The Codebreakers: The Comprehensive History of Secret Communication from Ancient Times to the Internet - David Kahn
The story of cryptology starts in 2000 B.C. and the book traces its origins, from the first hieroglyphs, over the early Arabic work on cryptanalysis to the middle ages. Western civilization would have to wait until the 14th century before secret writing gradually developed in the hands of people like di Lavinde, Soro and Porta, and the first book on cryptography, Trithemius’ Polygaphyiae. Kahn brings alive the stories from monks, popes, kings, espionage and treason, and he explains how all the classical ciphers work and how they were broken. In the 17th century, codebreaking became a powerful tool in the hands of people like Antoine Rossignol and John Wallis. The era of the black chambers, how they worked, their achievements, decrypting communications from friend and foe to assist politics and diplomacy, it’s all there. Various nomenclatures, codebooks and ciphers are presented. Cryptology moved from a mysterious dark art to real science in the 19th century. The invention of telegraphy evoked an explosion of communications. Jefferson, Wheatstone, and Babbage, the American Civil War and conflicts in Europe lead to the invention of many so-called field ciphers, extensively used by the military. Auguste Kerckhoffs, Etienne Bazieres and many others contributed to the mechanization of cryptography by writing books or inventing crypto machines. The many conflicts in the early 1900’s showed the need for specialized military organizations, not only to implement cryptographic systems, but also to intercept and decipher enemy communications. Radio communications became widespread and so did the commercial market of crypto machines. The war of intercepts had started. Kahn describes in detail cipher systems, how and where they performed on the battlefields during World War I, and how the United States finally catches up with the European continent, thanks to people like Herbert Yardley and William Friedman. During the Second World War, cryptanalysis finally evolved from raw intelligence into a vital part of modern warfare. Examples are innumerable, and Kahn does a wonderful job in bringing alive the many war episodes that were determined by the making and breaking of codes. Signals intelligence kept playing a major role during the Cold War, and Kahn devotes a complete chapter on Russian cryptology, returning to its origins in the 18th century and explains how they developed into a key player the Cold War, with the according espionage stories. The history and work of NSA (National Security Agency) is followed by the anatomy of cryptology, and a detour to the use of ciphers and codes by the American rum runners during the prohibition years, gamblers and businessman. Kahn also peeks into the past, with the deciphering of ancient languages, and briefly peeks into the future with communications with outer space. The book was published in 1967 and
therefore did not contain any recently declassified
information about, for instance, the breaking of the
German Enigma machine, the expansion from cryptography
into the public domain, the Internet or the evolution of
signals intelligence. The 1996 edition contains an
additional 15 page short chapter which merely touches
these subjects. However, given the many detailed books,
published today about these more recent, there is no need
for an extensive revision of the book. With 27 chapters
and 1180 pages (of which 194 pages notes and references)
the book is already a massive read. Although the book
also presents some classical cryptologic techniques, it
is not a technical work for cryptologists or
mathematicians. David Kahn’s The Codebreakers is a
unique one-in-a-kind reference on the history of
cryptology with numerous exciting stories that will
captivate even those who never heard of cryptology.
Highly recommended! ISBN 0684831309 Secret Power: New Zealand’s Role in the International Spy Network - Nicky Hager
Although apparently a child of the Cold War, ECHELON does much more than protecting the participating countries against the - meanwhile perished - Soviet Union or safeguarding their nations interests. It enables massive eavesdropping on both enemies and friends, and for many years, this was done without consent or knowledge of the New Zealand parliament. ECHELON was so secret that only the GCSB staff knew - more ore less - what they were doing. Moreover, the technology, training and key staff members were provided by the American NSA and the British GCHQ, the UKUSA key members. ECHELON is based on software, called Dictionary, to filter potential interesting information with the help of key words. The five countries can individually compose and adjust different key word tables to filter out the intelligence they need. ECHELON also interconnects all the listening stations, located across the world. All five countries harvest intelligence and - theoretically - profit of the remote spy stations of their fellow eavesdroppers. However, the 'return on investment' for junior members Australia, Canada and New Zealand is nothing compared to their British GCHQ counterpart and especially the NSA, the agency that designed and fully controles the ECHELON system and its Dictionary. At the end, New Zealand embarked on a Big Brother project without being aware of what ECHELON was used for, what information the key players filtered out the GCSB stations, and without having any democratic control over this most secret operation. The information in the book is based
many years of painstakingly puzzling together the very
scarce information, tracking involved personnel and
interviews with staff members of the GCSB. A quest that
started in 1984 and lasted until the 1996 publishing of
the book. The result is a detailed report on how the spy
network and ECHELON are working, who is targeted and what
information they harvest. Hager's investigations provide
an insight view, not only in GCSB's kitchen, but also in
the GCHQ, the NSA and the Australian DSD. A truly
fascinating book! The e-book version, a 23 Mb pdf file,
is now on-line available and free to download at Nicky Hager's website (right-click the "full book" link).
