Ed Sheidt

Ed’s intelligence career began in 1957 when he joined the Army and worked in Signals Intelligence. In 1963 he was hired as a communications officer for the CIA, which began a distinguished 26-year career, serving 12 years posted overseas. While working with the CIA, Ed received a B.A. in business administration from the University of Maryland in 1970 and a M.S. in telecommunications from George Washington University in 1975.

CIA Director William H. Webster referred to Scheidt as “The Deep Throat of Codes.” Scheidt is best known for his involvement with Kryptos, a sculpture in the CIA courtyard which contains one of the world’s most famous unsolved codes. Kryptos was created by Washington DC 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. 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. Scheidt has said that he knows the answer, along with Sanborn and “probably someone at the CIA.”

Coming from a communications background, Ed recognized the changing nature of communication patterns in America as PCs proliferated and were then formed into networks. In the early 1990’s, Ed 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-founded TecSec, a software encryption company, in 1990. The company 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.

Ed Scheidt is the Chair person for ANSI x9 Data and Information Security standards for the US financial services. He has been a speaker on cryptography at Bouchercon, a mystery convention. He volunteers as a local assistant scoutmaster and has been a Council board member. He also is active with the Council’s endowment program.