The Russian Fish with Caviar

Abstract: Historians have noted that the capture of the "Russian Fish" from the Germans was probably the most important outcome of the 1945 TICOM operation. Recently declassified documents have now provided a wealth of information pertaining to this vital break into Soviet communications at the dawn of the Cold War

A Failure of Policy: How U.S. Leaders Neglected to Shape, Lead, and Leverage Intelligence Concerning Japan During the Interwar Period, 1918-1941

This dissertation explores the perspective and performance of U.S. intelligence professionals and the intelligence organizations in which they served concerning Japan during the interwar period, the timespan ranging approximately from the conclusion of World War I in November 1918 through the entry of the United States into World War II in December 1941. Research for this dissertation focused predominantly on official and other primary documents, including U.S. intelligence reports and memoranda; intercepted, decrypted, and translated Japanese cablegrams; personal letters by and concerning U.S. intelligence professionals; and other primary source materials related to intelligence professionals and services available via the U.S. National Archives in College Park, Maryland. Some of these official and other primary documents were available from a number of online repositories providing access to U.S. intelligence documents concerning Japan during the interwar period. The published memoirs of particular key intelligence professionals, who focused particularly on Japan, and other actors, also proved important primary resources to completing this dissertation. Secondary sources augmented and occasionally corroborated the events related in the primary documents and memoirs. U.S. intelligence professionals produced intelligence informing U.S. civilian and military leaders of the increasing competition between U.S. and Japanese national interests and commercial objectives in the Asia-Pacific region, in addition to Japan’s perspective concerning the growing impasse. Particular intelligence professionals, whose exploits and experiences focusing particularly on Japan during the interwar period, provided an important foundation for this dissertation. These intelligence professionals took seriously the increasing threat that Japan posed to U.S. interests. For approximately two decades, they acquired intelligence from Japanese counterparts; defended U.S. interests against Japanese counterintelligence threats; and endeavored to influence their Japanese counterparts, often intelligence professionals and officers in Japan’s armed services, into reducing their concern regarding U.S. objectives in the Asia-Pacific region, particularly regarding Japan. In the end, war arrived in the form of a widespread and shocking series of Japanese attacks and invasions by sea, air, and land, reaching as far east as the waters just off of the California coast and targeting U.S., British, and Dutch military bases and colonies. The most famous aspect of the Pacific War’s start was the multiple air and sea attacks against Pearl Harbor and other U.S. military installations in the Hawaiian Islands, which sank of the U.S. Pacific fleet, claimed 2,403 lives, and caused the United States to declare war against Japan. Although some U.S. civilian and military leaders realized that war was increasingly likely as negotiations with Japan failed to yield solutions to U.S.-Japanese disagreements, the United States remained unprepared for war with Japan. Ultimately, the failure of U.S. leaders to use intelligence resources at their disposal and to empower intelligence collectors, in order to prepare the United States for a war with Japan, constituted a comprehensive leadership failure, rather than an intelligence failure

Manuscrito de Voynich - Análisis del algoritmo de codificación con los métodos de cifrado conocidos en la época medieval y resultados de las marginalias que no fueron encriptadas

In the present study I describe and analyze two objectives, the first is about opposition and equivalence of the Voynich manuscript coding algorithm with the known in medieval period methods of ciphering. According to the results of my innovative research of the Voynich manuscript was written in medieval Galician (Galician-Portuguese). Its coding algorithm was influenced by the substitution cipher of using a polyalphabetic cipher for the most part of its text, as well as it was definitely influenced by transposition cipher for double ciphered alchemical text. However, it should be mentioned that there are significant differences between the codes that were used in the medieval period and the encoded algorithm of the Voynich manuscript. For the reason that made deciphering more complicated over the centuries, substitution encryption of a polyalphabetic cipher was used partly and simultaneusly with monoalphabetic cipher in addition to uncoded text at all. Therefore the main thing to take into consideration is that the second objective of the most interest in this particular article are parts of the Voynich manuscript texts – marginalies– that were not encrypted at all and their reading.En el presente estudio describo y analizo dos objetivos, el primero es sobre la oposición y la equivalencia del algoritmo de codificación del manuscrito Voynich con los métodos conocidos de cifrado del período medieval. Según los resultados de mi investigación innovadora del manuscrito Voynich, este fue escrito en gallego medieval (gallego-portugués). Su algoritmo de codificación fue influenciado por el cifrado de sustitución del uso de un cifrado polialfabético para la mayor parte de su texto, así como definitivamente fue influenciado por el cifrado de transposición para texto alquímico de cifrado doble. Sin embargo, debe mencionarse que existen diferencias significativas entre los códigos que se usaron en el período medieval y el algoritmo codificado del manuscrito Voynich. Por la razón que hizo que el descifrado fuera más complicado a lo largo de los siglos, el cifrado por sustitución de un cifrado polialfabético se usó en parte y simultáneamente con cifrado monoalfabético, además del texto sin codificar. Por lo tanto, lo principal a tener en cuenta es que el segundo objetivo de mayor interés en este artículo en particular son partes de los textos del manuscrito de Voynich –marginalias– que no se cifraron en absoluto y su lectura

