Markus Wolf
 Last
month, I had the chance, and time, to
read several books, written by Markus Wolf, the
legendary chief of the HVA (Haupt
Verwaltung Aufklaerung), East Germany's
foreign intelligence. Wolf, the son of
writer and physician Friedrich Wolf and
brother of film director Konrad Wolf,
fled as child in 1933 from the Nazi's and
exiled to Moscow. After the war, he was
sent to Berlin as journalist for the
radio station in the Soviet Zone of
occupation. As journalist, he followed
the Nuremberg Trials against the Nazi
leaders.
In 1953, he was one of the founding
members of the foreign intelligence
service, a department of the ministry of
state security, also called Stasi. As
head of the HVA, Wolf developed the most
effective secret service of the Cold War.
After retiring in 1986, he wrote a book
which was originally a film project of
his late brother Konrad, about Konrad and
two friends, growing up in Moscow in the
1930's. Konrad joined the Sovjet Army,
one friend the German Luftwaffe, and the
third one joined the US forces. Still,
after the war, the three friends meet
again and keep contact. The book, Die
Troika, a statement for friendship which
also exposed the failure of communism,
was published in East and West Germany.
For the people in the East, Wolf, who
supported the Glasnost and Perestroika,
became a symbol of the ongoing changes in
a country that rejected the changes in
Eastern Europe.
Although Wolf headed only the foreign
intelligence, one of many departments of
Erich Mielke's Stasi, he became targeted
as Stasi spy chief by the media during
the period of the fall of the Berlin
Wall. After the collapse of the German
Democratic Republic, Wolf was charged and
sentenced in the reunified Germany with
espionage, bribery and treason, but that
conviction was later overturned and he
received a suspended sentence on lesser
charges.
In the book 'The Man Without a Face',
you can read about the years in Moscow,
the developement of the most successfull
spy agency of the Cold War, and lots of
inside information on famous spy cases.
In 'Die Trojka' you get a taste of the
life in the pre-war Sovjet Union, and how
friends got separated by Stalins abuse of
communism. Last book I got to read was
'In eigenem Auftrag: Bekenntnisse und
Einsichten', Wolf's diary of 1989-1990,
describing in detail the political
collapse of East Germany and how the GDR
government of Erich Honnecker lead the
country, the SED party and socialism into
the abyss, by rejecting any changes in
policy.
50 cent Quantum
Security
 In
the 80's, Bennett and Brassard proposed
their famous key generating mechanism,
using quantum bits. Since then, many
efforts are made to develop total
security quantum cryptography,
eavesdropping proof. Now, Laszlo Kish proposes a
similar systems using...four 25 cent
resistors! The idea is similar to quantum
cryptography. This is how it works:
Alice and bob have two resistors each,
lets say 100 and 1000 ohm, and a voltage
source. They agree that 100 ohm is a
0-bit and 1000 ohm is a 1-bit. Alice and
Bob each select a resistor at random, and
put their resistors and power source in
serie. We call each measurement of two
random resistors one clock. There are
three possible results for the total
resistance: 200, 2000 or 1100 ohm. 200 or
2000 ohm are invalid values, since both
sender and receiver have the same
resistor. These clocks are discarded. But
if the value is 1100 ohm Alice and Bob
both know they have different resistors,
know their own resistor, and therefore
know the resistor value at the other end.
Each valid clock adds one more bit to the
key they put together. 256 valid clocks
will provide them with a 256 bit key,
transmitted in a completely secure way.
They could even transmit a one-time-pad!
Can Eve eavesdrop their message? No!
Although Eve can measure the current and
calculate the resistor values, she cannot
determine which resistance is located on
which side. So, Eve has no idea weather
the receiver 'reads' a 0-bit or 1-bit.
There is absolute security, and the best
of all, with a few 25 cent components,
instead of a - not yet available -
quantum computer. You can check out Kish's pdf paper, or
read Bruce schneiers review.
Simple and solid security!
Graphical
Passwords
Well known problem: People select weak
passwords, vunerable to dictionary
attacks, or even worse, they forget a
good password. The better the password,
the easier it is to forget. A solution is
a graphical password.
The user selects about 10 icons from a
large number of icons. A password screen
shows a large number of random placed
icons, of which three were selected by
the user. The user identifies the
triangle, formed by the three icons, and
clicks anywhere inside this triangle.
This is repeated a pre-determined number
of times. You can try out the graphical
passwords yourself on this page. For some
practical help, see this page. Nice
idea!
