"entrails" - 1 õppematerjal

TheCodeBreakers

Another important factor was the confusion of cryptology with the Jewish kabbalah. But, important as all these were, the view that cryptology is black magic in itself springs ultimately from a superficial resemblance between cryptology and divination. Extracting an intelligible message from ciphertext seemed to be exactly the same thing as obtaining knowledge by examining the flight of birds, the location of stars and planets, the length and intersections of lines in the hand, the entrails of sheep, the position of dregs in a teacup. In all of these, the wizard-like operator draws sense from grotesque, unfamiliar, and apparently meaningless signs. He makes known the unknown. All this stained cryptology so deeply with the dark hues of esoterism that some of them still persist, noticeably coloring the public image of cryptology. People still think cryptanalysis mysterious. Book dealers still list cryptology under "occult." And in 1940 the United States conferred