View source for Timeline of cryptography

{{short description|None}}

{{more citations needed|date=November 2016}}
Below is a timeline of notable events related to [[cryptography]].

==B.C.==
* 36th century{{snd}} The [[Sumerian language|Sumerian]]s develop ''[[Cuneiform script|cuneiform]]'' writing and the Egyptians develop ''[[Egyptian hieroglyphs|hieroglyphic]]'' writing.
* 16th century{{snd}} The [[Phoenicia]]ns develop an [[Phoenician alphabet|alphabet]]
* 600-500{{snd}} [[Hebrew (language)|Hebrew]] scholars make use of simple monoalphabetic substitution ciphers (such as the [[Atbash cipher]])
* c. 400{{snd}} Spartan use of [[scytale]] (alleged)
* c. 400{{snd}} [[Herodotus]] reports use of [[steganography]] in reports to [[Greece]] from [[Persia]] ([[tattoo]] on shaved head) 
* 100-1 A.D.- Notable Roman ciphers such as the [[Caesar cipher]].

==1–1799 A.D.==
* 801–873 A.D.{{snd}} [[Cryptanalysis]] and [[Frequency analysis (cryptanalysis)|frequency analysis]] leading to techniques for breaking monoalphabetic substitution ciphers are developed in ''A Manuscript on Deciphering Cryptographic Messages'' by the [[Mathematics in medieval Islam|Muslim mathematician]], [[Al-Kindi]] (Alkindus), who may have been inspired by textual analysis of the [[Qur'an]]. He also covers methods of [[Cipher|encipherments]], cryptanalysis of certain encipherments, and [[Statistics|statistical]] analysis of letters and letter combinations in [[Arabic language|Arabic]].
* 1450{{snd}} The Chinese develop wooden block [[movable type]] printing.
* 1450–1520{{snd}} The [[Voynich manuscript]], an example of a possibly encoded illustrated book, is written.
* 1466{{snd}} [[Leon Battista Alberti]] invents [[polyalphabetic cipher]], also first known mechanical cipher machine
* 1518{{snd}} [[Johannes Trithemius]]' book on cryptology
* 1553{{snd}} Bellaso invents [[Vigenère cipher]]
* 1585{{snd}} Vigenère's book on ciphers
* 1586{{snd}} Cryptanalysis used by [[spymaster]] [[Francis Walsingham|Sir Francis Walsingham]] to implicate [[Mary, Queen of Scots]], in the [[Babington Plot]] to murder [[Elizabeth I of England]]. Queen Mary was eventually executed.
* 1641{{snd}} Wilkins' ''Mercury'' (English book on cryptology)
* 1793{{snd}} [[Claude Chappe]] establishes the first long-distance [[Semaphore line|semaphore telegraph line]]
* 1795{{snd}} [[Thomas Jefferson]] invents the [[Jefferson disk]] cipher, reinvented over 100 years later by [[Etienne Bazeries]]

==1800–1899==
* 1809–14 [[George Scovell]]'s work on Napoleonic ciphers during the [[Peninsular War]]
* 1831{{snd}} [[Joseph Henry]] proposes and builds an [[electric telegraph]]
* 1835{{snd}} [[Samuel Morse]] develops the [[Morse code]]
* 1854{{snd}} [[Charles Wheatstone]] invents the [[Playfair cipher]]
* c. 1854{{snd}} [[Babbage]]'s method for breaking polyalphabetic ciphers (pub 1863 by [[Kasiski]])
* 1855{{snd}} For the English side in [[Crimean War]], [[Charles Babbage]] broke Vigenère's autokey cipher (the 'unbreakable cipher' of the time) as well as the much weaker cipher that is called [[Vigenère cipher]] today. Due to secrecy it was also discovered and attributed somewhat later to the Prussian Friedrich Kasiski.
* 1883{{snd}} [[Auguste Kerckhoffs]]' ''La Cryptographie militare'' published, containing his celebrated [[Kerckhoffs' principle|laws of cryptography]]
* 1885{{snd}} [[Beale ciphers]] published
* 1894{{snd}} The [[Dreyfus Affair]] in [[France]] involves the use of cryptography, and its misuse, in regard to false documents.

