Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

A 1941 Paper-and-Pencil Cipher

Posted by kdawson on from the sudoku-got-nothin' dept.

Schneier's blog links to a photo of a 68-year-old code being employed in wartime, with a plausible explanation of what is going on in it. (The photo is from the Life Magazine archive we discussed when it went live.) "What you see here is a photo that never should have been allowed to be taken, and one which provides an amazing, one-of-a-kind glimpse into the world of WWII espionage and counter-espionage. As far as I can tell, what is shown in this picture is an FBI agent in New York encrypting a message, passed from 'DUNN'... through Sebold, prior to transmitting that message to Germany via shortwave radio. ... [T]his appears to be real cryptology at work."

7 of 75 comments (clear)

  1. Human computers by El+Lobo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    More than 13 000 special trained persons worked with encryption/decryption related tasks in WWII (and that's allies only). Yes, there were no computers then the way we know them now, but 13 000 people working shifts day and night was a significant force as well.

    --
    It's time to realise that Abble's products are the biggest abomination these days. Just say NO to the dumb iAbble way!!
  2. Double bluff by adamwright · · Score: 5, Insightful

    We may consider, however, that the people allowing the photograph to be taken may not have been *entirely* honest when setting up the contents and cryptographic "method" being demonstrated.

    1. Re:Double bluff by mlwmohawk · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You are working on the assumption that what you see is an authentic photo of someone actually working.

      If you have any professional experience at all, you'd know that pictures are NEVER taken of actual work. The photos are always staged to look good.

      Be it a technician posing in front of the product with tools, an engineer posing in front of an oscilloscope with an interesting wave form displayed, another engineer in front of a very neat and orderly (but complex looking) white-board, and so on. Every company in which I've worked, the arrival of a photographer is carefully orchestrated.

      All pictures have a perspective and something that the photographer's employer wishes to convey. It is very likely that the picture is a standard professional photo that shows "what it looks like" without showing actual work. The words chosen carefully to spark interest in the subject by those who view it. Like now.

    2. Re:Double bluff by argent · · Score: 3, Insightful

      You are working on the assumption that what you see is an authentic photo of someone actually working.

      It doesn't matter whether it was staged or not, it only matters that it contained code words relevant to what we now know was an active intelligence operation at that time it was taken.

    3. Re:Double bluff by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Of course the words are relevant to what we know, we know the information we are allowed to know.

      You're just being a jackass. His point is that if the information was such that the Germans could have deduced that they were being double-crossed then it makes no difference in the world if it were staged or not. It's still a blunder.

  3. Re:July 1940 != prewar by IvyKing · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Since the US did not declare war on Japan until December 8, 1941 (and Germany on December 11, 1941) July 1940 is legitimately pre-war as far as the US is concerned. BTW, the first US casualties from WW2 took place in China in 1937.

  4. Re:Schneier's post by elgatozorbas · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Imagine a Beowulf cluster of these...

    Oh wait, it's called college.