Cryptanalysis refers to the process of analyzing information systems in order to understand hidden aspects of the systems. Cryptanalysis is used to breach cryptographic security systems and gain access to the contents of encrypted messages, even if the cryptographic key is unknown.
Cryptography, the use of codes and ciphers to protect secrets, began thousands of years ago. Until recent decades, it has been the story of what might be called classical cryptography — that is, of methods of encryption that use pen and paper, or perhaps simple mechanical aids. In the early 20th century, the invention of complex mechanical and electromechanical machines, such as the Enigma rotor machine, provided more sophisticated and efficient means of encryption; and the subsequent introduction of electronics and computing has allowed elaborate schemes of still greater complexity, most of which are entirely unsuited to pen and paper.
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.
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 Cipher Bureau was the interwar Polish General Staff's Second Department's unit charged with SIGINT and both cryptography and cryptanalysis.
Room 40, also known as 40 O.B., was the cryptanalysis section of the British Admiralty during the First World War.
Cryptography was used extensively during World War II because of the importance of radio communication and the ease of radio interception. The nations involved fielded a plethora of code and cipher systems, many of the latter using rotor machines. As a result, the theoretical and practical aspects of cryptanalysis, or codebreaking, were much advanced.
Georges Jean Painvin 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.
Giovanni Soro was an Italian professional code-cracker. He was the Renaissance's first outstanding cryptanalyst and the Western world's first great cryptanalyst. Soro is known as the father of modern cryptography.
Before the development of radar and other electronics techniques, signals intelligence (SIGINT) and communications intelligence (COMINT) were essentially synonymous. Sir Francis Walsingham ran a postal interception bureau with some cryptanalytic capability during the reign of Elizabeth I, but the technology was only slightly less advanced than men with shotguns, during World War I, who jammed pigeon post communications and intercepted the messages carried.
The cipher system that the Uesugi are said to have used is a simple substitution usually known as a Polybius square or "checkerboard." The i-ro-ha alphabet contains forty-eight letters, so a seven-by-seven square is used, with one of the cells left blank. The rows and columns are labeled with a number or a letter. In the table below, the numbers start in the top left, as does the i-ro-ha alphabet. In practice these could start in any corner.
The Cipher Department of the High Command of the Wehrmacht was the Signal Intelligence Agency of the Supreme Command of the Armed Forces of the German Armed Forces before and during World War II. OKW/Chi, within the formal order of battle hierarchy OKW/WFsT/Ag WNV/Chi, dealt with the cryptanalysis and deciphering of enemy and neutral states' message traffic and security control of its own key processes and machinery, such as the rotor cipher ENIGMA machine. It was the successor to the former Chi bureau of the Reichswehr Ministry.
The German Naval Intelligence Service was the naval intelligence department of the Germany Navy and had a long history, going back to the naval aspirations of German emperor Wilhelm II in 1899.
The Pers Z S was the signals intelligence agency of the German Foreign Office before and during World War II. It consisted of two cryptologic sections. Pers Z S was the cryptanalytic section which was called Special Service of Z Branch of the Foreign Office Personnel Department. Its mission was the solution of foreign diplomatic codes and ciphers. The other section, which was the Cryptography Section was called Personal Z Cipher Service of the Federal Foreign Office. The latter section was responsible for compilation, distribution and security of Foreign Office codes and ciphers. Both were colloquially known as Pers Z S. Though similar in nature and operation to the OKW/Chi cipher bureau, it was a civilian operation as opposed to the military operation at OKW/Chi and focused primarily on diplomatic communications. According to TICOM interrogators it evinced an extraordinary degree of competence, primarily driven by a consistency of development not found in any other German signals bureau of the period. Pers Z S/Chi was the symbol and the code name of the Chiffrierdienst, i.e. the Cryptanalysis Department of Pers Z S. Although little is known about the organization, in the final analysis, Pers Z S labored at diplomatic cryptanalysis for a regime for which there were no diplomatic solutions.
Wilhelm Fenner was a German cryptanalyst, before and during the time of World War II in the OKW/Chi, the Cipher Department of the High Command of the Wehrmacht, working within the main cryptanalysis group, and entrusted with deciphering enemy message traffic (Cryptography). Wilhelm Fenner was considered an excellent organizer, an anti-Nazi, an anti-Bolshevik and a confirmed Protestant and was known by colleagues as someone who was keen to continue working in cryptology after World War II. To quote military historian David Alvarez:
General der Nachrichtenaufklärung was the signals intelligence agency of the Heer, before and during World War II. It was the successor to the former cipher bureau known as Inspectorate 7/VI in operation between 1940 and 1942, when it was further reorganised into the Headquarters for Signal Intelligence between 1942 and 1944, until it was finally reorganised in October 1944 into the GdNA. The agency was also known at the OKH/Gend Na, GendNa or Inspectorate 7 or more commonly OKH/GdNA. Inspectorate 7/VI was also known as In 7 or In/7 or In 7/VI and also OKH/Chi.
Otto Buggisch was a German mathematician who, during World War II, was a cryptanalyst working in the cipher bureau, the Cipher Department of the High Command of the Wehrmacht (OKW/Chi) responsible for deciphering of the opposing forces Communications. He also dealt with the security control of own key procedures. Through research and revelations exposed by two Polish officers, late in the war, he recognized the true cryptographic weaknesses of the Enigma rotor cipher, key machine used by the German armed forces to encrypt their secret communications, in World War II.
Ferdinand Voegele was a German philologist and linguistic cryptanalyst, before and during the time of World War II and who would eventually lead the cipher bureau of the Luftwaffe Signal Intelligence Service.
General der Nachrichtenaufklärung Training Referat was the training organization within the General der Nachrichtenaufklärung (GDNA), the military signals intelligence agency of the Wehrmacht during World War II. Initially established from May 1941, it continued teaching until September 1944. Until 1942, the work of the Training Referat was not fully exploited and only a small beginners course was taught.
