Briefcase with lock, key, and circulation list, ca. 1910, in use until 1949, 43.0 × 30.5 × 4.0 cm, leather, metal, etc. KIT Archives 28506/28.
This heavily patented leather briefcase was utilized by civil engineers at Karlsruhe Polytechnic for approximately 40 years to transport documents securely. The embossed Art Nouveau legend ‘Engineer’s Department’ (“Ingenieur Abteilung”) dates back to the time before 1937, when the university’s organizational units were still referred to as departments rather than faculties. This briefcase accompanied Karlsruhe’s civil engineers through various political regimes, from the German Empire and Weimar Republic, to the Nazi state, the Allied occupation, and finally the Federal Republic of Germany. Throughout these epochs, the methods of communication remained constant. Unlike email files today, which are often encrypted, official letters, private correspondence, minutes, and expert opinions were not coded in transit, even if they were confidential — much like faculty mail. Instead, these documents were transported in a briefcase secured with a lock. The circulation label on it lists the intended recipients of the dispatch. While the means of ensuring confidentiality — locking and encrypting — serve similar purposes, there is a significant technological gap between preventing physical access to a written document on paper and encrypting an electronically transmitted string of characters using an algorithm. When this briefcase was used, making as many copies of the key as there were professors in the department was sufficient. Today, the security of digitally encrypted documents is a specialized area within computer science, represented at KIT by the Cryptography and Security working group in the Department of Informatics. kn