Helen Fouché Gaines

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Helen Fouché Gaines (born October 12, 1888 in Hot Springs , † April 2, 1940 in Lake Village ) was an American cryptologist and writer .

Life

She came from the state of Arkansas in the south of the USA and was a passionate cryptologist. As a member of the American Cryptogram Association (ACA) , she wrote a series of articles for The Cryptogram , the ACA's bimonthly in-house journal, using the pseudonym PICCOLA . Your first publication there dates from December 1933 and deals with simple column transposition and variants.

Her literary main work is under the title 1939 Elementary Cryptanalysis published book on elementary cryptanalysis , so the art of secret texts without knowledge of the decryption necessary key to breaking . Her book describes the basic cryptological methods known mainly from the late 19th century , such as transposition and substitution, as well as methods for their decipherment , such as the frequency analysis and the Kasiski test . In the appendix of the book she gives a number of statistical information, such as monogram , bigram and trigram tables for different languages, which are useful for deciphering.

Shortly after the publication of her book, Helen Fouché Gaines died at the age of only 51 in her home state of Arkansas. Two days after her death, she was cremated on April 4, 1940, according to her Episcopal belief .

Fonts (selection)

  • Cryptanalysis, A Study of Ciphers and Their Solution . Courier Corporation, 1956, ISBN 0-486-20097-3 . (First published in 1939 under the title Elementary Cryptanalysis .)

literature

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Gaines, Helen Fouché
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American cryptologist and writer
DATE OF BIRTH October 12, 1888
PLACE OF BIRTH Hot springs
DATE OF DEATH April 2, 1940
Place of death Lake Village