BIT (Bit Inserted
Carrier) Algorithm
We all know it's hard to develop
crypto secure PRNG's (Pseudo Random
Number Generator). They can be used as
stream cipher for (unsafe) XOR
encryptions. Often, the output stream is
vunerable to cryptanalysis. That's why
PRNG's are not that popular as crypto
algorithms. With the Bit Inserted Carrier
algorithm, cryptanalysis of the PRNG
is impossible, leaving no other option
than a brute force attack, which would
take an infinity of time. BIT is related
to steganography by Random Pixel
Positioning. Where stego is used to hide
prescence of data in image pixels, BIT's
purpose is not to hide the bits, but
rather make it impossible to retrieve the
relevant bits and their insertion
sequence from a carrier file.
First, a carrier file of noise is
created, at least twice the size of the
data. The noise is an array of (insecure)
random values, which can be compared with
a stego image with ideal noise/signal
ratio. Next, the plain data bits, we call
them payload, are inserted one by one in
the carrier. The position for each bit
insertion is determined by a
crypto-secure PRNG, initialized by a
secret key. Several bytes from the PRNG
are used in module to get one position.
An example: pos = rndByte1 + (rndByte2 *
256) + (rndByte3 * 65536) mod DataLenght.
We store the used positions in an array,
and if a position is already used, we
disregard it and draw another position
from the PRNG. We continue until all
payload bits are spread all over the
carrier file.
Important to note is that the plain data
is used as feedback for the PRNG, giving
a fatal result on a one-bit extracting
error. By inserting an IV, a serie of
random values, before the actual data, we
ensure that each encryption - read
spreading of bits - is totally different.
On extraction - read decryption - these
random bytes are simply disregarded.
This approach solves the problem of PRNG
cryptanalysis. The first requirement for
cryptanalysis is, ofcourse, that you have
the encrypted data. When BIC is used, one
cannot determine which bits in the
carrier file are part of the encrypted
file, and which are just carrier noise.
In order to retrieve the bit placement
sequence we need to analyze the
Pseudorandom Number Generator (PRNG).
Unfortunately, we don't have any
information on the PRNG stream.
Even when the original blank carrier file
(which may be created by an insecure RND
stream), without payload would be
compromised, retrieving the data bits
remains impossible. The reason is simple:
Only changed bits would be detected. If a
payload bit has the same value as the
carrier bit on which he is loaded, this
would not give any change. The question
than remains: is the carrier bit not
used, or is it loaded with the same
value? In best case, one would be able to
detect about 50 percent of changed bits.
Of ourse, failing this amount of crucial
information, retrieving the bit insertion
sequence or perform cryptanalysis on the
PRNG is impossible. Therefore, BIT
provides total security. The only known
solution is a brute force attack, which
requires an infinity of time.
Some BIT Encryption applications are
available here.
Happy Birthday to
the Virus
 This
month, 20 Years ago, the first virus was
discovered, hidden in the boot sector
of a floppy disk. Its name was 'Brain'.
PC users had to carry the virus around on
floppy disks, inserting them in other
computers. In the 1980's pre-internet
era, malicious viruses had a hard time to
survive and spread. They were the bird
flu of computer world. Few got infected,
and damage was small. These days, the
computer virus has become 'airborne',
raging with high speed and often
devastating results through cyber world.
Today, thanks to the internet, more than
150,000 of these bugs from hell are
registered in cyber space. Let's hope the
real bird flu doesn't find its own
internet, traveling as guest on humans,
pigs, ducks or whatever. F-Secure's virus
definition on 'Brain' is found here.
Spy rock
discovered by FSB
 A
modern true Cold-War story. The FSB (Federalnaja
Sloezjba Bezopasnosti), Russia's
Federal Security Service, successor of
the KGB, announced the discovery of a
high-tech device to exchange classified
information. The device was hidden in a
fake rock and could store and exchange
data wirelessly. After discovery, the FSB
did a stake-out and said to have caught a
Russian person and two British Embassy
employees, using a handheld computer to
send or receive the classified data. It
appears that the observed person had
collected sensitive information, stored
it on his pocket computer, and then
transmitted his information to the rock,
while walking by. Later, the embassy
personnel also passed close to the rock,
to receive the information with their
pocket computer. More info here and there.