A Matter of Ultra Importance: How Ultra’s Decryption of Enigma Impacted the Outcome of World War II

During World War II, one of the most prominent unsung heroes were the Allied codebreakers of Ultra who, under the thick blanket of absolute secrecy, worked tirelessly throughout the war to decrypt the German Enigma cipher. Efforts to break the Enigma cipher were underway since the beginning of the war but yielded little success until 1943 and Alan Turing’s Bombe. After this point, Allied forces were able to more effectively combat Axis forces, especially German U-boats in the Atlantic ocean, while keeping the whole operation under wraps to avoid suspicion and changing of the code. This paper explores how Ultra’s efforts were a key part of the Allies’s overall victory in the war, due to their effects on Allied performance in the later years of the Battle of the Atlantic. Keywords: World War II, Cryptography, Enigma, Cipher, Bletchley Park, Alan Turing Part of the Panel: Hidden Histories during WWIIModerator: Professor Richard Beyle

The Role of Female Cryptanalysts from 1914 to 1946

This thesis shows that the history of cryptanalysis in Britain in the first half of the twentieth century has focussed on the contribution of men to the virtual exclusion of that of women, and produces evidence to prove that, from the First World War onwards, women, although in a minority, were working at the same level as their male counterparts, despite their lack of mention in the published literature which generally holds that only men worked as cryptanalysts during this period. The present research identifies that this was not the case, and that though the number of confirmed female cryptanalysts remains small and elusive, these women were nonetheless important for the role that they played. This thesis examines published work on British cryptanalysis between 1914 and 1946, demonstrating that these accounts are almost exclusively by men and about men. The research presented uses original documentation and interviews to advance and place on record knowledge about female cryptanalysts who worked in high-level codebreaking during time both of war and peace in a gendered approach. The analysis sets out the case studies of six women - four cryptanalysts, one linguist and a decoder - who typify the roles that women held in cryptanalysis between 1914 and 1946, providing an in-depth study of their backgrounds and roles they carried out for the British Admiralty’s Room 40, the War Office’s MI1(b) and HushWAACs, and the Foreign Office’s Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS). The thesis provides a detailed historiographical chronology in a gendered approach of the women’s role in cryptanalysis from the beginnings of modern codebreaking in the First World War, through the interwar creation of GC&CS, to the vast cryptanalytical organisation at Bletchley Park during the Second World War, setting out the context of relevant literature and archival materials. Definitions are derived for key terms whose meanings have changed over the period, causing confusion and erroneous conclusions to be drawn, and key themes are identified which can be used in the identification of future female cryptanalysts. This thesis clearly identifies that women were working as high-grade cryptanalysts during the period 1914 to 1946, and offers pointers and analytical tools to potential further identifications in future research

The Rubik\u27s Crypto-Cube: a Trans-Composite Cipher

Cryptography, the art or science of writing messages in code to disguise the content, has been a source of interest for millenia. Those who exchange secret messages do so through the medium of a cryptosystem, a single set of devices used in order to encrypt plaintext and decrypt ciphertext. This is a study of the Rubik\u27s Cube as a trans-composite cipher

Quantifying risks in cryptographic selection processes

There appears to be a widespread belief that some processes of selecting cryptosystems are less risky than other processes. As a case study of quantifying the difference in risks, this paper compares the currently-known-failure rates of three large groups of cryptosystems: (1) the round-1 submissions to the NIST Post-Quantum Cryptography Standardization Project, (2) the round-1 submissions not broken by the end of round 1, and (3) the round-1 submissions selected by NIST for round 2 of the same project. These groups of cryptosystems turn out to have currently-known-failure rates that are strikingly high, and that include statistically significant differences across the groups, not matching the pattern of differences that one might expect. Readers are cautioned that the actual failure rates could be much higher than the currently-known-failure rates

Kickshaws

Readers are encouraged to send their own favorite linguistic kickshaws to the Associate Editor. All answers appear in the Answers and Solutions at the end of this issue