Edward Michael Scheidt is a retired Chairman of the
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian intelligence agency, foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gat ...
(CIA)
Cryptographic
Cryptography, or cryptology (from grc, , translit=kryptós "hidden, secret"; and ''graphein'', "to write", or ''-logia'', "study", respectively), is the practice and study of techniques for secure communication in the presence of adver ...
Center and the designer of the cryptographic systems used in the ''
Kryptos
''Kryptos'' is a sculpture by the United States, American artist Jim Sanborn located on the grounds of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in Langley, Virginia. Since its dedication on November 3, 1990, there has been much speculation about th ...
'' sculpture at CIA Headquarters in
Langley, Virginia
Langley is an unincorporated community in the census-designated place of McLean in Fairfax County, Virginia, United States. Langley is often used as a metonym for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), as it is home to its headquarters, the Ge ...
.
Early life
Scheidt was born July 20, 1939 in
Santa Monica
Santa Monica (; Spanish: ''Santa Mónica'') is a city in Los Angeles County, situated along Santa Monica Bay on California's South Coast. Santa Monica's 2020 U.S. Census population was 93,076. Santa Monica is a popular resort town, owing to ...
,
California
California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the ...
Army
An army (from Old French ''armee'', itself derived from the Latin verb ''armāre'', meaning "to arm", and related to the Latin noun ''arma'', meaning "arms" or "weapons"), ground force or land force is a fighting force that fights primarily on ...
, where he worked in
Signals Intelligence
Signals intelligence (SIGINT) is intelligence-gathering by interception of '' signals'', whether communications between people (communications intelligence—abbreviated to COMINT) or from electronic signals not directly used in communication ...
.
CIA
In 1963, he was hired as a
communications officer
A communications officer is a naval line officer responsible for supervising operation and maintenance of a warship's signal flags, signal lamps, and radio transmitters and receivers. The communications officer is usually responsible for enc ...
for the CIA, in the Office of Communications, which began a 26-year career, retiring in December 1989. Scheidt spent 12 years posted overseas, including serving in Laos in the early 1960s,
Lebanon
Lebanon ( , ar, لُبْنَان, translit=lubnān, ), officially the Republic of Lebanon () or the Lebanese Republic, is a country in Western Asia. It is located between Syria to Lebanon–Syria border, the north and east and Israel to Blue ...
in the late 1960s, and a tour in
Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical United Nations geoscheme for Asia#South-eastern Asia, south-eastern region of Asia, consistin ...
. Most often he used
one-time pad
In cryptography, the one-time pad (OTP) is an encryption technique that cannot be cracked, but requires the use of a single-use pre-shared key that is not smaller than the message being sent. In this technique, a plaintext is paired with a r ...
University of Maryland
The University of Maryland, College Park (University of Maryland, UMD, or simply Maryland) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in College Park, Maryland. Founded in 1856, UMD is the Flagship un ...
in 1970 and a degree in telecommunications from
George Washington University
, mottoeng = "God is Our Trust"
, established =
, type = Private federally chartered research university
, academic_affiliations =
, endowment = $2.8 billion (2022)
, presi ...
in 1975.
Scheidt is best known for his involvement with ''
Kryptos
''Kryptos'' is a sculpture by the United States, American artist Jim Sanborn located on the grounds of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in Langley, Virginia. Since its dedication on November 3, 1990, there has been much speculation about th ...
'', a sculpture in the CIA courtyard which contains one of the world's most famous unsolved codes. ''Kryptos'' was created by
Washington DC
)
, image_skyline =
, image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...
sculptor Jim Sanborn, who was commissioned by the CIA in the 1980s to create art around their new Headquarters building in 1988. After Sanborn decided he wanted to incorporate some encrypted messages in his artwork, he was teamed with Scheidt, who was in the process of retiring and was called by then-director
William H. Webster
William Hedgcock Webster (born March 6, 1924) is an American attorney and jurist who most recently served as chair of the Homeland Security Advisory Council from 2005 until 2020. He was a United States district judge of the United States Distri ...
"The Wizard of Codes". Up until that point, Sanborn had never used encryption or text in his work. Scheidt taught various encryption methods to Sanborn, who chose the exact messages to be encrypted. Of the messages on the sculpture, three have been solved, but the fourth section, 97 or 98 characters at the very bottom, remains uncracked."
In 1991, journalist
Bill Gertz
William D. Gertz (born March 28, 1952) is an American editor, columnist and reporter for ''The Washington Times''. He is the author of eight books and writes a weekly column on the Pentagon and national security issues called "Inside the Ring". D ...
referred to Scheidt as the " Deep Throat of Codes" while describing his clandestine meetings with Sanborn. This nickname was later said to have been applied to Scheidt by Webster before being added to Scheidt's bio on the TecSec website by 2015.
TecSec
In the early 1990s, Scheidt noted that encryption, which originated for primarily one-to-one communications, now faced new and substantially different key management requirements in large network or virtual network environments. It was into this technologically dynamic environment that Ed co-founde TecSec Inc , a software encryption company in 1990 in
Vienna, Virginia
Vienna () is a town in Fairfax County, Virginia, United States. As of the 2020 U.S. census, Vienna has a population of 16,473. Significantly more people live in ZIP codes with the Vienna postal addresses (22180, 22181, and 22182), bordered appr ...
, where as of 2020 he works as Chief
Scientist
A scientist is a person who conducts scientific research to advance knowledge in an area of the natural sciences.
In classical antiquity, there was no real ancient analog of a modern scientist. Instead, philosophers engaged in the philosophica ...
.
One of their first ventures was to manufacture portable satellite versions of the secure
STU-III
STU-III (Secure Telephone Unit - third generation) is a family of secure telephones introduced in 1987 by the NSA for use by the United States government, its contractors, and its allies. STU-III desk units look much like typical office telephone ...
telephones used by the government. Scheidt manufactured the first model in his home basement workshop, and approximately 500 were in use worldwide by the
United States Foreign Service
The United States Foreign Service is the primary personnel system used by the diplomatic service of the United States federal government, under the aegis of the United States Department of State. It consists of over 13,000 professionals carr ...
as of 2002. The company also set out to create an encryption design with its key management that could be cited in standards or use components of standards.
In forming TecSec and building the company's large IP library, he anticipated the flexibility and mobility required of 21st Century communication systems with a key management system that is primarily client-based and much less dependent upon a central server. The relative scalability achieved by this approach, together with encryption at the object level, provides enforced role based access and granularity not otherwise available. Ed remains deeply involved in the company's product development and expanding application solutions, just as he is in general management.
In February 2010 TecSec filed a lawsuit against several large tech vendors claiming infringement of several patents covering encryption technology.
Other
As of September 2020, Scheidt is vice chair, ANSI X9F for global security standards, Accredited Standards Committee X9, which develops and promotes standards for the US financial services industry. Scheidt is also convenor of ISO TC68/SC2/Working group (WG) 17 for the creation of the digital currency security Technical Specification international standard. WG17 includes representation from various countries and commercial interest. As convenor of WG17, Scheidt represents ISO to ITU for their Fiat digital currency efforts.
Pentagon
In geometry, a pentagon (from the Greek language, Greek πέντε ''pente'' meaning ''five'' and γωνία ''gonia'' meaning ''angle'') is any five-sided polygon or 5-gon. The sum of the internal angles in a simple polygon, simple pentagon is ...
report, co-written with Wai Tsang and Karen Burkardsmaier
The Washington Post
''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large n ...