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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."

19 of 75 comments (clear)

  1. Duh? by east+coast · · Score: 5, Funny

    Why didn't he just use a computer for this? I swear, those people were so dense.

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    Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
    1. Re:Duh? by bobdotorg · · Score: 5, Funny

      Why didn't he just use a computer for this? I swear, those people were so dense.

      They weren't dense, Windows DE (Depression Edition) kept crashing that day with repeated PCODs (Punch Cards of Death).

      Though now that I think about it, I've come to the realization that every version of Windows is Windows DE.

      --
      __ Someday, but not this morning, I'll finally learn to use the preview button.
    2. Re:Duh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      Actually, back then he probably was the "computer."

      It had a definition before we invented the machines.

    3. Re:Duh? by Sanat · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Back in the day of card punches in order to certify that a card punch was working properly a whole box (qty 2000) cards were fed, punched and read with only one error permitted. This was CDC equipment on the CDC 3100 and 3200 models.

      If something was not quite adjusted properly usually a failure would occur much earlier in the cycle.

      Sending out a new operating system was done with punch cards. A simple bootstrap program was keyed into the core and executed which would input from the card reader and a whole box of cards needed to be read without error.

      The CDC card punch (can not remember the model number ... maybe 3114) also had a read station in it so that a read after write cycle could be employed. The error exit could be used to offset the card in the output deck about 1/4 of an inch so that the individual card could be easily located and re-punched.

      Reading a lace card was a real dicey test. Usually we alternated rows and columns.

      PCOD sounds about right.

      --
      And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make
  2. 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.

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    1. Re:Human computers by Linker3000 · · Score: 5, Funny

      Wow - imagine if those people clustered around someone reading Beowulf!

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      AT&ROFLMAO
    2. Re:Human computers by memristance · · Score: 5, Funny

      Of course, some methods were better than others...

    3. Re:Human computers by lysergic.acid · · Score: 5, Funny

      speaking of which, here's a screen shot of an early pre alpha build of the Folding@Home client.

  3. 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 devnullkac · · Score: 4, Informative

      There is another picture with the same message apparently being approved by Hoover. It also shows most of the text so carefully covered up in the photo in TFA. Part of it is in shadow and perhaps someone more skilled than I with GIMP can tease it out (frankly, I think you'll need access to the photographic negative), but "... the following message to:" is what's visible. This lends credence to the "setup" theory, since that's hardly worth covering up for a photo op and even if it were, why be so careless as to reveal it in another photo (on J. Edgar Hoover's desk, no less).

      --
      What do you mean they cut the power? How can they cut the power, man? They're animals!
    2. 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.

    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.

    4. Re:Double bluff by westlake · · Score: 4, Informative
      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.

      LIFE's photo essays were always scripted before production.

      The editors knew the story they wanted to tell and the photographer would be sent out to capture it on film.

      He might resent the constraints.

      But his logistical and technical problems are mostly solved. People know he is coming, all his ducks are in a row.

      He should have no problems making his deadline and if the schedule isn't realistic or he hasn't received the proper clearances, he has the editors to blame.

      Consider the lighting and composition in these photographs.

      These are not candid shots.

      The photograph in the archives is not, of course, the photograph in print. There would have been a dramatic loss of detail.

  4. Re:what's the big deal? by Tumbleweed · · Score: 5, Funny

    I don't see what the big deal is. You guys have never seen someone doing a word search puzzle before?

    And the answer to today's word jumble is: "NORMANDY"

  5. Re:what's the big deal? by Alpha+Whisky · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Like this? http://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/England-History/Crossword.htm

    --
    it's = it is

    its = belonging to it

  6. Cryptography vs Cryptology by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 4, Interesting

    What is at work there is cryptography , not just "cryptology. It's actually the generation of encoded symbols, not just any practice connected to the study of hiding information.

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    make install -not war

  7. Schneier's post by bobbozzo · · Score: 4, Informative

    Since tfa didn't link to Schneier's blog, here it is:
    http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/11/1941_pencil-and.html

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    Nothing to see here; Move along.
  8. Wait, I thought... by WED+Fan · · Score: 4, Funny

    Actually he was a computer - that's what they called people...

    I'm confused, I thought...

    Soylent Green == People

    Computers == People

    Soylent Green is edible.

    People are edible.

    Question: Will be Dell laptop work with a South Beach diet?

    --
    Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
  9. Re:July 1940 != prewar by lysergic.acid · · Score: 4, Informative

    according to the comments FTA, the phrase "pre-war German espionage code" is referring to the age of the encryption algorithm being used, not when it was used in the photo:

    Thiago: It's not meant to be Americentric: Duquesne entered German service in February 1939, and I'm willing to bet that the cipher in question dates back earlier than that, based on what I know of wartime crypto history. As I recall, at the time (1939-1941) the high-level military and diplomatic traffic was encrypted with Enigma machines, and everything else used codes that dated back to the early 1930s, or before (and were fairly easily broken by, e.g., Bletchley Park.)

    Hence, "pre-war", as opposed to a later, military, war-time code.