Although a high-tech device is used, this
trick is just a modern version of a very
old method of information exchange: the
dead-drop. This technique, often used by
secret services, enabled a safe exchange,
without any contact between the courier
and the spy agent. Generally, it was a
small cylinder, hollow brick or another
cache. The courier inserted his
documents, micro-films or whatsoever, and
left the deaddrop at a pre-determined
place and time. Next, a simple marking
like a little chalk cross, drawn on a
traffic sign pile, notified the spy agent
that a dead-drop was placed. Without any
personal contact and risk of
compromising, he could collect the
information from his courier. Some real
spy gadgets, including a dead drop spike,
can by found on the CIA virtual museum
website. Who said that the Cold War
was over?
Site Review -
Jerry Proc
Over the years, Jerry Proc created a
wonderful on-line crypto collection. His
site, called Crypto Machines,
contains a large number of images and
background information on numerous cipher
machines. It's a very complete
collection, giving us a good view on the
development of these machines, during the
last century. From the Confederate Cipher
Disk, Russia's Fialka, the Hagelin
models, over WW2 machines such as the
German Enigma and Sturgeon, or the
American SIGABA, KL7 to the more recent
electronic devices like STU III, SINCGARS
or KG-235 Sectera Network encryptor. The
KG, KY, BID and KW series. You name it,
it's on his site. Although Jerry claims
not to be a crypto expert, his passion
makes this site a reference to
cryptographic devices from all over the
world.
Russian Fialka in
detail
 August last year, I
submitted a site review on the
famous Russian Fialka cipher machine.
This beautiful piece of Cold War
technology, introduced in 1965, was top
secret until the 90's. Recently, Paul
Reuvers from XAT in the
Netherlands has composed a magnificent
detailed description on the Fialka.
His web pages includes many detailed
drawings, wiring diagrams and a manual to
the Fialka. In his manual, you'll find
the history on Fialka and a very complete
technical description. A must for crypto
geeks! He also published two very nice
Fialka simulation programs, for both
Fialka M125-xx and M125-3xx, written by
Chernov. All information can be found on
Paul's Fialka pages. Some
time ago, Paul also wrote a beautiful Enigma Cipher Machine
simulator for RISC OS, and created
an electronic DIY building Kit, the Enigma-E, which is
fully compatible with the real German
Enigma. Great stuff!
M4 Message
Breaking Project successful
Stefan Krah succeeded in breaking the
first of 3 original Enigma Kriegsmarine
M4 messages. The M4 Project attemps to
break these 3 Naval messages with the
help of distributed computing. The
messages, believed to be unbroken until
today, were intercepted in the North
Atlantic in 1942. The encrypted messages
were published by Ralph Erskine in a
letter to Cryptologia. You can find Ralph
's original messages here. To perform the
ciphertext-only attack, Krah used a
combination of brute force and the
hill-climbing algorithm. The program runs
through all possible settings of the
Enigma, except the plugboard. The
plugboard settings are a huge portion of
the key space. Omitting them during the
attack saves a hugh amount of time. For
each machine setting, the hill climbing
algorithm is used to optimize the
plugboard settings. The hill climbing
algorithm tries to optimize the plugboard
settings, by changing the plugboard, step
by step. After each step, the 'quality'
of the result is determined by a scoring
function. If the score is better, the
change is retained. Yesterday, this
approach resulted in a first successful
break into a Naval message. On this page, you can
read the broken message.
CSG Enigma
breaking project
With all the current publicity around
the three Kriegmarine Enigma messages,
one could easily forget the tremendous
effort of the Crypto Simulation Group. I
already reported on Frode Weierud's site
last year in 'decrypting Nazi secrets'.
Ok, the breaking of the four-rotor Enigma
message, one single message, is great
news, but the CSG's codebreaking efforts
are about more than 500 authentic
unbroken Enigma messages, enciphered with
the 3-rotor version from the Wehrmacht.
This huge project started in 2003. Many
of those messages are already broken and
some contained sensational stuff.
Meanwhile, Frode has set up a special
portal, Breaking of German
Wehrmacht Ciphers. If you're
interested in the M4 Project, you really
should visit Frode's website!
Kriegsmarine
Simulation Update
 A
new update on the freeware Enigma
Simulator (v5.0) is out! The included
versions are extended with the
Kriegsmarine M3 (Funkschlussel M),
there's a version displaying when the
cover is open, and you can now lock the
rotors for cryptanalysis and testing. All
together, you can now use three versions:
the 3-rotor Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe
Enigma, 3-rotor Kriegsmarine M3, and the
famous 4-rotor Kriegmarine M4 Enigma
cipher machine. All Enigma Sim versions
are fully compatible with original Enigma
cipher machines.
You can find the sim at the Enigma Sim Website.
