[GRADE B -- EFTA00761574 (Mar 22, 2010, corrected date)]
v4.0 corrects the dating of the Brockman "encryption methods in biological systems" email from 2015 (v3.0 characterization) to March 22, 2010:
John Brockman -> Jeffrey Epstein (Subject: "code"):
"Can you go a little bit deeper for me re: meaning of 'encryption methods are used in biological systems'. Are you talking about scientists examining/revealing that there are natural biological encryption systems that we are discovering, or is it more about synthetic biology where scientists are designing encryption for, say, the genomes they create? It matters because it's a different category of people to look for. ie, am I looking for a Venter or Mullis, or would it be the kind of people Steve Levy wrote about in Crypto or that Markoff is reporting on now in his NYT cyber-security series, or, say, someone who works for Microsoft or Google."
This email does NOT contain the "NSA" or "Alice and Bob" language attributed in v3.0. The actual NSA-biology connection appears in a separate email:
[GRADE B -- Epstein -> Tom Pritzker (Jan 11, 2012)]
"yes, biology unlike math needs deception to ward off prey.. signal intelligence should be able to decipher it... think of communication between cells in the body made up of proteins, they are merely signals that we cannot yet decode. NSA decodes signals.. in many languages and math forms.. the algorithms should be tested against biologically generated signals."
The Brockman email confirms Epstein was ACTIVELY SEEKING talent at the crypto-biology intersection through Brockman (Edge Foundation) as talent scout -- referencing Craig Venter, Kary Mullis, Steve Levy's Crypto, and John Markoff's NYT cyber-security reporting. The Pritzker email proves Epstein conceived of applying NSA-style signals intelligence to biological systems. Combined, these support H4 upgrade from D+/C to B: Epstein had a coherent theory about encryption-biology convergence and was using multiple talent scouts (Brockman, Nikolic) to find practitioners. The theory dates to 2010-2012, well before the DNA collection program.