ISBN 0908802358 The Ultimate Spy Book - H. Keith Melton
However, the major part of the book is, not surprisingly, about the Cold War. The Cold War was a period in history that was characterised by mistrust and fear between East and West. These were the heydays of espionage, with Berlin as the capital of spies. Many of the most notorious spy cases were about the battle for intelligence information between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. This battle was fought in the sky, with U2 spy planes and satellites, but also on the ground by intelligence officers and their agents in enemy territory. Hidden and automatic cameras for observation such as the Robot Star, small mini cameras like the famous Minox or the F21 with its lens in a jacket button for clandestine photography and small camera systems to copy documents. You will discover communications equipment for covert operations, monitoring equipment and dead drops to secretly pass documents and films. Melton also brings us the story of
secret operations and the special devices that were
developed for these operations. If there are spies,
there's counter-intelligence. Bug detectors,
anti-eavesdropping equipment, interception of documents
and all kind of tools to burgle or secretly gain access
to installations or documents of the enemy. Training and
recruitment, spy rings, false covers and legends, it's
all there. But above all, The Ultimate Spy is a
book to watch, with many splendid photos about the art of
spy-craft and its technology. A book that would make
James Bond's Mister Q jealous. ISBN: 0789404435 IBM and the Holocaust: The Strategic Alliance between Nazi Germany and America's Most Powerful Corporation - Edwin Black
The Hollerith machines, the predecessor of the computer, were able to perform statistical calculations and organise data with an unmatched speed. Already in the early 1930's the Nazis placed large orders at Dehomag to organise industry, finances, railways but also to automate the identification of Jews. All Hollerith machines had to be customised for every specific task and special punch cards were designed to store detailed information. Although the Germany based Demohag company officially processed these orders, it were the IBM engineers who controlled the complete process, and all financial decisions were made by IBM New York and its executives. Even when Jews were openly prosecuted and deported, even when war broke out, even when all trade with Germany became illegal, IBM continued to produce and lease Hollerith machines, developed custom solutions for the Nazis, offered maintenance and gained massive profits of this, of course hidden in a labyrinth of confusing financial and legal tricks. Given the complex requirements to
develop specific custom solutions, which included
detailed data input and question lists, IBM was well
aware of the purpose of the ordered machines. Moreover,
IBM was constantly involved in legal battles to obtain
more and more profit of its successful sub-company
Dehomag. Meanwhile, Hollerith machines produced precise
address lists of Jews in Germany and many occupied
countries, organised their deportation and enslaved
labor, enabled smooth railway timetables to transport
millions of people across Europe and boosted the
efficiency of the German war industry. And IBM was the
one who leased the machines and produces the billions of
punch cards Hitler needed to continue his war and the
total annihilation of Jews. This book shows in detail the
carefully constructed covert alliance between IBM and the
Third Reich, and how IBM founder and president Thomas
Watson cooperated with the Nazis. It's not an easy book
to read, but an astonishing report on how a globalised
company ignored moral ethics, laws and borders for the
sake of profit. Above all, this book answers the most
important question: how did Hitler get the names of all
these Jews? ISBN: 0609607995 Philby: KGB Masterspy - Phillip Knightley
After the defection of his close
friends Burgess and Maclean to Moscow, he came under
suspicion with MI5 and got fired. Due to lack of evidence
his name was cleared and by 1956 he was covertly
recruited again by the SIS as agent in Beirut. After the
defection of KGB agent Golitsyn his treason was exposed
and the SIS proposed exemption of prosecution in exchange
of a full confession. However, early in 1963 Philby
vanished in Lebanon to surface a few weeks later in
Moscow, where he was received as a hero. The performance
of this master spy is unique and for almost 30 years
caused enormous damage in the hart of the battle against
Soviet Intelligence. This book is based on many
interviews with Philby himself in Moscow, and has been
veryfied by historical research. ISBN: 0233000488 Loyal Comrades, Ruthless Killers: The Secret Service of the USSR 1920's to the Present - Slava Katamidze
Having said this, I also have some
serious questions about this book. Although a very good
introduction, it fails to go into detail on several
important episodes in the history of the Soviet Union and
its secret service. The author presents some new and
questionable facts about names and numbers, criticises
some people and is striking mild on others. The book
regretfully lacks the sources for these new facts, giving
