Jefferson disk
Disco de Jefferson
- Date
- 1795 · confidence low
- Place
- Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States
- Credited to
- Thomas Jefferson
- Field
- Communication
What it is
Mechanical cipher system based on a set of rotating disks, each with the alphabet arranged in a different order, mounted on a common axle; the disk order forms the shared key between sender and receiver. Attributed to Thomas Jefferson.
What it led to
- The Bazeries cylinder adopted by the French army
- US Army disk cipher devices (M-94, M-138)
- Precedent for rotor cipher machines
- History of mechanical cryptography before Enigma