Reply With QuoteThat's really interesting, thank you for writing it. I didn't realise that SOE didn't move onto OTPs until reasonably late in the war.
SOE spy codes-WWII
For those interested on the Special Operations Executive organization, here is an overview of their codesystems and the German response:
http://chris-intel-corner.blogspot.g...t-vauck_2.html
That's really interesting, thank you for writing it. I didn't realise that SOE didn't move onto OTPs until reasonably late in the war.
Marks and Lorain say September 1943 was when they were first used (they had been distributed earlier).Originally Posted by Zorro C9
Apparently SIS used them much earlier. In early 1943 Leo Marks met Commander Dudley-Smith of Bletchley Park and was told about the LOP system: ‘As a matter of fact letter one time pads have been working very successfully for quite a long time’ !
Interesting read although i admit its a bit over my IQ. 10x
We used one time pads in the 60s.
A SOE story trhat amazes me is about an operator who was captured and forced to continue to transmit messages causing a lot of misfortune.
Amazing was that he omitted his conformation word which according to plan indicated to readers he was compromised.
The folks in England continued to ignore this at great cost. To this day I fail to comprehend this gigantic blunder.
It is a very very basic part of standard procedure.
Maybe someone had too many G&Ts at teatime ...
Seriously though, it's crazy considering that it's one of the major controls for determining whether a signal is legitimate or not. Do you have more info. on the events?
Nice read.
According to Marks in 1942, when he became head of the SOE ciphers department, roughly a quarter of messages were indecipherable. These had to be resent or solved cryptanalytically.
With so many mistakes in the messages (coding errors and morse mutilation) it was not possible to know if the operator made a mistake or was really trying to warn HQ.
At the same time SOE was fighting an undercover war against SIS that wanted to absorb it. Admitting to the military authorities that their networks were under German control would inevitably lead to the closing of the organization.
Was that a result of pressure in the field or a lack of training do you think? I know they only had a limited time on the air to protect against DF.
Both I guess. Also the use of double transposition is vulnerable to mistakes. If you make one mistake (let’s say by misspelling a word) in numbering the ‘key’ then the whole message will become garbled.
Also there is the problem of morse mutilation. Some morse characters could be mistaken for others due to bad atmospheric conditions across Europe, further damaging the transposition system.
You are referring to the Englandspiel? In 2003 a Dutch researcher wrote a Phd dissertation about this. The main conclusion was that the British fooled the Germans, not the other way around. The Dutch agents were deliberately sacrificed.
?? do you have more information? How did they fool them?
I hadn't thought of those other issues. Do you have access to academic journals? There's a good one called "Crypto" I think, I'll have to check when next get back into uni.
Unfortunately academic journals only have a handful of interesting articles. The one you’re thinking of is Cryptologia.
The best source on the evolution of SOE codes and problems encountered is ‘Between Silk and Cyanide: A Codemaker's War, 1941-1945’ by Leo Marks (head of soe code department in 1942-45)
There's also a training issue. Back in the day when we still used HF morse we spent weeks practcing - till we could do it in our bloody sleeep - and nearly as long on antenna theory (and practice). A radio op who was going to be air dropped in/sent by Lysander or Hudson didn't have the luxury of that time. A false economy IMHO.
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