USSBS Japan – ‘Japanese Communication Intelligence’, Serial No. 208 – Commander Ozawa
I’ve added the first three in the sources of Japanese codebreakers of WWII.
More interesting USSBS interrogation reports
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Entry 9032 finding aid
I have uploaded the finding aid to US National Archives - collection RG 457 (Records of the National Security Agency) - entry 9032.
Note that this is not the only entry in collection RG 457.
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Naval History and Heritage Command - Online Reading Room
I've added a link to the online reading room of the US Naval History and Heritage Command.
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Finding aid for recent NSA file transfer to National Archives
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Resurrection of the Hayashi case
Recently I stated that I had given up on trying to locate an NSA report called ‘Interrogation of mr Hayashi’.
However after looking at the finding aid to NSA transfer group TR-0457-2016-0017 I saw that there is a file titled ‘INTERROGATION HAYASHI, TOKURO, 26 APRIL 1950 (S-058,590)’.
It is reasonable to assume that this is the file I was looking for so NARA’s FOIA office has reopened the case.
Let’s hope that it will be declassified soon.
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Interesting articles
1). From ‘Journal of Intelligence History’: ‘From improvisation to permanence: American perspectives on the U.S. signals intelligence relationship with Britain, 1940–1950’.
However I have to disagree with the following statement:
‘One of Friedman’s reasons for visiting TICOM was to confirm that the Germans had been unable to break any Allied high-grade encryption systems during the war. That spring, senior Army officers had asked why he was so confident that these systems remained invulnerable. Friedman responded that captured German documents contained no suggestion any major Allied systems had been broken, only the less sophisticated M-209 device and even then only when Allied code clerks made mistakes. ‘The overwhelming evidence’ Friedman concluded, ‘is that they are far behind us and have no appreciation of solution techniques we now regard as commonplace.’ For him, the Germans’ inability to penetrate Allied cryptographic systems reflected their ‘supreme confidence’ in Enigma. What Friedman learned from the TICOM effort confirmed his view that British and American successes in cryptanalysis and cryptography far exceeded those of the Germans’.
cough Compromise of US cipher teleprinter in 1944 cough United States cryptologic security failures in WWII cough
2). From ‘Intelligence and National Security’: ‘Protecting secrets: British diplomatic cipher machines in the early Cold War, 1945–1970’.
Regarding Typex it says that model 22 (with movement of all 5 rotors and two plugboards) was introduced in 1950 and not during WWII as claimed by some sites:
‘In 1946, the British authorities decided to further modify Typex to increase its cryptographic strength. The rotors and turnover mechanism were redesigned so that all rotors would turn as a message was encrypted and the machine was fitted with a pluggable ‘crossover’ at the entry and exit to the wiring maze. This new version of Typex was ready for service in September 1950 and it was predicted that it would provide adequate cipher security for another 10 years.’
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Interesting YouTube video - Panzer III vs. T-34
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Update
In the The American M-209 cipher machine I’ve added the following under ‘Additional information’:
M-209 vs Enigma:
Regarding the cryptologic strength of the M-209 machine versus the plugboard Enigma, the expert on classical cipher systems George Lasry (15) has stated:
‘One comment about the security of the M-209. The claim that the Enigma is more secure than the M- 209 is disputable.
1) The best modern ciphertext-only algorithm for Enigma (Ostward and Weierud, 2017) requires no more than 30 letters. My new algorithm for M-209 requires at least 450 letters (Reeds, Morris, and Ritchie needed 1500). So the M-209 is much better protected against ciphertext-only attacks.
2) The Turing Bombe – the best known-plaintext attack against the Enigma needed no more than 15-20 known plaintext letters. The best known-plaintext attacks against the M-209 require at least 50 known plaintext letters.
3) The Unicity Distance for Enigma is about 28, it is 50 for the M-209.
4) The only aspect in which Enigma is more secure than M-209 is about messages in depth (same key). To break Enigma, you needed a few tens of messages in depth. For M-209, two messages in depth are enough. But with good key management discipline, this weakness can be addressed.
Bottom line – if no two messages are sent in depth (full, or partial depth), then the M-209 is much more secure than Enigma’.
I also added Lasry’s M-209 articles in the notes:
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Reports on enemy successes against US cryptosystems
I have uploaded the file ‘Reports on enemy successes against US cryptosystems’.
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The source was US National archives - collection RG457 - Entry 9032 - box 1.367 - NR 4263.
There is an interesting report in that file concerning the German exploitation of the US M-209 cipher machine in late 1944 and early 1945:
NA 7 Sigint HQ was the Signal Intelligence Evaluation Center of KONA 7 (Kommandeur der Nachrichtenaufklärung - Signals Intelligence Regiment) covering Italy.
According to TICOM report IF-272 only two reports of KONA 7 survived WWII. These were E-Bericht IV/44 and E-Bericht I/45.
Unfortunately I don’t know where to find them.
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Overview of 2018
This year I continued to research several cases of cryptologic history, I copied material from the US and UK national archives and I received reports from the NSA’s FOIA office. I also received some interesting files from friends of mine.
State Department’s strip cipher – reuse of alphabet strips and key lists (added info and made corrections)
1). Original information was presented in the following essays:
2). I posted a presentation of the book The Tanks of Operation Barbarossa and a Q&A with the author.
