World War I cryptography

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Codes and ciphers were used extensively in World War I. The decoding by British Naval intelligence of the Zimmermann telegram helped bring America into the war.

Trench codes were used by field armies of most of the combatants (Americans, British, French, German) in World War I.

1 Britain
2 Russia
3 France
4 Germany and Austria
5 America
6 See also

[edit] 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 Ewing Room 40, first head
Nigel de Grey Room 40
William R. Hall ‘Blinker’ Hall, Room 40, second head
Dilly Knox Room 40
Oliver Strachey MI1
William Montgomery (cryptographer) Room 40
Playfair cipher

[edit] Russia

Ernst Fetterlein was in the Tzarist Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs from 1896, and solved (among others) German, Austrian and British codes. He was eventually made chief cryptographer with the rank of Admiral. With the Russian Revolution in 1917 he fled to Britain, and was recruited to Room 40 in June 1918 to work on Austrian, Bolshevik and Georgian codes.
The Russians used an overly complicated version of the Vigenère Cipher. It was broken within three days by Austro-Hungarian cryptanalyst Hermann Pokorny.

[edit] France

The French Army employed on German ciphers Georges Painvin, and Étienne Bazeries who came out of retirement.

The Tableau de Concordance was the main French diplomatic cipher.

[edit] Germany and Austria

Germany and Austria intercepted Russian radio traffic, although German success at the Battle of Tannenberg (1914) was due to interception of messages between the Russian commanders in clear!

The ADFGX and ADFGVX field ciphers were a modified polybius system with single oder double columnar tranposition and frequent key change, with letters optimized for morse. It was later broken by famous french cryptoanalyst Georges Painvin.

[edit] America

Most American cryptography in WWI was done at the Riverbank Laboratory where Elizebeth Friedman, William F. Friedman and Agnes Meyer Driscoll worked. The Riverbank Laboratory, Chicago was privately owned by Colonel George Fabyan.

Herbert Yardley began as a code clerk in the State Department, and was with the American Expeditionary Force in WWI as a Signals Corps cryptologic officer in France. He later headed the Black Chamber (MI-8), a new cryptanalysis group started in 1919, immediately after WWI, and funded jointly by the State Department and the US Army.

The US Navy cryptanalysis group, OP-20-G, was also started after WWI (in 1922).