the book a sense of subjectivity, although it's hard to
tell in which direction. Slava Katamidze has a background
as officer in the Soviet Army, studied at the institute
for foreign languages and institute for international law
in Moscow. Sounds like a perfect candidate for the GRU
(military intelligence, known for its fierce rivalry with
the KGB). Although nowhere mentioned and only an educated
guess of mine, it would explanation the duality of the
book in its criticism on the secret service and at the
same time forgetting some dark Soviet episodes and
details. Nonetheless a fascinating introduction and
beautiful illustrated book. However, I recommend to read
books such as The Mitrokhin Archive after this
one, to get another view on the story. ISBN: 1930983239 Chatter: Dispatches from the secret world of global eavesdropping - Patrick Radden Keefe
The Sword and The Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive - Christopher Andrew & Vasili Mitrokhin
The Code Book: The Science of Secrecy from Ancient Egypt to Quantum Cryptography - Simon Singh
The Game Of The Foxes - Ladislas Farago
In 1944 the Abwehr finally lost all
credit with the Nazi top brass, in favor of Schellenbergs
Sicherheidsdienst Ausland, and Admiral Canaris was forced
to leave the service. The Allied success of operation
Fortitude, to mislead German intelligence about the
invasion on D-Day, was the last major battle between the
secret services and finally lead to the fall of the Nazi
empire. The question remains in how far Canaris, who
became anti-Nazi, was responsible for the failure of his
intelligence service and the outcome of war. The Abwehr,
by then under command of the RSHA, soon collapsed without
the expertise of Canaris who was executed later by the SS
in Kamp Flossenburg for conspiracy against Hitler. This
detailed story of the recovered Abwehr archive is a
unique piece of WW2 intelligence history. ISBN:
0553123424 Gideon's Spies : The Secret History of the Mossad - Gordon Thomas
Die Trojka / Man Without A Face/ Im eigener Auftrag - Markus Wolf
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 Soviet Army, one friend joined the German Luftwaffe, and the third one joined the US forces. After the war, the three friends meet again and keep in 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 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 (ISBN: 1891620126), you can read about his
childhood years in Moscow, the development of the most
successful spy agency of the Cold War, and lots of inside
information on famous spy cases. In Die Trojka
(Dutch ISBN: 9053300465, German ISBN: 3746680611, English
ISBN: ???) you get a taste of the life in the pre-war
Soviet Union, and how friends got separated by Stalins
abuse of communism. The last book I got to read was In
eigenem Auftrag: Bekenntnisse und Einsichten
(Dutch ISBN: 9056171127, German ISBN: 3795112168 ,
English ISBN: ???), Wolf's diary of 1989-1990, describing
in detail the political collapse of East Germany and how
the GDR government of Erich Honnecker led the country,
the SED party and socialism into the abyss, by rejecting
any changes in policy. Station X - Michael Smith
The Red Orchestra - Gilles Perrault
Washington Station: My life as a KGB spy in America - Yuri B Shvets
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The Codebreakers is
the ultimate reference on the history of cryptology. This
book is indispensable on the book shelf of anyone who is
interested in the making and breaking of codes, and how
it influenced history. David Kahn takes you on a trip
through history that spans almost 4000 years and he does
this in a very detailed, extensive and sometimes exciting
way. Giving a summary of the book is almost impossible,
considering the huge wealth of information. The first
chapter starts in 1941 and describes chronologically the
events leading up to the attack on Pearl Harbour, and the
work of OP-20-G, the U.S. Navy’s cryptologic
organization. This 70 pages introduction immediately
makes clear what cryptography is about, and how it
influences history. This gripping first chapter puts you
in the front seat of history and makes you want to ride
straight through Kahn’s massive 1000-pager.
Secret Power (now free
to download as e-book) is a fascinating book about New
Zealand's role in the international UKUSA based spy
network. Published in 1996 but hardly known to the
public, the book is one of the first well documented
papers to shed a light on the most secret ECHELON system.
The story begins after the Second World War, when the
United States and the United Kingdom sign the UKUSA
agreement, to gather and share Signals Intelligence
(SIGINT). Soon after, Canada, Australia and New Zealand
joined this cooperation. This was to become the largest
worldwide SIGINT organisation ever. The boek provides
many details about the origings and history of the New
Zealand Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB),
their collaboration with the other SIGINT agencies and
the how and why of the most secretive UKUSA agreement. In
the 1980's, a system was introduced to automatically
categorise, filter and store the vast amount of
intercepted signals from commercial satellites, radio
communications, telephone, fax, Telex and e-mail traffic.
