Boris Caesar Wilhelm Hagelin (2 July 1892 – 7 September 1983) was a Swedish businessman and inventor of
encryption
In cryptography, encryption is the process of encoding information. This process converts the original representation of the information, known as plaintext, into an alternative form known as ciphertext. Ideally, only authorized parties can d ...
machines.
Biography
Born of Swedish parents in
Adshikent,
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War ...
, Hagelin attended
Lundsberg boarding school and later studied mechanical engineering at the
Royal Institute of Technology
The KTH Royal Institute of Technology ( sv, Kungliga Tekniska högskolan, lit=Royal Institute of Technology), abbreviated KTH, is a public research university in Stockholm, Sweden. KTH conducts research and education in engineering and technolog ...
in Stockholm, graduating in 1914. He gained experience in engineering through work in Sweden and the United States.
His father Karl Wilhelm Hagelin worked for
Nobel
Nobel often refers to:
*Nobel Prize, awarded annually since 1901, from the bequest of Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel
Nobel may also refer to:
Companies
*AkzoNobel, the result of the merger between Akzo and Nobel Industries in 1994
*Branobel, or ...
in Baku, but the family returned to Sweden after the
Russian revolution
The Russian Revolution was a period of political and social revolution that took place in the former Russian Empire which began during the First World War. This period saw Russia abolish its monarchy and adopt a socialist form of government ...
. Karl Wilhelm was an investor in
Arvid Gerhard Damm
Arvid, Arved, Arnvid or Arvydas is a male given name, most common in Scandinavia but also in Iran and Lithuania. In Scandinavia it is derived from Old Norse and means "forest of eagles" or 'eagle wood'. Arvid is a royal male name that is composed ...
's company
Aktiebolaget Cryptograph, established to sell
rotor machine
In cryptography, a rotor machine is an electro-mechanical stream cipher device used for encrypting and decrypting messages. Rotor machines were the cryptographic state-of-the-art for much of the 20th century; they were in widespread use in the 1 ...
s built using Damm's 1919 patent. Boris Hagelin was placed in the firm to represent the family investment. In 1925, Hagelin took over the firm, later reorganising it as Aktiebolaget Cryptoteknik in 1932. His machines competed with
Scherbius'
Enigma machines, but sold rather better.
At the beginning of
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
, Hagelin moved from Sweden to
Switzerland
). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...
, all the way across Germany and through Berlin to Genoa, carrying the design documents for the company's latest machine, and re-established his company there (it still operates as
Crypto AG
Crypto AG was a Swiss company specialising in communications and information security founded by Boris Hagelin in 1952. The company was secretly purchased for US $5.75 million and jointly owned by the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) an ...
in
Zug). That design was small, cheap and moderately secure, and he convinced the US military to adopt it. Many tens of thousands of them were made, and Hagelin became quite wealthy as a result. Hagelin fraudulently sold compromised machines to a variety of customers. Historian
David Kahn has suggested that Hagelin was the only cypher-machine maker who ever became a millionaire.
[David Kahn. ''The Code-Breakers'' (2nd Ed). New York, NY: Scribner, 1996.
]
Boris is the great-grandfather of
Carl Hagelin, current
NHL player for the
Washington Capitals
The Washington Capitals (colloquially known as the Caps) are a professional ice hockey team based in Washington, D.C. The team competes in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Metropolitan Division in the Eastern Conference, a ...
.
Patents
* (
B-21
The Northrop Grumman B-21 Raider is an American strategic bomber under development for the United States Air Force (USAF) by Northrop Grumman. As part of the Long Range Strike Bomber (LRS-B) program, it is to be a long-range, stealth interco ...
)
* (
C-35)
*
*
* (
CD-57)
*
*
See also
*
C-36 (cipher machine)
The C-35 and C-36 were cipher machines designed by Swedish cryptographer Boris Hagelin in the 1930s. These were the first of Hagelin's cipher machines to feature the pin-and-lug mechanism. A later machine in the same series, the C-38, was designate ...
*
M-209
*
C-52 (cipher machine)
References
Further reading
* Boris CW Hagelin, The Story of the Hagelin Cryptos, ''Cryptologia'', 18(3), July 1994, pp 204–242.
External links
History of Boris Hagelin*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hagelin, Boris
1892 births
1983 deaths
KTH Royal Institute of Technology alumni
Cipher-machine cryptographers
20th-century Swedish businesspeople
20th-century Swedish inventors
Swedish cryptographers
Swedish expatriates in Switzerland
People from Goygol District
Expatriates of Sweden in the Russian Empire