The story of U-264
There was a lot of publicity, the past
weeks, for Stefan Krah's M4 project to
break three Kriegsmarine Enigma messages.
Reading a secret message, send from a
U-boat is very appealing to all of us. In
all the excitement, we should not forget
what lies beneath that message. If you
get deeper into the message, the terrible
story of naval warfare surfaces. Wo has
sent the message? What happened to the
people on that U-boat? What was their
faith? For more details on
Kapitainleutnant Looks and his crew, read
the story of U-264. You think the movie
'Das Boot' was cool? Well, check out the amazing story of U-264.
A real thriller!
GPS Geocaching
 Geocaching
is an outdoor adventure game for GPS
users. Actually, it's the modern version
of the Fox Hunt, where people with
direction sensitive receivers hunted for
hidden little transmitters. These days,
caches are set up all over the world,
users sharing the locations of these
caches on the internet. One such website
is Geocaching. Once a
cache is found, there could be some sort
of reward. When something is taken from a
cache, the visitor is asked to leave
something else in the cache. On the
website, people can report their success,
or add new caches. There are also mystery
caches. A puzzle or riddle has to be
solved to find the cache, or the cache
itself contains a puzzle, leading to
another cache. On Geocache, you can find
two caches, one using my Enigma simulator, and
a Canadian one, the first ever to use my M-209 simulator. If
you have a GPS, you can join the hunt
after creating a free account.
Enigma Cipher
Challenge
The Enigma
Cipher Challenge has started. Goal is
to decipher ten messages, encrypted with
the Enigma machine. Each of the ten
stages is a bit harder to solve as the
previous. To participate, you have to
break the stages, one by one, and mail me
the translation. Of course, you'll need
to translate them, since they are in
German. You'll face the same problems as
the codebreakers did in Bletchley Park.
There will be a table of honor, where you
can find the names of the top
codebreaker, participating in the game.
For the content of some messages, I tried
to stay as close as possible to the
historical facts. You might find help or
clues in your WW2 history books or on the
internet. Hope to get you in our
codebreakers team...and Good Luck!
Challenge results
Congratulations to Jean-Francois
Bouchaudy, the winner of the Enigma Cipher Challenge!
He managed to break all 10 messages in
only 12 days. Jean-Francois used the Hill
Climbin algorithm to resolve the plug
settings on the 10th message.
Anyone, interested in breaking Enigma
messages, can still join the codebreakers
team and earn a place in the All Time
Table Of Honor!
The Enigma Cipher Challenge results
- Jean-Francois Bouchaudy - stage
10- May 2
- Keld Helbig Hansen - stage 9 -
April 30
- Jakub Stepniewicz - stage 8 -
April 29
- Torbjorn Andersson - stage 8 -
May 2
- Michele Denber - stage 5 - April
24
- Jason - stage 4 - April 29
- Hindrik Deelstra - stage 3 -
April 20
- Daniel Foerster - stage 1 - May 2
PPC-xx Hand Cipher
The PPC-xx cipher, Pencil-and-Paper
Cipher - xx, is a complex handcipher,
used to encrypt a message, containing
letters, numbers and spaces. There are
four variations, each with a different
key system. PPC-xx is a highly secure
cipher, with a key space of at least
10E18*47 (PPC-N). PPC-xx uses three
steps: an extended straddling
checkerboard, a normal columnar
transposition and a disrupted columnar
transposition. The combination of
fractioning by the checkerboard and the
double disrupted transposition makes
PPC-xx a very powerfull encryption
methode.
There are four keying systems: PPC-N uses
three 10-digit keys, PPC-NE is an
extended variant which allows wider
transpositions, PPC-A is a keying system,
based on letters, and PPC-W is based on
words or key phrazes.
More on PPC-xx is found on this webpage.
Dirk's Book
Reviews
If you're interested in Signal
Intelligence, codebreakers, Intelligence
Services or espionage, you could visit my
newly created Book Reviews. If time
allows me, I will write a little review
on each book I got to read. All
suggestions on good non-fiction books in
this area (see above) are welcome. As a
start, I added the last ten books I read
this year, and hope they can catch your
interest.
Go to Dirk's
Book Reviews to take a peek. There's
also a Book
Review in Dutch.
