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World War I Cryptography
With the rise of easily-intercepted wireless telegraphy, codes and ciphers were used extensively in World War I. The decoding by British Naval intelligence of the Zimmermann telegram helped bring the United States into the war. Trench codes were used by field armies of most of the combatants (Americans, British, French, German) in World War I. The most commonly used codes were simple substitution ciphers. More important messages generally used mathematical encryption for extra security. The use of these codes required the distribution of codebooks to military personnel, which proved to be a security liability since these books could be stolen by enemy forces. Britain British decrypting was carried out in Room 40 by the Royal Navy and in MI1 by British Military (Army) Intelligence. * Zimmermann telegram * Arthur Zimmermann * MI1 British Military (Army) Intelligence * Room 40 Royal Navy (Britain) * Alastair Denniston Room 40 * James Alfred Ewing Room 40, first head * Nigel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wireless Telegraphy
Wireless telegraphy or radiotelegraphy is the transmission of text messages by radio waves, analogous to electrical telegraphy using electrical cable, cables. Before about 1910, the term ''wireless telegraphy'' was also used for other experimental technologies for transmitting telegraph signals without wires. In radiotelegraphy, information is transmitted by pulses of radio waves of two different lengths called "dots" and "dashes", which spell out text messages, usually in Morse code. In a manual system, the sending operator taps on a switch called a telegraph key which turns the transmitter on and off, producing the pulses of radio waves. At the radio receiver, receiver the pulses are audible in the receiver's speaker as beeps, which are translated back to text by an operator who knows Morse code. Radiotelegraphy was the first means of radio communication. The first practical radio transmitters and radio receiver, receivers invented in 1894–1895 by Guglielmo Marconi used radi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Playfair Cipher
The Playfair cipher or Playfair square or Wheatstone–Playfair cipher is a manual symmetric encryption technique and was the first literal digram substitution cipher. The scheme was invented in 1854 by Charles Wheatstone, but bears the name of Lord Playfair for promoting its use. The technique encrypts pairs of letters (''bigrams'' or ''digrams''), instead of single letters as in the simple substitution cipher and rather more complex Vigenère cipher systems then in use. The Playfair cipher is thus significantly harder to break since the frequency analysis used for simple substitution ciphers does not work with it. The frequency analysis of bigrams is possible, but considerably more difficult. With 600 possible bigrams rather than the 26 possible monograms (single symbols, usually letters in this context), a considerably larger cipher text is required in order to be useful. History Playfair cipher was the first cipher to encrypt pairs of letters in cryptologic history. Whe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
ADFGVX
In cryptography, the ADFGVX cipher was a manually applied field cipher used by the Imperial German Army during World War I. It was used to transmit messages secretly using wireless telegraphy. ADFGVX was in fact an extension of an earlier cipher called ADFGX which was first used on 1 March 1918 on the German Western Front. ADFGVX was applied from 1 June 1918 on both the Western Front and Eastern Front. Invented by the Germans signal corps officers Lieutenant (1891–1977) and introduced in March 1918 with the designation "Secret Cipher of the Radio Operators 1918" (''Geheimschrift der Funker 1918'', in short ''GedeFu 18''), the cipher was a fractionating transposition cipher which combined a modified Polybius square with a single columnar transposition. The cipher is named after the six possible letters used in the ciphertext: , , , , and . The letters were chosen deliberately because they are very different from one another in the Morse code. That reduced the possibility of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Abhorchdienst
The Abhorchdienst (i.e. "Listening Bureau") was a German code-breaking bureau which operated during the final years of the First World War. It was established in 1916 and was composed mainly of mathematicians. Other countries, such as France and Austria-Hungary Austria-Hungary, also referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Dual Monarchy or the Habsburg Monarchy, was a multi-national constitutional monarchy in Central Europe#Before World War I, Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. A military ..., had set up similar organisations at an earlier stage. Still, the military context did not necessitate the development of the German bureau until 1916. References Cryptography organizations Government agencies established in 1916 German Empire in World War I {{crypto-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Imperial Russian Army
The Imperial Russian Army () was the army of the Russian Empire, active from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was organized into a standing army and a state militia. The standing army consisted of Regular army, regular troops and two forces that served on separate regulations: the Cossacks, Cossack troops and the Islam in Russia, Muslim troops. A regular Russian army existed after the end of the Great Northern War in 1721.День Сухопутных войск России. Досье [''Day of the Ground Forces of Russia. Dossier''] (in Russian). TASS. 31 August 2015. During his reign, Peter the Great accelerated the modernization of Russia's armed forces, including with a decree in 1699 that created the basis for recruiting soldiers, military regulations for the organization of the a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Battle Of Tannenberg (1914)
The Battle of Tannenberg, also known as the Second Battle of Tannenberg, was fought between Russia and Germany between 23 and 30 August 1914, the first month of World War I. The battle resulted in the almost complete destruction of the Russian Second Army and the suicide of its commanding general, Alexander Samsonov. A series of follow-up battles ( First Masurian Lakes) led to the ousting of the First Army from East Prussia. The battle is particularly notable for fast rail movements by the German Eighth Army, enabling them to concentrate against each of the two Russian armies in turn, first delaying the First Army and then destroying the Second before once again turning on the First days later. It is also notable for the failure of the Russians to encode their radio messages, broadcasting their daily marching orders in the clear, which allowed the Germans to make their movements with the confidence they would not be flanked. The almost miraculous outcome brought consider ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Austro-Hungarian Army
