Edward Scheidt

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Edward Michael Scheidt is a retired Chairman of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Cryptographic Center and the designer of the cryptographic systems used in the Kryptos sculpture at CIA Headquarters in Langley, Virginia.

Early life[]

Scheidt was born July 20, 1939 in Santa Monica, California United States. He graduated in 1957 from Cor Jesu High School in New Orleans and then joined the Army,[1] where he worked in Signals Intelligence.

CIA[]

In 1963, he was hired as a communications officer for the CIA, in the Office of Communications, which began a 26-year career, retiring in December 1989. Scheidt spent 12 years posted overseas, including serving in Laos in the early 1960s, Lebanon in the late 1960s, and a tour in Southeast Asia. Most often he used one-time pad paper systems of encryption.[1] Scheidt received a B.A. in business administration from the University of Maryland in 1970 and a degree in telecommunications from George Washington University in 1975.

Scheidt is best known for his involvement with Kryptos, a sculpture in the CIA courtyard which contains one of the world's most . Kryptos was created by Washington DC sculptor Jim Sanborn, who was commissioned by the CIA in the 1980s to create art around their new Headquarters building in 1988. After Sanborn decided he wanted to incorporate some encrypted messages in his artwork, he was teamed with Scheidt, who was in the process of retiring and was called by then-director William H. Webster "The Wizard of Codes".[2] Up until that point, Sanborn had never used encryption or text in his work. Scheidt taught various encryption methods to Sanborn, who chose the exact messages to be encrypted. Of the messages on the sculpture, three have been solved, but the fourth section, 97 or 98 characters at the very bottom, remains uncracked."[3][4][5][6][7]

In 1991, journalist Bill Gertz referred to Scheidt as the "Deep Throat of Codes" while describing his clandestine meetings with Sanborn.[8] This nickname was later said to have been applied to Scheidt by Webster[9][10] before being added to Scheidt's bio on the TecSec website by 2015.[11]

TecSec[]

In the early 1990s, Scheidt noted that encryption, which originated for primarily one-to-one communications, now faced new and substantially different key management requirements in large network or virtual network environments. It was into this technologically dynamic environment that Ed co-founded TecSec Inc., a software encryption company in 1990 in Vienna, Virginia, where as of 2020 he works as Chief Scientist.

One of their first ventures was to manufacture portable satellite versions of the secure STU-III telephones used by the government. Scheidt manufactured the first model in his home basement workshop, and approximately 500 were in use worldwide by the United States Foreign Service as of 2002. The company also set out to create an encryption design with its key management that could be cited in standards or use components of standards.

In forming TecSec and building the company's large IP library, he anticipated the flexibility and mobility required of 21st Century communication systems with a key management system that is primarily client-based and much less dependent upon a central server. The relative scalability achieved by this approach, together with encryption at the object level, provides enforced role based access and granularity not otherwise available. Ed remains deeply involved in the company's product development and expanding application solutions, just as he is in general management.

In February 2010 TecSec filed a lawsuit against several large tech vendors claiming infringement of several patents covering encryption technology.[12]

Other[]

As of September 2020, Scheidt is vice chair, ANSI X9F for global security standards, Accredited Standards Committee X9, which develops and promotes standards for the US financial services industry.[13] Scheidt is also convenor of ISO TC68/SC2/Working group (WG) 17 for the creation of the digital currency security Technical Specification international standard. WG17 includes representation from various countries and commercial interest. As convenor of WG17, Scheidt represents ISO to ITU for their Fiat digital currency efforts.[14]

References[]

  1. ^ a b "The People of the CIA: Edward Scheidt". Central Intelligence Agency. 2008. Archived from the original on 2009-01-14. Retrieved May 23, 2011.
  2. ^ "Cracking the Code of a CIA Sculpture", John Schwartz, July 19, 1999, Page A01, Washington Post
  3. ^ "Interest grows in solving cryptic CIA puzzle after link toDa Vinci Code", June 11, 2005, The Guardian, by Julian Borger
  4. ^ "Inside Info on Kryptos Codes, January 21, 2005, Wired News
  5. ^ "Solving the Enigma of Kryptos", January 26, 2005, Wired News, by Kim Zetter
  6. ^ "Sanborn: 'Kryptos' sculpture was 'an obsession'", June 21, 2005, CNN
  7. ^ "A Break for Code-Breakers on a C.I.A. Mystery", April 22, 2006, The New York Times
  8. ^ Gertz, Bill (8 April 1991). "Cryptic sculpture spooks CIA employees". Washington Times. Mr. Sanborn told the AP the message was written by a retired CIA cryptographer, which would seem to rule out Mr. Clancy. The sculptor and the Deep Throat of codes conducted business only at secret locations, never by telephone or in writing.
  9. ^ Wilson, John (15 January 2019). "Kryptos hints". Retrieved 16 August 2021.
  10. ^ Schaeffer, Jonathan (2008). One Jump Ahead (2nd ed.). Springer. p. 178. ISBN 9780387765761. Retrieved 16 August 2021.
  11. ^ "TecSec About". Archived from the original on 2015-04-21. Retrieved 16 August 2021.
  12. ^ "Encryption vendor files patent lawsuit against tech giants". ComputerWorld Inc. 9 February 2010. Retrieved 9 February 2010.
  13. ^ "Public Key Cryptography for the Financial Services Industry—The Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm" (PDF). Retrieved 12 November 2020.
  14. ^ "ISO/TC 68/SC 2 Financial Services, security". Retrieved 12 November 2020.

Further reading[]

External links[]

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