RE: Crypto has historically been a military weapon

["Lipscomb, Al" <LipscombA@hsn.net>]

> On Fri, Sep 14, 2001 at 09:33:30AM -0700, spackard@fastlink.com wrote:
> > Although strong crypto has always been very desirable
> > to the military of any nation, there are many times
> 
> Carl Ellison's  Cryptography Timeline
>   http://world.std.com/~cme/html/timeline.html
> 
> By this timeline cryptography was in use for oh, about 1500 years
> before the military/government started using it. :-)
> 

That is not correct. The page sited only demonstrates that crypto had
non-military examples dating to ancient times. It offers no proof,
except silence, that governments and military were not using some form
of cryptography during the periods listed.