What is the Code for the Code? Historical Cryptology Terminology

Abstract

The cross-disciplinary nature of historical cryptology involves the challenge to find a terminology that is both consistent and accepted across the different disciplines and applicable in the single fields. In this paper, we propose a terminology based on concise principles developed by an interdisciplinary group of researchers. We present terms prominent in the study of historical cryptology, define them, and illustrate their usage. Our goal is to initiate and/or continue the discussion of how we use various terms for different types of historical encrypted sources, and their study. Our hope is that this paper will contribute to consistent and systematic usage of terms in the HistoCrypt community.