Amanda Pinson
honored by NSA
 Army
Sergeant Amanda Pinson worked as a
cryptologist in Iraq. Pinson died march
16, at the age of 21, in Tikrit, Iraq,
when a mortar round detonated. Pinson
enlisted in the Army after graduating in
2002 from Hancock Place High School,
where she won several scholarships. She
planned to attend college after her
military service and become an FBI or CIA
agent. Amanda was assigned to the 101st
Military Intelligence Detachment, 501st
Special Troops Battalion, 101st Airborne
Division (Air Assault), Fort Campbell,
Kentucky. She's the 2,315th soldier to be
killed in Iraq.
Cryptologists not only work from
garrison, but in time of war they must
also perform on the front lines. Amanda
is the first female soldier to be honored by the National
Security Agency. Pinson's name will
be inscribed on the NSA Memorial Wall,
along with one other soldier.
ATOMIX Virtual
Cipher Machine
 The
ATOMIX simulator is an advanced virtual
Cold War era electro-mechanical rotor
machine, situated between the Enigma
cipher machine and the Fialka M-125. With
its eight irregular stepping rotors,
moving in both directions, the ATOMIX has
a far better cryptographic strength as
the Enigma and a tremendous key space.
Its flexible pin settings provide many
more different rotor movements than the
Fialka. This very realistic virtual
ATOMIX enables you to encipher and
decipher messages, and apply the key
settings as you would with an actual
machine. As usual, available as freeware
download on my site.
Danger of weak
cryptography
Joel Schultz pointed me to an
interesting article. A jury in Santa Ana
convicted two leaders of the Aryan
Brotherhood prison gang of racketeering
and murder. They were found guilty of
ordering attacks and murders on black
inmates within the maximum security
cellblocks. To communicate in the high
security cells they wrote their
"execution orders" with
invisible ink and used a system of codes
and cryptograms, some of them based on a
400-years old system of Sir Francis
Bacon!
This is a nice example of how not very
smart people think they are smart and
therefore believe their system is
waterproof. Not being that smart, they
forget there are indeed smarter people
who can break their codes. And that's
just what happened! That's the problem
with new crypto algorithms and encryption
software. People think a system is
unbreakable because they can't break it
themselves, but unfortunately there are
always smarter people. This conviction is
a nice example showing us we always have
to be careful with encryption systems.
And for those who are against the use of
crypto by the public "because
criminals could misuse it" (mainly
governments are opponents) this is a nice
example of
we-always-get-the-bad-guys-encryption.
More on the story here and there.
Ransomware
A new problem is spreading around and
can cause major problems. Ransomware is a
Trojan virus that encrypts the data on
your computer. A payment is then asked
for the secret key, required to decrypt
your files. Your PC held hostage! The
problem is not new, but the Trojans get
more sophisticated and are usen
increasingly better encryption routines.
A spokesman from Kaspersky Lab stated
that they can still decrypt most of the
ransomware infected data in a reasonable
time, but fears that new Trojans with
better encryption algorithms based on
RSA, Blowfish or AES are just a matter of
time. If those are used, Anti-Virus
compagnies will no longer be able to
retrieve the encrypted data.
There are only three ways to defend
against ransomware. The first is not to
let it get on your computer, but that's
not obvious and Anti-Virus makers are
always one step behind. Second solution
is to get the writers of this malware
behind bars, which is not easy and often
legally impossible. The safest way to
protect yourself is to take regular
backups of your data, and that's probably
the only realistic defense against this
new type of cyber criminality. More on
ransomware on Techworld.
Crypto Machines
Timeline
When I visited Bletchley Park last
weekend I saw John Alexander's 'Enigma
and Friends' exhibition. He created a
nice banner, a large timeline with all
the important cipher machines. Since
there's no equivalent on the www I
decided to create a webpage with such a
timeline.
On this timeline you can follow the
development of cipher machines. The
machines are presented with a picture and
a brief description, some history and a
few links to more pictures or detailed
information. This is not a complete list!
There were many more cipher machines, but
this timeline gives a good view on the
development of these machines in the 20th
century. You can find it on my website.
KGB General
Solomatin Interview
One of the most famous and damaging
spy cases in the US was the John Walker Spy Ring.
John Walker, a naval communications
specialist, walked into the Soviet
Embassy in Washington in 1967 and offered
to sell Navy secrets for cash to the
Russians. Over a period of 17 years he
provided the Russians with crucial
information about cryptographic systems,
their technical drawing and passed them
the secret daily keysheets of machines
such as the KW-7. All this time Soviet
Intelligence could read all encrypted
message traffic from the US Navy and
Army. His game ended in 1985 when a
deaddrop was observed by FBI agents.
Walker was imprisoned for life. This was
not the end of the story! US intelligence
had to make a damage assessment.