The Austro-Hungarian Army, also known as the Imperial and Royal Army,; was the principal ground force of Austria-Hungary from 1867 to 1918. It consisted of three organisations: the Common Army (, recruited from all parts of Austria-Hungary), the Imperial-Royal Landwehr (recruited from Cisleithania) and the Royal Hungarian Honvéd (recruited from Transleithania). In the wake of fighting between the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary and the subsequent two decades of uneasy co-existence, Hungarian troops served either in ethnically mixed units or were stationed away from Hungarian regions. With the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867, the Austro-Hungarian Army was brought into being. It existed until the disestablishment of Austria-Hungary in 1918 following the end of World War I. Common Army units were generally poorly trained and had very limited access to new equipment, because the governments of the Austrian and Hungarian parts of the empire often preferred to ge ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Imperial German Army
The Imperial German Army (1871–1919), officially referred to as the German Army (), was the unified ground and air force of the German Empire. It was established in 1871 with the political unification of Germany under the leadership of Kingdom of Prussia, Prussia, and was dissolved in 1919, after the defeat of the German Empire in World War I (1914–1918). In the Federal Republic of Germany, the term refers to the German Army, the land component of the . Formation and name The states that made up the German Empire contributed their armies; within the German Confederation, formed after the Napoleonic Wars, each state was responsible for maintaining certain units to be put at the disposal of the Confederation in case of conflict. When operating together, the units were known as the German Federal Army, Federal Army (). The Federal Army system functioned during List of wars: 1800–1899, various conflicts of the 19th century, such as the First Schleswig War from 1848 to 1852. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tableau De Concordance
The Tableau de Concordance was the main French diplomatic code used during World War I; the term also refers to any message sent using the code. It was a superenciphered four-digit code that was changed three times between 1 August 1914 and 15 January 1915. The Tableau de Concordance is considered superenciphered because there is more than one step required to use it. First, each word in a message is replaced by four digits via a codebook. These four digits are divided into three groups (one digit, two digits, one digit) so that when the whole message has been translated into code, the four-digit sets can be put together so it looks like the entire message is made up of two-digit pairs. This is called a "Straddle Gimmick." Then, in turn, each of these two digit pairs (and the single digits at the beginning and end) are replaced by two letters. The letters are then combined with no spaces for the final ciphertext. The manual for the Tableau de Concordance included the instruction th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Étienne Bazeries
Étienne Bazeries (21 August 1846, in Port Vendres – 7 November 1931, in Noyon) was a French military cryptanalyst active between 1890 and the World War I, First World War. He is best known for developing the "Bazeries Cylinder", an improved version of Thomas Jefferson's cipher cylinder. It was later refined into the US Army M-94 cipher device. Historian David Kahn (writer), David Kahn describes him as "''the great pragmatist of cryptology. His theoretical contributions are negligible, but he was one of the greatest natural cryptanalysts the science has seen.''" (Kahn 1996, p244) Bazeries was born in Port-Vendres, France, the son of a mounted policeman. In 1863 he enlisted in the army, and fought in the Franco-Prussian War, where he was taken prisoner of war, prisoner, although he later managed to escape disguised as a bricklayer. In 1874 he was promoted to lieutenant, and sent to Algeria in 1875. He returned to France the following year and married Marie-Louise-Elodie Berthon, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Georges Painvin
Georges Jean Painvin (; 28 January 1886 – 21 January 1980) was a French geologist and industrialist, best known as the cryptanalyst who broke the ADFGX/ADFGVX cipher used by the Germans during the First World War. Early life Painvin was born into a family of graduates from the École polytechnique and mathematicians from Nantes. In addition to his remarkable scientific education, the young Painvin was also a keen cello player, where in 1902 he was awarded First prize for cello at the Nantes Conservatory of Music. In 1905, Painvin passed his matriculation exam into the École polytechnique. In his second year, he opted for admission to the Corps des mines where he would make his profession. However, French military service would briefly take him away from this fulfilment. On 7 September 1907, Painvin was appointed reserve second lieutenant and assigned to the 33rd Artillery Regiment to attend his third year on obligatory military service. In 1909 and again in 1911, he at ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hermann Pokorny
Hermann Pokorny (7 April 1882 – 18 February 1960) was a World War I Austro-Hungarian Army cryptologist whose work with Imperial Russia, Russian ciphers contributed substantially to Central Powers victories over Russia. He was a member of the Hungarian Order of Vitéz. Life Pokorny was born in Kroměříž, Moravia in 1882, into a German-speaking family. His father was a postmaster. A cousin was Major Franciszek Pokorny, a Polish Army officer who after World War I headed the Polish General Staff's Cipher Bureau (Poland), Cipher Bureau. In 1900 Hermann Pokorny joined the ''k.u.k.'' Austro-Hungarian Army. By 1918, when the Austro-Hungarian Empire fell, he was a lieutenant colonel. During World War I, Pokorny, as a cryptologist in the rank of Major (rank), major, headed the Austro-Hungarian General Staff's Russian-Cipher Bureau. He showed great ability in decrypting Imperial Russia, Russian enciphered military messages that were broadcast by radio in 1914–17. He recognized that ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