==1900–1949==
* 1916-1922{{snd}} [[William Friedman]] and [[Elizebeth Smith Friedman]] apply [[statistics]] to cryptanalysis (coincidence counting, etc.), write [[Riverbank Publications]]
* 1917{{snd}} [[Gilbert Vernam]] develops first practical implementation of a [[Teleprinter|teletype]] cipher, now known as a [[stream cipher]] and, later, with [[Joseph Mauborgne]] the [[one-time pad]]
* 1917{{snd}} [[Zimmermann telegram]] intercepted and decrypted, advancing U.S. entry into [[World War I]]
* 1919{{snd}} [[Weimar Germany]] Foreign Office adopts (a manual) one-time pad for some traffic
* 1919{{snd}} [[Edward Hebern]] invents/patents first rotor machine design—Damm, Scherbius and Koch follow with patents the same year 
* 1921{{snd}} [[Washington Naval Conference]]{{snd}} U.S. negotiating team aided by decryption of [[Japan]]ese diplomatic telegrams
* c. 1924{{snd}} MI8 ([[Herbert Yardley]], et al.) provide breaks of assorted traffic in support of US position at [[Washington Naval Conference]]
* c. 1932{{snd}} first break of German Army [[Enigma machine|Enigma]] by [[Marian Rejewski]] in Poland
* 1929{{snd}} [[United States Secretary of State]] [[Henry L. Stimson]] shuts down State Department cryptanalysis "Black Chamber", saying "Gentlemen do not read each other's mail."
* 1931{{snd}} ''The American Black Chamber'' by [[Herbert O. Yardley]] is published, revealing much about American cryptography
* 1940{{snd}} Break of Japan's [[PURPLE]] machine cipher by [[Signals Intelligence Service|SIS]] team
* December 7, 1941{{snd}} [[attack on Pearl Harbor]]; [[U.S. Navy]] base at [[Pearl Harbor]] in [[Oahu]] is surprised by Japanese attack, despite U.S. breaking of Japanese codes. U.S. enters [[World War II]].
* June 1942{{snd}} [[Battle of Midway]] where U.S. partial break into Dec 41 edition of [[JN-25]] leads to turning-point victory over Japan
* April 1943{{snd}} [[Admiral Yamamoto]], architect of Pearl Harbor attack, is assassinated by U.S. forces who know his itinerary from decoded messages
* April 1943{{snd}} [[Max Newman]], Wynn-Williams, and their team (including [[Alan Turing]]) at the secret Government Code and Cypher School ('Station X'), [[Bletchley Park]], Bletchley, England, complete the "Heath Robinson". This is a specialized machine for cipher-breaking, not a general-purpose calculator or computer.
* December 1943{{snd}} The [[Colossus computer]] was built, by [[Tommy Flowers|Thomas Flowers]] at The Post Office Research Laboratories in [[London]], to crack the German [[Lorenz cipher]] (SZ42). Colossus was used at Bletchley Park during World War II{{snd}} as a successor to April's 'Robinson's. Although 10 were eventually built, unfortunately they were destroyed immediately after they had finished their work{{snd}} it was so advanced that there was to be no possibility of its design falling into the wrong hands.
* 1944{{snd}} Patent application filed on [[SIGABA]] code machine used by U.S. in World War II.  Kept secret, it finally issues in 2001
* 1946{{snd}} The [[Venona project]]'s first break into Soviet espionage traffic from the early 1940s
* 1948{{snd}} [[Claude Shannon]] writes a paper that establishes the mathematical basis of [[information theory]].
* 1949{{snd}} Shannon's ''[[Communication Theory of Secrecy Systems]]'' published in Bell Labs Technical Journal