 What did the
Russians knew and what damage caused this
to US security? Well, to be short,
Walker's work was devastating and the
Russians knew the most sensitive military
secrets. But who can explain this better
than retired KGB General Boris Solomatin
(picture), responsible for handling the
Walker Spy Ring. Pete Earley's very
interesting interview with Solomatin
on crimelibrary.com shows how false
confidence in crypto systems and
unpredictable people can damage a
nation's security. It's a great
opportunity to hear the Russian side of
the story. Another source, on US side, is
the pdf Analysis
of the Systemic Security Weaknesses of
the U.S. Navy Fleet Broadcasting System,
1967-1974, as Exploited by CWO John
Walker.
Solomatin died December last year. If
you're interested, you can find
Solomatin's bio on this SVR page.
Hagelin BC-52
Simulator
 I just finished a new cipher
machine simulator, the Hagelin BC-52.
It's an accurate simulation of one of the
most powerful and commercial successful
machines of engineer Boris Hagelin.
Hagelin developed this cipher machine for
high level military and diplomatic
encryption. In 1952 Hagelin Cryptos
(Crypto AG) introduced the notorious
C-52, raising the security of
drum-and-lug devices to another level.
The machine had 6 irregular moving
pinwheels, selected from a set of 12, and
the number of drum bars was extended to
32, of which 5 where also used to advance
the wheels. When lugs and pins are
selected carefully the C-52 provides even
in this computer era a powerful
encryption. The combination of C-52 and
the keyboard, denoted B-52, was named
BC-52. Within short time the BC-52 was
purchased by more than 60 countries and
remained popular until today. As usual,
the simulator is available as freeware download on my
website.
Enigma Sim Update
A new update of the Enigma simulator
is available on my Cipher Machines and
Cryptology website. Version 6.0 now
incorporates a practical menu. Different
key settings can be saved and loaded in
this update and a new window gives a
quick view on the current machine
settings. These options were requested by
Dave from The Mars Bars, who
needed an easy method to process a large
numbers of Geocaches, based on
the Enigma simulator. Any other requests
or suggestions to improve my sims are
always welcome!
Fialka Software
 Last
year Raul Reuvers created
his wonderful pages on the notorious
Russian Fialka cipher machine. An
interesting download was a very realistic
Fialka M125-3 simulator, written By
Chernov V.V. from the Ukraine. Chernov
also wrote a great program which
simulates the M125-M, the M125-3MN and
the 8-rotor M125-3MR. His program is
fully compatible with the real Fialka.
This download is now available on my website
links page, courtesy of Chernov.
Cryptocolletors
Group
If you're interested in crypto
machines or you are a collector of these
wonderful machines, there's one address
on the www to bookmark! The Cryptocollector's Yahoo
group is the place to be for all
cipher machine enthusiasts. It's a forum
for collectors of vintage crypto machines
in which to exchange ideas and
information. Do you have an old cipher
machine or some questions on a particular
machine, then join this most interesting
groups.
Faberge Enigma Egg
The Faberge jewellery, founded in 1842
in St Petersburg by Gustav Faberge, is
known for its infamous beautiful designed
eggs and the St Petersbrug collection.
Sarah Faberge, the latest family member
of the Faberges is asked to make an
Enigma egg. Inside the blue with gold egg
there will be an Enigma M3 in silver and
gold, complete with opening lid. A
limited number of 50 eggs will be sold to
raise £100,000 for Bletchley Park.
With a price of £2,000 it is far cheaper
than the real Enigma, but with its
limited number it's even more rare than
the real machine. No need to say this
will be a unique collectors item. Plans
are made to exhibit one of these eggs at
Bletchley Park.
Enigma at School
 The story of the
Enigma cipher machine is a combination of
technology, military history and the
mysterious world of espionage, code
breakers and intelligence. As it happens,
these are the perfect ingredients to
attract the attention of young people.
The art of teaching is an art of
entertaining. Without the interest of the
students it's hard to bring over the
importance of maths. History is boring if
you don't care about who invaded Poland
67 years ago.
But if you can catch the attention of
your students with secret codes and
codebreakers, top secret missions or
stories on U-boats and intelligence
services, its only a small step to the
maths and statistics, used for
codebreaking, or the importance of WW2
history. The possiblilities to link the
story of the Enigma machine to these so
called boring lessons are unlimited. More
on the use of Enigma in schools can be
found on these pages.
