Etienne Bazeries
Etienne Bazeries (born the August 21st 1846 and dead the November 7th 1931) was a military Cryptanalyste French active between 1890 and the First World War. It is more known to have developed the cylinder of Bazeries, a version improved of the Cylindre of Jefferson. The apparatus of coding M-94 of the US Army profited from it later.
The historian David Kahn describes it like “the pragmatist of cryptology. Its contributions on the theory were unimportant, but it was one of best the cryptanalystes natural than science knew. ” (Kahn 1996, p244).
Bazeries was born with Port-Vendres in France, it was the son of an assembled police . In 1863 it engaged in the army and fought against the Prussia. There it was made Prisoner of war but managed to escape later, disguised in Maçon. In 1874 it was promoted Lieutenant and was sent in Algérie in 1875. It turned over to France the following year and married Marie-Louise-Élodie Berthon, with whom it had three girls: Césarine, Fernande and Paule.
It was interested in cryptography through the plays of Cryptogramme S found in the press and quickly used its talents in a military context. In 1880, it deciphered coded messages with the official French military system of transposition, leading to the adoption of a new method by the Ministry for the War. In 1891, news of its competences had been spread and it started to work for the Bureau of Figure of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, for example the Télégramme of Panizzardi. Bazeries continued its work of cryptanalyste, even after its retirement of the army in 1899, lending its assistance to break the German codes lasting the First World War. It then put a term at its career in 1924, old 78 years.
In the years 1890 it broke famous “the Grand Figure”, system of coding by substition created by the Rossignol (family which served the crown during several generations) at the 17th century in particular for Louis XIV. One of the coded messages referred to the Homme with the iron mask and proposed a possible solution with this mystery.
He wrote the book the revealed secret Figures considered, either like a reference mark of the cryptographic literature, or like rather anecdotic (David Kahn, foreword of cryptography in the French Army 1881-1814 by Alexandre Ollier).
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