The Wall Street Journal has a good story on a cryptologist, Lawren Smithline, that has deciphered a 200 year old encrypted message sent to President Thomas Jefferson. The message was sent to President Jefferson from his good friend and mathematician, Robert Patterson, so show off Patterson’s new encryption algorithm that would “defy the united ingenuity of the whole human race” and was made up of “upwards of ninety millions of millions” potential combinations.
For the 19th Century, the encryption algorithm was advanced and would have required many hours of time to decipher, but in the 21st century we have computers so Smithline wrote an application using genetic programming algorithms and in less than 100 instructions found the key that decrypted the message. The WSJ has a created a media clip that visually explains the encryption algorithm.
In the end, the encrypted message contained the following plain-text:
In Congress, July Fourth, one thousand seven hundred and seventy six. A declaration by the Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled. When in the course of human events…
Which is the beginning of the Declaration of Independence which President Jefferson was a primary author of. Oh, the irony. Stories like these make me want to get back into cryptology. I enjoyed the days in my youth when I spent time playing with ciphers.
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