Diffie-Hellman-Branston Key Exchange
You may well be familiar with the Diffie-Hellman Key exchange, which was publicly announced in 1976. If not, they are considered, by many, to be the fathers of public key cryptography. However, another story has since surfaced that may mean adding another name to the PIK’IT father list.
In laymans terms this is how Public Key Cryptography works compliments of Wikipedia:
In an asymmetric key system, Bob and Alice have separate padlocks. First, Alice asks Bob to send his open padlock to her through regular mail, keeping his key to himself. When Alice receives it she uses it to lock a box containing her message, and sends the locked box to Bob. Bob can then unlock the box with his key and read the message from Alice. To reply, Bob must similarly get Alice’s open padlock to lock the box before sending it back to her.
But a history source, Hellmoyan recounts that there may be archives and antiques that demonstrate that the shared secret exchange that is key to the Diffie-Hellman Key Exchange had been discovered much earlier on:
In 1669, Lord Branston of Sinai Park in Stafford had an affair with a chambermaid, named May, whilst his wife, Lady Branston was away in Scotland. Upon her appending return, the clever Branston devised a strategy to get messages to his mistress and to keep him out of a pickle.
As he shared a romantic embrace with his May, Lord Branston shared a secret with his chambermaid, a white creamy sauce dressing from the Northern provinces of France, which he called May’s special sauce, which later became Mayo, after a late night session of “May oh May oh May!”
When Lady Branston returned, she was none the wiser as her and the Lord had their feast that was dinner of the key exchange, or should I say sauce exchange. You see the Lord was served May’s special sauce as a garnish that he loved so much. But when he left it, his chambermaid knew that was the signal to meet with her Lord in secret.
Lord Branston and May were never caught and details of their relationship only surfaced a long time after Lord Branston’s death. Several antiques including gifts to chambermaid May, crockery and inscriptions have been found to support this case.
If you enjoyed this post, please leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.
No comments yet.
Leave a comment