From uchinews!ux1.cso.uiuc.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!cs.utexas.edu!asuvax!chnews!ornews.intel.com!ornews.intel.com!not-for-mail Tue Mar 9 14:45:52 CST 1993 Article: 35840 of alt.folklore.computers Path: uchinews!ux1.cso.uiuc.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!cs.utexas.edu!asuvax!chnews!ornews.intel.com!ornews.intel.com!not-for-mail From: speed@ornews.intel.com (Paul Laudon) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: ROT13 Date: 9 Mar 1993 08:33:33 -0800 Organization: Intel Corporation Lines: 23 Message-ID: <1nigst$f8c@ornews.intel.com> References: <03-07-1993.0603727154@yrb.incubus.sub.org> NNTP-Posting-Host: ornews.intel.com Status: R alien@acheron.amigans.gen.nz (Ross Smith) writes: >Hi, > >does anybody know who invented the ROT13 'encryption', wich program >used it first, and when was it used first? Back in the "old days", say the fall of 1980, I and a friend (Doug Baker) were walking the halls of the CS building in Madison, WI discussing the rotation policies that people were using to encrypt their jokes on the network. (This was when net.jokes.db, dead babies, was the 'group-du-jour'. Much, much flamage!) He suggested that if people were to rotate by 13 the same 'tr' command would work for decryption as well as encryption. I told him to post the idea to the network. It took about three weeks for it to become the standard. It took about six months for the news readers to include it as a command. (Sure beat having to pipe it to a seperate translator.) I can not prove that Doug is the originator of the ROT13 policy, but I was there when it happened. -- Paul (Speed) Laudon Work: (503) 696-2201 Home: (503) 656-7969 speed@hfglobe.intel.com "Do you want to play 'Blastoff'?" Hitchhiker, 'Video Date'