==1950–1999==
* 1951{{snd}} U.S. [[National Security Agency]] founded. [[KL-7]] rotor machine introduced sometime thereafter.
* 1957{{snd}} First production order for [[KW-26]] electronic encryption system.
* August 1964{{snd}} [[Gulf of Tonkin Incident]] leads U.S. into [[Vietnam War]], possibly due to misinterpretation of signals intelligence by NSA.
*1967{{snd}} [[David Kahn (writer)|David Kahn]]'s ''The Codebreakers'' is published.
* 1968{{snd}} [[John Anthony Walker]] walks into the [[Soviet Union]]'s embassy in Washington and sells information on [[KL-7]] cipher machine. The Walker spy ring operates until 1985.
* 1969{{snd}} The first hosts of [[ARPANET]], Internet's ancestor, are connected.
* 1970{{snd}} Using [[quantum state]]s to encode information is first proposed: [[Stephen Wiesner]] invents [[conjugate coding]] and applies it to design “money physically impossible to counterfeit” (still technologically unfeasible today).
* 1974?{{snd}} [[Horst Feistel]] develops [[Feistel network]] [[block cipher]] design.
* 1976{{snd}} The [[Data Encryption Standard]] published as an official [[Federal Information Processing Standard]] (FIPS) for the United States.
* 1976{{snd}} [[Diffie]] and [[Martin Hellman|Hellman]] publish ''[[New Directions in Cryptography]]''.
* 1977{{snd}} [[RSA (algorithm)|RSA]] public key encryption invented.
* 1978{{snd}} [[Robert McEliece]] invents the [[McEliece cryptosystem]], the first asymmetric encryption algorithm to use randomization in the encryption process.
* 1981{{snd}} [[Richard Feynman]] proposed [[quantum computers]]. The main application he had in mind was the simulation of quantum systems, but he also mentioned the possibility of solving other problems.
* 1984{{snd}} Based on [[Stephen Wiesner]]'s idea from the 1970s, [[Charles H. Bennett (computer scientist)|Charles Bennett]] and [[Gilles Brassard]] design the first [[quantum cryptography]] protocol, [[BB84]].
* 1985{{snd}} Walker spy ring uncovered. Remaining KL-7's withdrawn from service.
* 1986{{snd}} After an increasing number of break-ins to government and corporate computers, United States Congress passes the ''[[Computer Fraud and Abuse Act]]'', which makes it a crime to break into computer systems. The law, however, does not cover juveniles.
* 1988{{snd}} [[African National Congress]] uses computer-based [[one-time pad]]s to build a network inside South Africa.
* 1989{{snd}} [[Tim Berners-Lee]] and [[Robert Cailliau]] built the prototype system which became the [[World Wide Web]] at [[CERN]].
* 1989{{snd}} [[Quantum cryptography]] experimentally demonstrated in a proof-of-the-principle experiment by [[Charles H. Bennett (computer scientist)|Charles Bennett]] et al.
* 1991{{snd}} [[Phil Zimmermann]] releases the [[public key]] encryption program [[Pretty Good Privacy|PGP]] along with its source code, which quickly appears on the Internet.
* 1994{{snd}} [[Bruce Schneier]]'s ''Applied Cryptography'' is published.
* 1994{{snd}} [[Secure Sockets Layer]] (SSL) encryption protocol released by [[Netscape]].
* 1994{{snd}} [[Peter Shor]] devises an algorithm which lets quantum computers determine the [[factorization]] of large integers quickly. This is the first interesting problem for which quantum computers promise a significant speed-up, and it therefore generates a lot of interest in quantum computers.
* 1994{{snd}} [[DNA computing]] proof of concept on toy [[travelling salesman problem]]; a method for input/output still to be determined.
* 1994{{snd}} Russian crackers siphon $10 million from [[Citibank]] and transfer the money to bank accounts around the world. [[Vladimir Levin (hacker)|Vladimir Levin]], the 30-year-old ringleader, uses his work laptop after hours to transfer the funds to accounts in Finland and Israel. Levin stands trial in the United States and is sentenced to three years in prison. Authorities recover all but $400,000 of the stolen money.
* 1994{{snd}} Formerly proprietary, but un-patented, [[RC4]] cipher algorithm is published on the Internet.
* 1994{{snd}} First [[RSA Factoring Challenge]] from 1977 is decrypted as [[The Magic Words are Squeamish Ossifrage]].
* 1995{{snd}} NSA publishes the [[SHA1]] hash algorithm as part of its [[Digital Signature Standard]].
* July 1997{{snd}} [[OpenPGP]] specification (RFC 2440) released
* 1997{{snd}} [[Ciphersaber]], an encryption system based on RC4 that is simple enough to be reconstructed from memory, is published on [[Usenet]].
* October 1998{{snd}} [[Digital Millennium Copyright Act]] (DMCA) becomes law in U.S., criminalizing production and dissemination of technology that can circumvent technical measures taken to protect copyright.
* October 1999{{snd}} [[DeCSS]], a computer program capable of decrypting content on a [[DVD]], is published on the Internet.

