Preface

I am happy to present the Proceedings of this 2nd International Conference on Historical Cryptology (HistoCrypt 2019) in the Mundaneum in Mons, Belgium.

HISTOCRYPT addresses all aspects of historical cryptology/cryptography including work in closely related disciplines (such as history, history of ideas, computer science, AI, computational linguistics, linguistics, or image processing) with relevance to historical ciphertexts and codes. The subjects of the conference include, but are not limited to the use of cryptography in military, diplomacy, business, and other areas, analysis of historical ciphers with the help of modern computerized methods, unsolved historical cryptograms, the Enigma and other encryption machines, the history of modern (computer-based) cryptography, linguistic aspects of cryptology, the influence of cryptography on the course of history, or teaching and promoting cryptology in schools, universities, and the public. HISTOCRYPT represents a continuation of the friendly events of European Historical Ciphers Colloquiums (EuroHCC) held in Heusenstamm (2012), Kassel (2016), and Smolenice (2017) to discuss on-going research in historical cryptology in Europe. Considering EuroHCC’s growing popularity among the crypto-historians and cryptographers and the established HICRYPT network on historical cryptology with over 100 members from 20 countries around the world, our aim is to establish as an annual, world-wide event. The first HISTOCRYPT in the series was organized in 2018 in Uppsala, Sweden. The second event in the series takes place in 2019 at Mundaneum in Mons, Belgium.

The conference topics include:

the use of cryptography in military, diplomacy, business, and other areas,analysis of historical ciphers with the help of modern computerized methods,

unsolved historical cryptograms such as the Voynich manuscript,

the Enigma and other encryption machines,

the history of modern (computer-based) cryptography,

linguistic aspects of cryptography,

the influence of cryptography on the course of history,

teaching and promoting cryptography in schools, universities, and the public.

The Program Committee has selected 23 papers out of 25 submissions for presentation (13 in the research track, 6 in the exposition track and 4 as poster/demo). Three papers accepted were later withdrawn by the authors. Papers accepted for the research track are collected in these Proceedings.

I would like to thank the Program Committee, Steering Committee and Local Organizers for their hard work in establishing HISTOCRYPT 2019. Their dedication and invaluable input is highly appreciated. The thanks also goes to all the reviewers, subreviewers, keynote speakers and all authors without whom this conference would not have taken place.

Klaus Schmeh (Program Chair)