Bombe Rebuild
Project
 The Turing Bombe
was a machine that truly turned the tide
of war. For many years it was top secret
and after 60 years a team, lead by John
Harper, finally completed the rebuild of
this wonderful machine. Last month, for
the first time since the end of the war,
a full demonstration of a working Bombe
took place in Bletchley Park.
The Turing Bombe was designed by Alan
Turing and Gordon Welchman to break into
the message traffic, encrypted with the
notorious German Enigma cipher machine.
The Bombe was an electromechanical device
that searched for the enigma settings for
a given piece of plain and cipher text.
When an Enigma message was intercepted,
codebreakers had to search for cribs.
These cribs were presumed pieces of plain
text within the encrypted message. This
could be "An Der
Oberbefehlshaber", "An
Gruppe" or "Es Lebe Den
Fuhrer" or any other standardized
piece of text. Once a crib was located
(there were some techniques for that) the
associations between the letters of the
ciphertext and their plain version were
entered in the Bombe. The Bombe, which
contains a large number of drums, each
replicating the rotors of the Enigma, ran
through all possible settings to find the
key settings that belong to the given
pieces of cipher and plain text. Once
these settings were found all messages,
encrypted with these setting, could be
deciphered.
More information on the rebuild of the
Turing Bombe can be found on John Harpers website,
with some nice pictures of the Bombe
project. For more details on how the
Turing Bombe worked you should visit Graham Ellsbury's Bombe
pages. To see the actual Bombe you
will have to visit Bletchley Park, which
also has a great Enigma And Friend
exhibit, and is really worth while the
trip.
Weblog upgrade
My Blogger weblog is upgraded!
Although you won't notice that much,
there are some improvements on the
background such as new editing features
and increased speed. The reader can now
view my posts with labels. Instead of
just browsing chronologically, you'll be
able to dynamically display all posts
from any given category, and you can zero
in on the topics of your interest .
Keep on reading the Blog!
Hagelin Crypto
Machines
The story of cipher machines is almost
written by one man. His name was Boris
Hagelin. This brilliant Swedish engineer
took over management of A. B. Cryptograph
in 1925 and developed a series of Hagelin
Cryptos machines that would lead the
market of encryption devices for decades.
After the Second World War Hagelin moved
to Zug in neutral Switzerland and
established Crypto AG. Many of his
machines were commercially successful,
thus making him the only inventor and
developer of crypto machines in history
to have made a fortune in that market.
After his first machine in 1925, the
electromechanical B21, Hagelin developed
the infamous drum-and lug encryption
system, introduced in the first C type
machine C-35. This machine was soon
followed by the C-36, C-38 and the
American licenced version M-209, of which
more than 140,000 were produced. Many
different versions of the C type machines
were sold all over the world. In the Cold
War era the C-52 and CX-52 set a new
standard in cryptographic security. The
electrical keyboard version BC-52 was a
huge commercial success and was sold to
more than 60 countries. He also developed
the CD-55 and CD-57 pocket cipher
machines, the TMX, T-52 and T-55
teleprinter encryption systems. The only
rotor cipher machine, ever produced by
Hagelin was the HX-63 which had the
incredible key space of 10E600.
After the transition to fully electronic
machines Crypto AG kept playing a leading
role in the development of new crypto
systems such as the H-4605, HC-520, and
more recently the SECOS radio series,
MULTICOM radio encryption, encrypted
satellite lines and many IT solutions.
More on Boris Hagelin and his crypto
machines on this web page. On
my website you can download freeware
software simulations of the BC-52 and M-209 cipher
machines.
Site Review:
Toby's Cryptopage
Torbjorn Andersson
from Sweden has brought together some
interesting pieces of information on
cryptology. On his site you can read
about basic cryptography and
cryptanalysis and some Swedish cipher
codes. He also composed a great chapter
on the Swedish cryptographer Boris
Hagelin and his successful
cryptomachines, which incudes some nice
images.
The most interesting part however is his
From The Archives section. Some years ago
he was granted access to the archives of
the Swedish signal intelligence
organization FRA, Forsvarets Radioanstalt
or National Defence Radio Establishment.
There are several interesting Second
World War cipher codes presented from the
Soviet Forces and also a few German
codes. Amongst the Russian codes are
Cheka and OGPU stations cipher keys, a
few tank codes, Baltic Navy codes and
NKVD codes. There's also a description of
the Call sign encryption system of Soviet
ground forces in WW2. Most interesting!