==2000 and beyond==
* January 14, 2000{{snd}} U.S. Government announce restrictions on [[export of cryptography]] are relaxed (although not removed). This allows many US companies to stop the long running process of having to create US and international copies of their software.
* March 2000{{snd}} [[President of the United States]] [[Bill Clinton]] says he doesn't use e-mail to communicate with his daughter, Chelsea Clinton, at college because he doesn't think the medium is secure.
* September 6, 2000{{snd}} [[RSA Security]] Inc. released their RSA algorithm into the public domain, a few days in advance of their {{US patent|4405829}} expiring. Following the relaxation of the U.S. government export restrictions, this removed one of the last barriers to the worldwide distribution of much software based on cryptographic systems
* 2000{{snd}} UK [[Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000|Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act]] requires anyone to supply their cryptographic key to a duly authorized person on request
* 2001{{snd}} [[Belgium|Belgian]] Rijndael algorithm selected as the U.S. [[Advanced Encryption Standard]] (AES) after a five-year public search process by  [[National Institute of Standards and Technology]] (NIST)
* 2001{{snd}} Scott Fluhrer, Itsik Mantin and [[Adi Shamir]] publish an attack on [[WiFi]]'s [[Wired Equivalent Privacy]] security layer
* September 11, 2001{{snd}} U.S. response to terrorist attacks hampered by [[Communication during the September 11, 2001 attacks|lack of secure communications]]
* November 2001{{snd}} [[Microsoft]] and its allies vow to end "full disclosure" of security vulnerabilities by replacing it with [[Responsible disclosure|"responsible" disclosure guidelines]]
* 2002{{snd}} [[NESSIE]] project releases final report / selections
* August 2002, PGP Corporation formed, purchasing assets from NAI.
* 2003{{snd}} [[CRYPTREC]] project releases 2003 report / recommendations
* 2004{{snd}} The hash [[MD5]] is shown to be vulnerable to practical collision attack
* 2004{{snd}} The first commercial [[quantum cryptography]] system becomes available from [[id Quantique]].
* 2005{{snd}} Potential for attacks on SHA1 demonstrated
* 2005{{snd}} Agents from the U.S. [[FBI]] demonstrate their ability to crack [[Wired Equivalent Privacy|WEP]] using publicly available tools
* May 1, 2007{{snd}} Users swamp [[Digg|Digg.com]] with copies of a 128-bit [[key (cryptography)|key]] to the [[Advanced Access Content System|AACS]] system used to protect [[HD DVD]] and [[Blu-ray]] video discs. The [[AACS encryption key controversy|user revolt]] was a response to Digg's decision, subsequently reversed, to remove the keys, per demands from the [[MPAA|motion picture industry]] that cited the U.S. [[DMCA]] anti-circumvention provisions.<ref>{{Cite news |url=http://www.infoworld.com/article/2663690/security/digg-bends-to-users--will-on-aacs-encryption-key.html |title=Digg bends to users' will on AACS encryption key |author=Sumner Lemon |accessdate=13 November 2016 |date=2 May 2007 |work=InfoWorld }}</ref>
* November 2, 2007{{snd}} [[NIST hash function competition]] announced.
* 2009{{snd}} [[Bitcoin]] network was launched.
* 2010{{snd}} The master key for [[High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection]] (HDCP) and the private signing key for the Sony [[PlayStation 3]] game console are recovered and published using separate cryptoanalytic attacks. PGP Corp. is acquired by [[NortonLifeLock|Symantec]].
* 2012{{snd}} [[NIST]] selects the ''Keccak'' algorithm as the winner of its [[SHA-3]] hash function competition.
* 2013{{snd}} [[Edward Snowden]] discloses a vast trove of classified documents from NSA. ''See'' [[Global surveillance disclosures (2013–present)]]
* 2013{{snd}} [[Dual_EC_DRBG]] is discovered to have a NSA [[backdoor (computing)|backdoor]].
* 2013{{snd}} NSA publishes [[Simon (cipher)|Simon]] and [[Speck (cipher)|Speck]] lightweight block ciphers.
* 2014{{snd}} The [[Password Hashing Competition]] accepts 24 entries.
* 2015{{snd}} Year by which [[NIST]] suggests that 80-bit keys be phased out.
* 2024{{snd}} August 13th 2024 - [[NIST]] releases first 3 finalized post-quantum encryption standards.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.nist.gov/news-events/news/2024/08/nist-releases-first-3-finalized-post-quantum-encryption-standards |title=NIST post-quantum encryption standards | author=Chad Boutin| accessdate=19 August 2024| date=13 August 2024| work=NIST.gov }}</ref>

==See also==
* [[History of cryptography]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
* [http://users.telenet.be/d.rijmenants/en/timeline.htm Timeline of Cipher Machines] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211006070626/http://users.telenet.be/d.rijmenants/en/timeline.htm |date=2021-10-06 }}

{{Timelines of computing}}

[[Category:Computing timelines|Cryptography]]
[[Category:History of cryptography]]
[[Category:Cryptography lists and comparisons]]