TheCodeBreakers
other hand, work upon particles of a text cut up without regard to
linguistic functions. From this analogy, scrambler methods of modifying
speech are called "ciphony" (from "cipher" plus "telephony"). The field of
secret voice communication as a whole may be termed "cryptophony."
Though it was only in World War II that scramblers came into
widespread use, and only in that war that serious attempts began to be
made to solve scrambled speech, devices to assure telephonic secrecy
had been in existence almost as long as the telephone itself. The
granddaddy of these was patented on December 20, 1881, only five years
after Bell obtained his patent on the telephone. Its inventor, 25-year-old
James Harris Rogers, an American electrical pioneer who was then chief
electrician for the Capitol, wrote: "My invention consists in throwing a
message sent from any transmitting instrument through two or more
circuits alternately in rapid succession . . . in such a manner that
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