I believe that, while a high level of scholarship was required to develop the frequency analysis approach, it is not critical to the use of this approach. When the world was new to this subject–when it had just discovered ciphers and keys and cryptanalysis–all of the knowledge was completely new. It was the cutting edge, so not many people understood it yet. It was essential to attain a high level of education to comprehend the mysteries of cryptology. However, with the modern education system, and modern technology, people have the information necessary more readily available. People can access the “mathematics, statistics, and linguistics” necessary to equip themselves for code making and codebreaking. Also, the easy access means that the information surrounds the human population. We have billions of pieces of data sitting at our fingertips, just waiting in that ever-present “cloud.” Because of this access, and as a result of the heightened academic expectations, “amateur” cryptanalysts can use previously lengthy and difficult methods of analysis with much more ease. The civilization has reached a “sufficiently sophisticated level of scholarship in several disciplines,” and therefore the people of that civilization may achieve the same accomplishments which the Islamic civilization discovered. However, as a result of the constant inundation of information prevalent in our society, and the resultant size of the body of common knowledge, amateur cryptanalysts can now use approaches such as frequency analysis, which was so arduously sought out, without any formal training.
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