In the past I simply said nothing because I wanted the file
but now I’m too old for this shit.
Monday, December 17, 2018
Cancellation of my NARA FOIA cases
After being treated poorly one time too many I’ve decided to
cancel my two FOIA cases with the US National archives (‘Interrogation of mr
Hayashi’ and the two missing reports of NAASt 5).
Overview of 2018
This year I
continued to research several cases of cryptologic history, I copied material
from the US and UK national archives and I received reports from the NSA’s FOIA
office. I also received some interesting files from friends of mine.
State Department’s strip cipher – reuse of alphabet strips and key lists (added info and made corrections)
1). Original
information was presented in the following essays:
2). I posted
a presentation of the book The
Tanks of Operation Barbarossa and a Q&A with the author.
3). I
uploaded the following files:
4). I updated
the following essays:
The
British Interdepartmental Cypher (added a pic of the ID codebook)
Rommel’s
microwave link (added a link and info on patent US2211132A)
The
Japanese FUJI diplomatic cipher 1941-43 (added info from TICOM DF-31B)
The
Soviet K-37 ‘Crystal’ cipher machine (added info from TICOM DF-217)
The
American M-209 cipher machine (added the paragraph ‘M-209 vs Enigma’)
Allen
Dulles and the compromise of OSS codes in WWII (added information from
the Higgs memorandum)
Compromise
of State Department communications in WWII (added info and made
corrections)
The
compromise of the State Department’s strip cipher – Things that don’t add up…
(made corrections)
State Department’s strip cipher – reuse of alphabet strips and key lists (added info and made corrections)
5). I added
links to several interesting sources:
Overall this
was a productive year and many important files were located. There remain a
handful of reports that I’m waiting for to be declassified. Hopefully that will
happen in 2019.
Saturday, December 8, 2018
Reports on enemy successes against US cryptosystems
I have uploaded the file ‘Reports
on enemy successes against US cryptosystems’.
The source was US National archives - collection RG457 -
Entry 9032 - box 1.367 - NR 4263.
There is an interesting report in that file concerning the
German exploitation of the US M-209 cipher machine in late 1944 and early 1945:
NA 7 Sigint HQ was the Signal Intelligence Evaluation Center
of KONA 7 (Kommandeur der Nachrichtenaufklärung - Signals Intelligence Regiment)
covering Italy.
According to TICOM report IF-272 only two reports of KONA 7 survived
WWII. These were E-Bericht IV/44 and E-Bericht I/45.
Unfortunately I don’t know where to find them.