Cold War Chief
Spook Wolf deceased
 Markus Wolf, the
legendary chief of the East German
foreign intelligence service HVA - Haupt
Verwaltung Aufklaerung - died November 9
in his sleep at home in Berlin, exactly
17 years after the fall of the Berlin
Wall. He was 83 years old. After fleeing
from Nazi Germany in 1933 he returned
after the war as journalist on the
Neurenberg trials. In 1953 he was one of
the founding members of the foreign
intelligence service, a department of the
ministry of state security, the notorious
Stasi. As head of the HVA, Wolf developed
the most effective secret service of the
Cold War and recruited several thousands
of spies in West Germany and other NATO
countries.
After retiring in 1986 he published a
book - a film project of his late brother
Konrad - about friendship which also
exposed the failure of communism. For the
people in the East, Wolf, who supported
the Glasnost and Perestroika, became a
symbol of the ongoing changes in the
German Democratic Republic. Although Wolf
headed only the foreign intelligence, on
of the departments of Erich Mielke's
Stasi, he became targeted as Stasi spy
chief by the media during the period of
the fall of the Berlin Wall. After the
collapse of the GDR he was charged and
sentenced in the reunified Germany with
espionage, bribery and treason, but that
conviction was later overturned and he
received a suspended sentence on lesser
charges. His death is seen as the end of
the Cold War Intelligence era.
Wolf wrote several books that gave an
insight on the East German Intelligence
Services and the collapse of East
Germany. More on these books on my Book Reviews page. An
interesting interview with Wolf is
published on CNN's Cold War series.
A short bio is found on BBC News.
Russian MK-85C
"ANCRYPT" Crypto Device
 Recently some
pictures of the MK-85C came available and
were published on Andrew Davie's Museum Of Soviet
Calculators. The MK-85C was a
top-secret portable cryptographic device
used mainly by the Russian military. It's
a modification of the MK-85 CMOS BASIC
calculator, developed by the Russian firm
ANCORT. The text for ciphering is entered
from the alphanumeric keyboard and can be
edited on a 10 digit display. Key space
is 10E100 and the device can encrypt in
both numeric and alphanumeric mode. More
details on the ANCORT website.
Andrew's web pages on Soviet
Calculators contains a remarkable
collection of old and more recent Russian
build machines. Most interesting!
Site Review:
National Security Archive
Top secret projects, Intelligence
Agencies or high level diplomatic arm
wrestling are most appealing topics and
we all have our opinion on what the
spooks are doing behind our backs or try
to find a more or less paranoia top
secret government project behind a UFO
spotting. One way to understand things
that happen today is to look at the past,
which can be found in the archives.
Although reading government archives will
bring you only their side of the story it
can help you to form your own idea of
what happened. Unfortunately, too few
people take the effort to dig their nose
into the wealth of archives that are
collecting dust. A great source is the National Security Archive
from the George Washington University.
Although you won't find here secret stuff
about G.W. Bush or Rumsfeld you can read
about the past, how things were handled
back then, and project this to the
present. In the Documents Section you
find the nuclear history, the Cuban
missile crisis, nuclear first strike
options, Vietnam, Latin America,
government secrecy. Enough to keep you
reading for months. You think you got the
right to know something? The Freedom of
Information Act (FOIA) is a federal
law that establishes the public's right
to obtain information from federal
government agencies. In the News Section you can
read the newest archive entries.
SpyCast
 Since
recently the International Spy Museum
offers a SpyCast. These are Pod Casts of
interviews and programs with ex-spies,
intelligence experts, and espionage
scholars, which can be downloaded and
played on your PC or MP3 player. The
SpyCast is hosted by Peter Earnest, a
former CIA operations officer, and gives
you the change to hear intelligence
stories right from the key players
themselves.
I just listened to two interesting
interviews, or SpyCasts as they are
called. The first is with Oleg Kalugin,
former Major General of the Soviet KGB
and now living in the US. They discuss
the current espionage conflict between
Russia and Georgia about the four GRU
officers, and go back into time to talk
about the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.
In the second interview with former CIA
officer Bob Rayle and KGB General Oleg
Kalugin they discuss on the poisoning of
former KGB spy Alexander Litvinenko.
Bob's Rayle also tells the story on the
extraordinary defection of Svetlana
Alliluyeva, daughter of Josef Stalin, and
how he escorted her out of India to flee
the USSR, back in 1967.
These and more interviews or programs are
available for download at the International Spy Museum
Spycast page. I advice to download
them first since these are rather large
files, up to 50 Mb (right-click
"Play Now" and select
"Save Target As..."). I can
recommend a visit to the Museum site with lots
of inside information from the past, or
you can even visit the museum which is
located in Washington DC.
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