2011/11/01 by Lyle D. Broemeling · 3 citations
Mathematics · #Probability and Statistical Research
paper · doi:10.1198/tas.2011.10191
openalex publication_date 2011/11/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29
Recently discovered manuscripts reveal an early use of statistical inference in Arab cryptology in the eighth through twelfth centuries A.D. The manuscripts report that al-Kindi (801–873) used relative frequency analysis some 1100 years ago to decode messages, some 800 years before the correspondence between Pascal and Fermat. Among his many accomplishments, al-Kindi is the author of the oldest known book on cryptology. This article describes an early use of statistical methods for the cryptanalysis of encrypted messages.