The Data Encryption Standard is a symmetric-key algorithm for the encryption of digital data. Although its short key length of 56 bits makes it too insecure for modern applications, it has been highly influential in the advancement of cryptography.
The National Security Agency (NSA) is an intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense, under the authority of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). The NSA is responsible for global monitoring, collection, and processing of information and data for foreign intelligence and counterintelligence purposes, specializing in a discipline known as signals intelligence (SIGINT). The NSA is also tasked with the protection of U.S. communications networks and information systems. The NSA relies on a variety of measures to accomplish its mission, the majority of which are clandestine. The NSA has roughly 32,000 employees.
William Frederick Friedman was a US Army cryptographer who ran the research division of the Army's Signal Intelligence Service (SIS) in the 1930s, and parts of its follow-on services into the 1950s. In 1940, subordinates of his led by Frank Rowlett broke Japan's PURPLE cipher, thus disclosing Japanese diplomatic secrets before America's entrance into World War II.
TEMPEST is a U.S. National Security Agency specification and a NATO certification referring to spying on information systems through leaking emanations, including unintentional radio or electrical signals, sounds, and vibrations. TEMPEST covers both methods to spy upon others and how to shield equipment against such spying. The protection efforts are also known as emission security (EMSEC), which is a subset of communications security (COMSEC).
Books on cryptography have been published sporadically and with highly variable quality for a long time. This is despite the tempting, though superficial, paradox that secrecy is of the essence in sending confidential messages – see Kerckhoffs' principle.
Herbert Osborn Yardley was an American cryptologist. He founded and led the cryptographic organization the Black Chamber. Under Yardley, the cryptanalysts of The American Black Chamber broke Japanese diplomatic codes and were able to furnish American negotiators with significant information during the Washington Naval Conference of 1921–1922. Recipient of the Distinguished Service Medal. He wrote The American Black Chamber (1931) about his experiences there. He later helped the Nationalists in China (1938–1940) to break Japanese codes. Following his work in China, Yardley worked briefly for the Canadian government, helping it set up a cryptological section of the National Research Council of Canada from June to December 1941. Yardley was reportedly let go due to pressure either from the Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson or from the British.
Abraham Sinkov was a US cryptanalyst. An early employee of the U.S. Army's Signal Intelligence Service, he held several leadership positions during World War II, transitioning to the new National Security Agency after the war, where he became a deputy director. After retiring in 1962, he taught mathematics at Arizona State University.
David Kahn was an American historian, journalist, and writer. He wrote extensively on the history of cryptography and military intelligence.
Brigadier John Hessell Tiltman, was a British Army officer who worked in intelligence, often at or with the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) starting in the 1920s. His intelligence work was largely connected with cryptography, and he showed exceptional skill at cryptanalysis. His work in association with Bill Tutte on the cryptanalysis of the Lorenz cipher, the German teleprinter cipher, called "Tunny" at Bletchley Park, led to breakthroughs in attack methods on the code, without a computer. It was to exploit those methods, at extremely high speed with great reliability, that Colossus, the first digital programmable electronic computer, was designed and built.
The National Cryptologic Museum (NCM) is an American museum of cryptologic history that is affiliated with the National Security Agency (NSA). The first public museum in the U.S. Intelligence Community, NCM is located in the former Colony Seven Motel, just two blocks from the NSA headquarters at Fort George G. Meade in Maryland. The motel was purchased, creating a buffer zone between the high security main buildings of the NSA and an adjacent highway. The museum opened to the public on December 16, 1993, and now hosts about 50,000 visitors annually from all over the world.
The Puzzle Palace is a book written by James Bamford and published in 1982. It is the first major, popular work devoted entirely to the history and workings of the National Security Agency (NSA), a United States intelligence organization. The title refers to a nickname for the NSA, which is headquartered in Fort Meade, Maryland. In addition to describing the role of the NSA and explaining how it was organized, the book exposed details of a massive eavesdropping operation called Operation Shamrock. According to security expert Bruce Schneier, the book was popular within the NSA itself, as "the agency's secrecy prevents its employees from knowing much about their own history".
The TSEC/KL-7, also known as Adonis was an off-line non-reciprocal rotor encryption machine. The KL-7 had rotors to encrypt the text, most of which moved in a complex pattern, controlled by notched rings. The non-moving rotor was fourth from the left of the stack. The KL-7 also encrypted the message indicator.
James Bamford is an American author, journalist and documentary producer noted for his writing about United States intelligence agencies, especially the National Security Agency (NSA). The New York Times has called him "the nation's premier journalist on the subject of the National Security Agency" and The New Yorker named him "the NSA's chief chronicler."
Richard A. Leibler was an American mathematician and cryptanalyst. Richard Leibler was born in March 1914. He received his A.M. in mathematics from Northwestern University and his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois in 1939. While working at the National Security Agency, he and Solomon Kullback formulated the Kullback–Leibler divergence, a measure of similarity between probability distributions which has found important applications in information theory and cryptology. Leibler is also credited by the NSA as having opened up "new methods of attack" in the celebrated VENONA code-breaking project during 1949-1950; this may be a reference to his joint paper with Kullback, which was published in the open literature in 1951 and was immediately noted by Soviet cryptologists.
The United States Army Intelligence and Security Command (INSCOM) is a direct reporting unit that conducts intelligence, security, and information operations for United States Army commanders, partners in the Intelligence Community, and national decision-makers. INSCOM is headquartered at Fort Belvoir, Virginia.
The Cryptographic Quarterly is an internal, classified journal of the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA).
The Friendship Annex, also known as FANX or FANEX, is a National Security Agency (NSA) facility complex located in Linthicum, Maryland, near the Baltimore Washington International Airport (BWI). Established in the 1970s, the complex consists of multiple buildings and serves multiple roles as a cyber espionage station, electronic intelligence processing facility, and NSA Broadcast Network television studio. It is also the primary campus of the National Cryptologic School.
Ashkan Soltani is the executive director of the California Privacy Protection Agency. He has previously been the Chief Technologist of the Federal Trade Commission and an independent privacy and security researcher based in Washington, DC.
The Alaska Mission Operations Center (AMOC) is a U.S. National Security Agency facility located on Joint Base Elmendorf–Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska. The facility is considered one of two "consolidated intelligence centers" and is supported by the 373d Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Group of the 70th Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Wing of the U.S. Air Force. Along with the Misawa Security Operations Center (MSOC) in Japan, the AMOC provides combat intelligence to battlefield commanders, combatant commands, and U.S. Department of Defense leadership. The NSA operation at Elmendorf AFB was a suspected ECHELON ground station.
The Georgia Cryptologic Center (GCC) or NSA Georgia is a U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) and Central Security Service (CSS) facility located within Fort Eisenhower, located outside of Augusta, Georgia. The 604,000 sq ft (56,100 m2) facility opened on March 5, 2012, at a cost of $286 million. The GCC's facilities have the capacity to employ up to 4,000 personnel. Its primary focus is on signals intelligence intercepts from Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa. The facility is known by the codename "Sweet Tea".
