NSA Secrets Declassified

📖 The Scoop

This important publication presents nine NSA publications with unique information about NSA history: Silent Warriors: The Naval Security Group Reserve, 1945-2005 * German Cipher Machines of World War II * Sharing the Burden: Women in Cryptology during World War II * Securing Record Communications: The TSEC/KW-26 * Electronic Intelligence (ELINT) at NSA * In the Forefront of Foreign Missile and Space Intelligence - History of the Defense Special Missile and Aerospace Center (DEFSMAC), 1960-2010 * A History of Secure Voice Coding: Insights Drawn from the Career of One of the Earliest Practitioners of the Art of Speech Coding * The Education of a Deputy Director - Thoughts on Dr. Louis W. Tordella * The Cipher Disk Along with breaking the Japanese diplomatic cryptosystem usually referred to as "PURPLE," probably the greatest example of Allied cryptanalytic success in World War II was the breaking of the German ENIGMA machine. This cryptodevice was used by all of the German armed forces as the primary cryptosystem for all units below Army level or the equivalent. As D-Day approached, other German cryptodevices, the SZ-42 and the various T-52 machines, assumed great importance since they were used by the higher commands of the German armed forces. Many references to these German machines in the histories fail to provide information on what they looked like or how they worked. Another group of cryptodevices, those invented by Fritz Menzer for the Abwehr (Counterintelligence), have received little or no notice in the literature and are unknown to the public. In 1925 the German Army purchased several examples of a commercially produced cipher machine called the ENIGMA, manufactured first by Chiffriermaschinen Aktiengesellschaft, a company owned by Arthur Scherbius, and later by Chiffriermaschinen Gesellschaft Heimsoeth und Rinke. After some modification, the Army adopted the machine for extensive use. The standard military ENIGMA used three 26-point wired metal and black plastic rotors selected from a set of five to eight. Each rotor was a cylinder with a large, moveable notched wheel on one end with an alphabet (or numbers) around its circumference. One face of the cylinder had twenty-six spring-loaded copper pins protruding from it, and the other face had twenty-six flush copper contacts.

Genre: Political Science / Civil Rights (fancy, right?)