David Kahn

David Kahn (født 7. februar 1930) er en amerikansk historiker, journalist og forfatter. Han har utgitt en rekke arbeider innen kryptografi og militær etterretning

Kahns første bok: The Codebreakers – The Story of Secret Writing (1967), anses som et vesentlig bidrag til historien om kryptering frem til midten av 1960-tallet. På det tidspunkt skjedde en dramatisk utvikling innen kryptologi som førte den inn i avansert teknologi og matematisk teori, fra nå av ytterst vanskelig for en amatør å forstå.

Publikasjoner 
 Plaintext in the new unabridged: An examination of the definitions on cryptology in Webster's Third New International Dictionary (Crypto Press 1963)
 The Codebreakers – The Story of Secret Writing (ISBN 978-0-684-83130-5) (1967)
 The Codebreakers – The Story of Secret Writing Revised edition (ISBN 978-0-684-83130-9) (1996)
 Cryptology goes Public (Council on Foreign Relations 1979)
 Notes & correspondence on the origin of polyalphabetic substitution (1980)
 Codebreaking in World Wars I and II: The major successes and failures, their causes and their effects (Cambridge University Press 1980)
 Kahn on Codes: Secrets of the New Cryptology (Macmillan 1984) (ISBN 978-0-02-560640-1)
 Cryptology: Machines, History and Methods by Cipher Deavours and David Kahn (Artech House 1989) (ISBN 978-0-89006-399-6)
 Seizing the Enigma: The Race to Break the German U-Boats Codes, 1939-1943 (Houghton Mifflin 1991) (ISBN 978-0-395-42739-2)
 Hitler's Spies: German Military Intelligence in World War II (Da Capo Press 2000) (ISBN 978-0-306-80949-1)
 The Reader of Gentlemen's Mail: Herbert O. Yardley and the Birth of American Codebreaking (Yale University Press 2004) (ISBN 978-0-300-09846-4)

Sitater 
 The multiple human needs and desires that demand privacy among two or more people in the midst of social life must inevitably lead to cryptology wherever men thrive and wherever they write. (from The Codebreakers quoted at Liberty-Tree.ca)

Kilder

Referanser

Eksterne lenker 
 
 Kahn's Remarks to the NSA at its 50th Anniversary Celebration
 James Madison Project profile
 New York Review of Books profile
 David Kahn: Historian of Secret Codes by Arnold Abrams, in Newsday 2004-09-19 (via History News Network)
 The Intelligence Failure of Pearl Harbor by David Kahn, from Foreign Affairs (Winter 1991/92)
 Codebreaking and the Battle of the Atlantic by David Kahn. USAFA Harmon Memorial Lecture #36 (1994-04-04)
 Decoding the NSA A 1996 interview with Kahn, while he was a visiting historian at the NSA
 The Hebern Code Machine
 The Enigma Machine

Historikere fra USA
Forfattere fra USA
Journalister fra USA
Personer fra New York City
Fødsler i 1930