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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 Admiralty Civilian Shore Wireless Service, 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 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wireless Telegraphy
Wireless telegraphy or radiotelegraphy is transmission of text messages by radio waves, analogous to electrical telegraphy using 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 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 receivers invented in 1894–1895 by Guglielmo Marconi used radiotelegraphy. It continued to be the only type of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Battle Of Tannenberg
The Battle of Tannenberg, also known as the Second Battle of Tannenberg, was fought between Russia and Germany between 26 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) destroyed most of the First Army as well and kept the Russians off balance until the spring of 1915. 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 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Polybius Square
The Polybius square, also known as the Polybius checkerboard, is a device invented by the ancient Greeks Cleoxenus and Democleitus, and made famous by the historian and scholar Polybius. The device is used for fractionating plaintext characters so that they can be represented by a smaller set of symbols, which is useful for telegraphy, steganography, and cryptography. The device was originally used for fire signalling, allowing for the coded transmission of any message, not just a finite amount of predetermined options as was the convention before. Basic form According to Polybius' ''Histories,'' the device was invented by Cleoxenus and Democleitus, and further developed by Polybius himself. The device partitioned the alphabet into five tablets with five letters each (except for the last one with only four). There are no surviving tablets from antiquity. Letters are represented by two numbers from one to five, allowing the representation of 25 characters using only 5 numeric sym ... [...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, often referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire,, the Dual Monarchy, or Austria, was a constitutional monarchy and great power in Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. It was formed with the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of ..., 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 (russian: Ру́сская импера́торская а́рмия, tr. ) was the armed land force of the Russian Empire, active from around 1721 to the Russian Revolution of 1917. In the early 1850s, the Russian Army consisted of more than 900,000 regular soldiers and nearly 250,000 irregulars (mostly Cossacks). Precursors: Regiments of the New Order Russian tsars before Peter the Great maintained professional hereditary musketeer corps known as '' streltsy''. These were originally raised by Ivan the Terrible; originally an effective force, they had become highly unreliable and undisciplined. In times of war the armed forces were augmented by peasants. The regiments of the new order, or regiments of the foreign order (''Полки нового строя'' or ''Полки иноземного строя'', ''Polki novovo (inozemnovo) stroya''), was the Russian term that was used to describe military units that were formed in the Tsardom of Russi ... [...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 26 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) destroyed most of the First Army as well and kept the Russians off balance until the spring of 1915. 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 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Austro-Hungarian Army
The Austro-Hungarian Army (, literally "Ground Forces of the Austro-Hungarians"; , literally "Imperial and Royal Army") was the ground force of the Austro-Hungarian Dual Monarchy from 1867 to 1918. It was composed of three parts: the joint army (, "Common Army", recruited from all parts of the country), the Imperial Austrian Landwehr (recruited from Cisleithania), and the Royal Hungarian Honvéd (recruited from Transleithania). In the wake of fighting between the Austrian Empire and the Hungarian Kingdom and the two decades of uneasy co-existence following, Hungarian soldiers served either in mixed units or were stationed away from Hungarian areas. With the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867 the new tripartite army was brought into being. It existed until the disestablishment of the Austro-Hungarian Empire following World War I in 1918. The joint "Imperial and Royal Army" ( or ''k.u.k.'') units were generally poorly trained and had very limited access to new equipment bec ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Imperial German Army
The Imperial German Army (1871–1919), officially referred to as the German Army (german: Deutsches Heer), 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 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 ' identifies 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 Federal Army ('). The Federal Army system functioned during various conflicts of the 19th century, such as the First Schleswig War from 1848–50 but by the time of the Second Schleswig War ... [...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 t ... [...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 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 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, 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, with whom he would father three daughters: Cé ... [...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 attended ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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