Letter counting: a stem cell for Cryptology, Quantitative Linguistics, and Statistics

Counting letters in written texts is a very ancient practice. It has accompanied the development of Cryptology, Quantitative Linguistics, and Statistics. In Cryptology, counting frequencies of the different characters in an encrypted message is the basis of the so called frequency analysis method. In Quantitative Linguistics, the proportion of vowels to consonants in different languages was studied long before authorship attribution. In Statistics, the alternation vowel-consonants was the only example that Markov ever gave of his theory of chained events. A short history of letter counting is presented. The three domains, Cryptology, Quantitative Linguistics, and Statistics, are then examined, focusing on the interactions with the other two fields through letter counting. As a conclusion, the eclectism of past centuries scholars, their background in humanities, and their familiarity with cryptograms, are identified as contributing factors to the mutual enrichment process which is described here

Fortuitous Endeavor—Intelligence and Deception in Operation TORCH

The Allied invasion of North Africa in November 1942 combined detailed planning, aggressive signals intelligence, deception, operational security, and good luck to achieve success seldom repeated—and that cannot be in the future if the episode’s lessons are not heeded

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 professionalization of cryptology in sixteenth century Venice

This article examines the evolution of cryptology as a business trait and a distinct, state-regulated and controlled profession in sixteenth century Venice. It begins by briefly discussing the systematic development of cryptology in the Renaissance. Following an examination of the amateur use of codes and ciphers by members of the Venetian merchant and ruling class, and subsequently by members of all layers of Venetian society, the article moves on to discuss the professionalization of cryptology in sixteenth century Venice. This was premised on specialist skills formation, a shared professional identity, and an emerging professional ethos. The article explores a potential link between the amateur use of cryptology, especially as it had been instigated by merchants in the form of merchant-style codes, and its professional use by the Venetian authorities, and it adds the profession of the cifrista – the professional cipher secretary – to the list of more “conventional” early modern professions

Real Life Cryptology

A large number of enciphered documents survived from early modern Hungary. This area was a particularly fertile territory where cryptographic methods proliferated, because a large portion of the population was living in the frontier zone, and participated (or was forced to participate) in the network of the information flow. A quantitative analysis of sixteenth-century to seventeenth-century Hungarian ciphers (300 cipher keys and 1,600 partly or entirely enciphered letters) reveals that besides the dominance of diplomatic use of cryptography, there were many examples of “private” applications too. This book reconstructs the main reasons and goals why historical actors chose to use ciphers in a diplomatic letter, a military order, a diary or a private letter, what they decided to encrypt, and how they perceived the dangers threatening their messages

Realistic caution and ambivalent optimism: US intelligence assessments and war preparations against Japan, 1918-1941

Throughout the years prior to the outbreak of the Pacific War, the United States defence establishment held an ambiguous view on Japanese policy and strategic aims. A number of factors precluded a clear-cut forecast, among the most important of which was the opportunistic and secretive manner in which Japanese leaders formulated their plans. Under the circumstances, the available intelligence could not provide a definite indication of the moves which the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) and Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) would undertake. The situation was further complicated because reliable pieces of evidence revealed Japan did not possess the military and economic resources to defeat a coalition of several Great Powers. The Americans were thus not inclined to expect the Imperial forces to undertake a full-scale conquest of the Asia–Pacific region. The inadequate knowledge of Japanese war plans, in turn, was one of the key factors which led United States defence officials to believe that efforts to bolster their military strength in the Far East were not necessary

Spartan Daily, April 5, 1943

Volume 31, Issue 105https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/spartandaily/10765/thumbnail.jp

Mercury of the Waves: Modern Cryptology and U.S. Literature

Mercury of the Waves: Modern Cryptology and U.S. LiteratureHenry VeggianUniversity of Pittsburgh, 2005The doctoral dissertation examines United States literary and institutional history during the period 1900-1973. The study demonstrates how cryptology was detached from its philological residence over three phases (the amateur, institutional, and professional). In the amateur phase, which was regionally specific to the Midwest, the science was characterized by social reformist debate. In the second, institutional phase, the amateur version of cryptology was institutionalized by the United States federal government following WWI to imitate a specific institutional model (that of the French Bureau du Chiffre). During the third, professional phase, the prior two were enhanced during the interwar period by linguists, mechanical engineers, literary modernists, and cryptologists. Running parallel to this narrative is a modern American literary genealogy that, beginning with Henry Adams and extending through Thomas Pynchon, engaged cryptology during that same era. The dissertation locates their discourse within Vichian humanism, and in doing so it first explains how modern literature (and the American novel in particular), its practices, and institutions contributed discursive rhetoric, hermeneutical methods, and institutional models to the emergent 20th century U.S. security state; secondly, it argues that a particular genealogical style that spans the writings of Henry Adams, T.S. Eliot, William Faulkner, Raymond Chandler, and Thomas Pynchon elaborated an diverse rhetorical discourse by which to respond to that assemblage of new institutional entities, and without which that assemblage would be incoherent