Vigenère cipher was misattributed to Vigenère. David Kahn, in his book, "The Codebreakers" lamented the misattribution by saying that history had "ignored this important contribution and instead named a regressive and elementary cipher for him [Vigenère] though he had nothing to do with it". The Vigenère cipher gained a reputation for being exceptionally strong. Noted author and mathematician Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) called the Vigenère cipher unbreakable in his 1868 piece "The Alphabet Cipher" in a children's magazine. In 1917, "Scientific American" described the Vigenère cipher as "impossible of translation". That reputation was not deserved. Charles Babbage is known to have
Edwin Dodgson Christian name is a tribute to Canon George Heron, a Cheshire friend of Archdeacon Dodgson. Edwin's mother died when he was four years old and he was raised by his maiden aunt Lucy Lutwidge. He was educated at Twyford and in 1860 he went to Rugby, where the Headmaster was Frederick Temple, who later became the Archbishop of Canterbury. He worked briefly for the Board of Trade before entering Chichester Theological College in September 1871. The college was Anglo-Catholic, a tradition which Edwin held dear, to the chagrin of his elder brother Charles. He was ordained deacon in 1873, and