- Edward Hebern
Edward Hugh Hebern (
April 23 ,1869 –February 10 1952 ) was an early inventor ofrotor machine s, devices forencryption .Background
Hebern was born in
Streator ,Illinois on April 23, 1869. He was brought up in the Soldiers' Orphan Home in Bloomington. At the age of 14, he lived and worked on a farm nearOdin . Later, he became acarpenter . He had six brothers and sisters who all eventually ended up in the Orphan's home. Gradually, as they came of age, they all moved to Madera, California.Patent
He got a patent in 1919, shortly before three others patented (in other countries) much the same thing. They were
Arthur Scherbius inGermany ,Hugo Koch inthe Netherlands , andA Damm inSweden . Hebern started a company to market theHebern rotor machine ; one of his employees was Agnes Meyer, who left the Navy in Washington DC to work for Hebern inCalifornia . Scherbius designed the Enigma, Koch sold his patent to Scherbius a few years later, and Damm's company — taken over byBoris Hagelin after his death — moved to Switzerland and is still in existence, asCrypto AG .Hebern's implementation of his idea was less secure than he believed, for
William F. Friedman found at least one method of attack when it was offered to the US Government. Hebern's company did not prosper, his promotional efforts for it were questioned, and he was tried and convicted for fraud. Agnes Meyer returned to Washington to work for the Navy.Friedman went on to design a much more secure and complex rotor machine for the US Army. It eventually became the
SIGABA .Patents
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*External links
* [http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/geog/gessler/collections/crypto-hebern.htm Hebern Code Machines]
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