3). I uploaded the following files:
4). I updated the following essays:
The British Interdepartmental Cypher (added a pic of the ID codebook)
Rommel’s microwave link (added a link and info on patent US2211132A)
The Japanese FUJI diplomatic cipher 1941-43 (added info from TICOM DF-31B)
The Soviet K-37 ‘Crystal’ cipher machine (added info from TICOM DF-217)
The American M-209 cipher machine (added the paragraph ‘M-209 vs Enigma’)
Allen Dulles and the compromise of OSS codes in WWII (added information from the Higgs memorandum)
Compromise of State Department communications in WWII (added info and made corrections)
State Department’s strip cipher – reuse of alphabet strips and key lists (added info and made corrections)
5). I added links to several interesting sources:
Overall this was a productive year and many important files were located. There remain a handful of reports that I’m waiting for to be declassified. Hopefully that will happen in 2019.
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Cancellation of my NARA FOIA cases
After being treated poorly one time too many I’ve decided to cancel my two FOIA cases with the US National archives (‘Interrogation of mr Hayashi’ and the two missing reports of NAASt 5).
In the past I simply said nothing because I wanted the file but now I’m too old for this shit.
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The plan for 2019
After spending quite a lot of time and money researching these cases I think it’s time to wind things down.
During the year I’ll be checking books and articles on WWII history and cryptology but I will not embark on any new projects. Nor will I post as often as in past years.
Instead I’ll wait for the processing of my remaining FOIA cases with the NSA and State Department.
The two files are the TICOM report I-40 (from the NSA) and the Henriksson report (from the State Department).
There will also be a conference in late 2019, the NSA’s 2019 Symposium on Cryptologic History.
There might be some interesting presentations in this event.
Sometime during the year the first authorized history of GCHQ will be published. It seems that archival material will also be released to the UK national archives.
I will keep an eye out for interesting information.
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More info on WWII tanks
1). The Chieftain’s analysis of the T-34 model 1941.
2). The blog Kesler12 has some interesting essays:
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Update
In The American M-209 cipher machine I added info on the unit NAASt 7 and the section:
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Invasion of Sicily
In July 1943 US and British troops invaded the island of Sicily and after more than a month of fighting defeated the Axis forces and captured the island. However the German forces were able to avoid a total defeat by retreating in an orderly fashion through the Strait of Messina.
It seems that during the fighting in Sicily the Germans managed to capture a valid keylist of an M-209 network and thus read current US military traffic (14).
The war diary of Inspectorate 7/VI says that in July ’43 the captured material allowed the continuous decryption of the traffic with indicator ‘ID’ and the results were communicated to NAAst 7.
The report of August ’43 says that messages of the ‘ID’ network could be decoded till mid month and after that it was still possible to find several cases of indicator reuse and thus solve the traffic of those days cryptanalytically.
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Analysis of the Asia Minor campaign of 1919-1922
Impressive analysis of the Asia Minor campaign of 1919-1922 (in Greek):
I’ve always been interested in the Asia Minor campaign but unfortunately the books I’ve read so far tended to lack an in depth analysis of why the Greek forces failed to defeat the weakened Kemalist army.
The essays posted at the aforementioned site clearly point out the underlying problems of the Greek armed forces: the lack of professionalism of the officer corps, the rigid planning at the operational and strategic level and the lack of support between infantry, artillery and cavalry.
Great stuff!
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Interesting article on the Funkabwehr by Coldspur
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Interesting articles
1). ‘A German perspective on allied deception operations in the Second World War’ by Klaus‐Jürgen Müller. (excellent analysis of the problems of Anglo WWII historiography)
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Critical analysis of the effects of the Fortitude deception
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HistoCrypt 2019
Information on this year's International Conference on Historical Cryptology:
The International Conference on Historical Cryptology (HistoCrypt) is an annual conference on historical cryptology. The 2019 edition will be held from June 23-26, 2019 in the Mundaneum, Mons, Belgium.
Topics
HistoCrypt addresses all aspects of historical cryptography and cryptanalysis. The conference's subjects include, but are not limited to:
the use of cryptography in military, diplomacy, business, and other areas
analysis of historical ciphers with the help of modern computerized methods
unsolved historical cryptograms, including the Voynich Manuscript
the Enigma and other encryption machines
the history of modern (computer-based) cryptography
linguistic aspects of cryptography
the influence of cryptography on the course of history
teaching and promoting cryptography in schools, universities, and the public
Participation in the conference is mandatory for at least one author of each accepted paper.
Submissions from those who are new to the field, particularly students, are very welcome.
We are looking forward to seeing you in Mons, Belgium
The Organizing Committee of HistoCrypt 2019
Contact: jjq@uclouvain.be
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The missing NAAst 5 reports
Although I’ve given up on getting these files (for reasons that have already been mentioned) I will post this information in the hope that someone else will succeed.
At the US national archives, in the NSA transfer group TR-0457-2016-0017, box 45, folder 3953 there is a file titled ‘KOMMANDEUR DER NACHRICHTEN AUFKLARUNG 5, 1944 (S-013,494)’.
It is possible that this file contains the missing NAASt5 reports. Maybe someone can get hold of this file and solve the mystery.
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More Pages to Explore .....
