza 1914 1944: Interwar period 1944 - 1967: The Cold War period 1967 1989: The begining of modern Romanian Cryptology Today : The advanced Cryptology.

500 Years of Romanian Cryptography

1859 - 1866
Under the Alexandru Ioan Cuzas rule:
- During the Alexandru Ioan Cuzas rule the first modern diplomatic agencies were

settled and the groundwork was laid for the state encryption and the signals service. - The first pieces of legislation regulated the activity of the telegraphs and post office in Romania, according to which the transmission of communications by electric wires become a state monopoly (1865). - The printing of the first modern cryptographic book: Elie Bosianu, Coordinated Stenography and Cryprography Treaty in Romanian, Bucharest, 1864

500 Years of Romanian Cryptography

1914 1944 Interwar period

- In the World War I, Romanian Criptographic Service was the first in the world to encode with a double encryption the texts of the most secret messages. - 1940 unifying of the Romanian cipher services and the settlement of the Permanent Commision of the State Cipher. -The first Romanian Cipher Machine; inventor- Petre Lupan. Patent no: 31391/1940. The documentation of this invention is currently in the State Office for Inventions and Trademarks (OSIM) archive, in Bucharest.

500 Years of Romanian Cryptography

1944 1965 Cold War Period

-At the legal level, we assist at the first atempts to organize the whole activity of the cryptologic field in Romania; so, the most important achievement was the settlement of the Central Cipher Service. -As a result of the foreign pressure, for a few years, a secret division called the Special Records Division (SRD) was established as an independent body to the Council of Ministers. - In the mid 60th of the last century, most of the official transmissions have been carried out using Romanian cryptographic materials. The random character of these materials was verified with the only powerful computer ELLIOT 802 in Hunedoara Town.

500 Years of Romanian Cryptography

1967 1989

The begining of modern Romanian Cryptology.

1967 The Central Cipher and Encrypted Communication Service (HCM 3074/1967) provided a unitary framework for cryptologic activities. - In the next years a lot of legal regulations have been adopted in order to provide the security of the diplomatic representative offices of Romania abroad, especially the cipher activity. - During that period, the both sides of Cryptology were developed: Encryption - the defensive side of the protection of the confidential informations, and Codebreaking as an ofensive side. - After 1989, these fascinating activities involving mathematical, philological and other investigations, have had spectacular results in collecting important and safe confidential informations, continuied on a higher scientific plane and with highly-performing IT means.

500 Years of Romanian Cryptography

Today

Advanced Cryptology
scientific and applicative research within the Departament of Cryptology was performed by Romanian Foreign Intelligence Service (SIE)
- Many

- In the same time, Romanian research at the academic and university level had a major contribution to the development of Cryptology in Romania.
- Many specialists, teachers and professionals held a lot of lectures on topics pertaining to the field of information technology, many of them with references to Cryptology.

500 Years of Romanian Cryptography

Conclusions
- The Five Centuries of Romanian Cryptography that we are now celebrating have seen a positive, encouraging development, in line with the evolution of this science in the whole world. - The name of a great cryptologist, such as William Friedman, or the activity of many mathematicians in our country togheter with theyr colegues who work with dozen of prestige Universities across the Ocean testify to the Romanian valuable contribution in this field.