The system, codenamed ECHELON became an enormous source
of intelligence.
Keith Melton is a well
known author of several spy books and an expert on
espionage equipment and clandestine devices. He has an
enormous collection of these unique spy tools. This book
is beautifully illustrated with more than 600 detailed
images of ingenious spy accessories and weapons. The book
starts with a brief historical review on the beginnings
of espionage, the First World War and the Russian
revolution. Melton takes us back to the Second World War,
with the British SOE - Special Operations Executive , the
American OSS - Office of Strategic Operations and the
German Abwehr, Sicherheitsdienst and Gestapo. The covert
communications equipment, suitcase radios, special
weapons, the cracking of codes and Soviet wartime spy
rings.
How was it possible for the Nazis to identify
such an enormous number of Jews and other ethnic groups?
How did they find all their relatives? How did they
manage to transport and eliminate millions of people? The
answer to these questions begins in the early 1930's,
when IBM successfully commercialized and aggressively
monopolized the Hollerith punch card technology, used
since 1890 by census bureaus. When Thomas Watson became
president of IBM, his goal was to expand the company on a
global scale, regardless any political, military or ethic
obstacle. A crucial player in the organisation of the
Holocaust was Dehomag, a German sub-company of IBM.
The story of Kim Philby, head of the Soviet
counter-espionage section of the SIS, Britain's Secret
Intelligence Service, at the same time a successful
Russian spy. This brilliant student became a true
communist in Cambridge. In 1933 he finished his
university studies and went to Vienna to help underground
socialists in their battle against the Austrian
right-conservatives. After his return Philby was
recruited by the KGB as one of 'the four of Cambridge',
together with Guy Burgess, Donald Maclean and Anthony
Blunt. His main objective was to infiltrate the SIS. He
went to Spain as newspaper reporter and pretended to be a
supporter of the fascist General Franco, to erase his
communist past. In 1940 he was recruited by the SIS after
recommendation by the already infiltrated Burgess and one
year later he worked at the counter-espionage branch. By
the end of 1944, at the dawn of the Cold War, he had been
promoted to head of counter-espionage and anti-communist
operations. Five years later he was promoted to the SIS
top function in Washington which gave him access to US
operations against the Soviet-Union, the top secret
VENONA project, and other sensitive information.
If you are not familiar with the Soviet secret
service, its history and developed, this is a great book
to read. The book is written in chronological order and
starts at the roots of the secret service. Katamidze
takes us on a journey through time, from Dzerzhinsky's
ruthless Cheka, the OGPU and NKVD, the repression by the
KGB inside and outside the Soviet Union during the Cold
War, to the the failed 1991 coup by Kryuchkov with the
dissolving of the KGB and transition to the new Federal
Security Service FSB and Foreign Intelligence SVR in the
new Russian Federation. Katamidze doesn't hide his
criticism on the secret services and their violent
history. Many of the most notorious spy cases and KGB
intelligence successes are described and you can find
details about nearly all high ranked people in the secret
service, all of this illustrated with many unique images.
Interesting book about Signal Intelligence, the
Echelon network, and the discussion about privacy vs
security. Is it possible to eavesdrop on your phonecalls
or read your mails? What are secret services doing, and
how far are they going? Keefe did lots of research and
found answers, but also many new questions. What is NSA
and who's supervising this top secret service? Can NSA
win the war against terrorism? What changed after 9/11?
And what about our privacy? Do secret services protect us
or just violate our privacy? Keefe talked to many people
from the world of intelligence, visited listening
stations and tries to analyse the influence of secret
services on politics and vice versa. ISBN: 1400060346
Vasili Nikitich Mitrokhin was a chief archivist
for the First Chief Directorate PGU, the
foreign-intelligence department of the KGB, when the huge
archive relocated to another KGB building. Mitrokhin was
responsible for transferring over 300,000 files, many of
them among the KGB's most secret documents. Over a period
of 12 years, Mitrokhin smuggled a vast amount of top
secret papers out of the archive and copied them. In
1992, he walked into a British embassy in a Baltic state
and by the end of that year he was exfiltrated by British
Secret Service, together with several large crates of
documents. The consequences were devastating for the KGB.
Details about secret operations and the names and code
names of Soviet spies came into the hands of intelligence
services in the West. As the facts got published, SVR,
the successor to the KGB, replied that it was simply
impossible that hundreds of names could be exposed, 'in
worst case a few'. The reality was that more than one
thousand names were revealed. This enabled secret
services to identify or catch many Soviet spies. This
large book contains an enormous amount of information on
the history of the secret services in the Soviet Union
and detailed info on Soviet spies and numerous secret
operations. ISBN: 0465003125
What is cryptology and where did it came from?
