[Boatanchors] 1934 and all that

[mikea]

On Wed, Aug 31, 2005 at 11:22:25AM +0100, Michael Buckley wrote:
> Out of interest, my Company, Willis Faber and Dumas, as was, had a code book 
> they use to communicate wirth clients in the 1930's to overcome the problem 
> of "overheard" messages getting wider disemination than they wanted

In the early parts of the 20th C., it was not at all unusual for a 
company to have its own private codebook for privacy and brevity, or
for a company that didn't have its own codebook to use a commercial
codebook (several were available) for brevity. When cable charges 
were per-word, it made a lot more sense to send "BUNAB KOREM CEVRA"
than "Order 100 gross Tiny Talky Tots through our agent in Toledo, 
usual rates".

David Kahn's magnum opus, _The Codebreakers_, discusses commercial and
private codes, as well as government codes, in considerable detail, 
and is well worth the read. Try to get the earlier editions, before 
the book was gutted by the government.

-- 
Mike Andrews, W5EGO
mikea at mikea.ath.cx
Tired old sysadmin