Ever since the beginning of mankind, people have had
secrets, and people have wanted to know other peoples
secrets. This book takes the reader on a trip through the
history of cryptology, from ancient texts through to
modern cryptographic algorithms on computers. Singh
explains the evolution of codemakers, and their never
ending battle with codebreakers. Without going into
technical details he shows the importance of cryptology
in politics and war over many centuries. We read how
cryptography was developed as an important weapon against
Signal Intelligence, and the role of codebreakers in
Sigint. In this age of technology, internet and
communication, Singh explains the importance of
encryption to protect our privacy. This isn't a detailed
book aimed at crypto geeks, but a good introduction to
cryptography with some basics on classical encryption
methods and a bit of theory on modern algorithms like
RSA. This book is a must for those who think that
encryption isn't important. ISBN: 0385495323
A detailed book about the Abwehr, the German
Foreign Intelligence organization before and during the
Second World War. Farago, a former SIS officer,
reconstructed the history of this notorious service
thanks to recovered archives, captured in the final days
of war. They contained tens of thousands of documents on
microfilm. The book explains how the Abwehr was formed,
how Admiral Canaris developed it into an effective secret
service, and his struggle with the other German security
services. We can read about the preparations for war and
the invasion of Poland, as well as the spy networks in
England, the success of the British counter-intelligence
and the Double-Cross system that turned virtually all
German agents in England into double agents. There's a
large chapter on pre-war industrial and military
espionage and sabotage by German spy networks in the US.
You can read how the Abwehr tried to influence US
elections and prevent a third term for F. D. Roosevelt,
who was in favor of military support for Europe. The
archives reveal the misplaced confidence in the Abwehr
agents operating in the US, and how the FBI eliminated
most of the spy networks once the US entered the war. The
archives show the infiltration of foreign embassies, the
spy network in neutral Sweden and the support for General
Franco in Spain.
The history of the Mossad, Israel's secret
service. This book explains how the Mossad was formed in
the newly created state of Israel and how it developed.
It describes in detail several of their secret missions.
Thomas interviewed many former agents of the Mossad to
compile a complete image of the 'institute', known to the
public for its counterterrorist actions and
assassinations. He gives us not only operational details,
but puts all of this into its historical context. ISBN:
0312339135
Markus Wolf was the legendary chief of the HVA
(Haupt Verwaltung Aufklaerung), East Germany's foreign
intelligence service. 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 himself to Moscow. After the war, he was sent to
Berlin as journalist for the radio station in the Soviet
Zone of occupation. As a journalist, he followed the
Nuremberg Trials against the Nazi leaders.
Station X is the story of the incredible
achievements of codebreakers in the Second World War. In
1939, the Government Code and Cipher School, GC&CS,
started a top secret station to decipher intercept enemy
codes. Some of the most brilliant people were brought
together in Bletchley Park, England. One of their
objectives was breaking the Enigma codes. The Enigma
cipher machine was used in all parts of the German Army,
Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine. Breaking this code could turn
the tide of the war. This book is the story of the people
who broke the code, how the codebreaking was organised,
and gives us a pretty good idea of how people lived in
Bletchley Park. Breaking Enigma played a decisive role in
many parts of the war such as the Atlantic, Africa and
D-day, and shortened the war by several years. ISBN:
1575000946
The story of Leopold Trepper, a Polish Jew who
ran a network of Soviet radio spies in occupied Europe
during WW2. The Red Orchestra is the name of the secret
operation, ordered by Hitler personally, to eliminate
these Soviet cells. One by one, all secret broadcasting
stations are traced and the members of the organization
arrested and tortured by the Gestapo. Trepper seems to be
a ghost, getting away each time, while the ring around
his organization is closing slowly. It's a detailed
document on how Soviet spies operated in Europe, and the
battle between Wehrmacht and Gestapo Sigint units and the
different Soviet cells, broadcasting German secrets to
Russia. ISBN: 0805209522
Under cover as TASS reporter, KGB officer Yuri
Shvets was stationed at the Soviet embassy in Washington
D.C. for over two years. In this book he writes about his
training and career in the KGB, how the institute worked
and his operations in the US. Shvets describes the live
of Soviet officers in the embassy, their missions, the
recruiting of local agents and the cat-and-mouse game
with the FBI. He also gives us a dark view on the KGB,
paralysed by bureaucracy, where paranoia obstructs the
real intelligence work. A sobering story on how secret
services operate. ISBN: 0671883976