CRYPTOGRAPHY

General

A - G

Allensworth, W.H., and W.G. Spottswood. The Cipher of the War Department. Washington, DC: GPO, 1902. [Petersen]

Alvarez, David. "Behind Venona: American Signals Intelligence in the Early Cold War." Intelligence and National Security 14, no. 2 (Summer 1999): 179-186.

A collection of documents at the National Archives from the records of the Chief of Naval Operations in the period 1947-1949 suggests that "there remains a range of still secret Sigint operations that were central to the intelligence history of the early Cold War."

Andrew, Christopher, ed.

1. "Special Issue on Codebreaking and Signals Intelligence." Intelligence and National Security 1, no. 1 (Jan. 1986): Entire issue.

This was the inaugural issue of the Intelligence and National Security journal. Appropriately, given the inclinations of editor Christopher Andrew, the issue emphasized Sigint and associated activities.

Click for a listing of the articles in this volume.

2. Codebreaking and Signals Intelligence. London: Frank Cass, 1986.

Reprints articles previously published in Intelligence and National Security 1, no. 1 (Jan. 1986).

Barker, Wayne G., ed. The History of Codes and Ciphers in the United States during the Period between the World Wars. 2 vols. Laguna Hills, CA: Aegean, 1979. [http://carlisle- www.army.mil/usamhi/RefBibs/intell/crypto.htm]

Bauer, Friedrich L. Kryptologie: Methoden und Maximen. Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag, 1993. Decrypted Secrets: Methods and Maxims of Cryptology. 4th, rev., and extended ed. Berlin: Spinger, 2007.

While noting that the author's reduction of cryptography and cryptanalysis to their mathematical bases makes it "hard for the non-mathematical reader," Kahn, Cryptologia 18.2, calls the original German edition of this work "the best single book now available on the cryptology of today."

Reviewing the fourth English-language edition, Christensen, Cryptologia 31.3 (Jul. 2007), notes that "Bauer's book has become a classic." This new edition "is excellent." However, it "falls short of what one might expect of a cryptology book published in 2007.... A comparable book that includes details of the last twenty years of cryptology should be written."

Krieger, JIH 6.2 (Winter 2006/7), says that "Bauer’s work is partly a great pleasure to read, partly a veritable treasure trove of techniques and of people often completely unknown to the amateur cryptologist." However, "this work was originally written for engineers, not for the mathematically challenged folks in the humanities. So, dear historians, just skip a page here or a table there, but do read on. It is well worth your time!"

Beckhough, Harry. Secret Communications: The Hidden Source of Information through the Ages .... From the Sumerians to the Cold War. London: Minerva, 1995.

Kruh, Cryptologia 21.2, sees this as an "interesting and informative" work, but one with "several shortcomings." The lack of footnotes is a "major problem," and some of the writing is disjointed. Nevertheless, the author's "experience as a cryptanalyst in North Africa, India and Burma [in World War II] provides insights worth reading, if done with caution."

Bond, Raymond T., ed. Famous Stories of Code and Cipher. New York: Collier, 1965. [Petersen]

Boone, J.V. A Brief History of Cryptology. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2005.

From advertisement: The author "presents a historical overview of technological developments in cryptology and the closely associated fields of communications and computers.... Although he writes primarily from a military intelligence and command/control viewpoint, there are no involved explanations about how individual pieces of equipment function and no elaborate mathematical presentations."

Kruh, Cryptologia 30.2 (Apr. 2006), says that "[t]his is an excellent, well written book with a great deal of interesting and useful information."

Budiansky, Stephen. "Losing the Code War." Atlantic Monthly, Feb. 2002, 33 ff.

"[T]here is no one to blame for what is probably by far the greatest setback in recent years to American capabilities for keeping tabs on terrorists: the fact that it is now virtually impossible to break the encrypted communication systems that PCs and the Internet have made available to everyone -- including, apparently, al Qaeda.... Signals intelligence is not completely dead, of course: bad guys make mistakes; they sometimes still use the phone or radio when they need to communicate in a hurry; and a surprising amount of useful intelligence can be gleaned from analyzing communication patterns even if the content of the communications is unreadable."

Burke, Colin. "From the Archives: The Last Bombe Run, 1955." Cryptologia 32, no. 3 (Jul. 2008): 277-279.

A recently declassified NSA document shows that the WWII Bombes were used as late as 1955 against East German police messages. The use ceased after discovery of the Berlin Tunnel.

Dam, Kenneth W, and Herbert S. Lin, eds. Cryptography's Role in Securing the Information Society. Washington, DC: National Academy of Sciences Press, 1996.

Cooper, FA 76.2, identifies this as the work of a 16-member committee, which airs "all aspects of public policy toward cryptography.... The committee argues for much more general availability and much greater use of cryptography." The report "contains a wealth of information."

Deavours, Cipher A., et. al., eds.

1. Cryptology: Machines, History, and Methods. Dedham, MD: Artech House, 1989.

Surveillant 1.1 identifies this work as "52 papers selected from Cryptologia magazine." Nautical Brass Online, http://members. aol.com/nbrass/biblio.htm, finds "[a] great deal of interesting material" here.

2. Cryptology Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow. Dedham, MD: Artech House, 1987.

According to Nautical Brass Online, http://members.aol.com/ nbrass/biblio.htm, this is a "compilation of articles from Cryptologia" magazine, covering such topics as "history, personalities, machines, [and] mathematical approaches."

3. Selections from CRYPTOLOGIA: History, People and Technology. Boston & London: Artech House, 1998.

Erskine, I&NS 14.3, notes that this compilation contains 35 contributions published in the journal Cryptologia from 1987 to 1996. For the most part, "the articles are of a high standard." However, "[s]ome of the reminiscences ramble on, and add little to our knowledge."

Deavours, Cipher A., and Louis Kruh. Machine Cryptography and Modern Cryptanalysis. Dedham, MD: Artech House, 1985. London: Adtech Book Co., 1985.

Miller, IJI&C 1.3, says this is an "absolutely superb book that will enable an ordinary reader to obtain a very good idea indeed of how machine ciphers can be broken." It is "authoritative."

According to Petersen, the work "[f]ocuses on the inter-war period and the U.S. solution of Japanese codes." Sexton notes, however, that the authors continue their narrative through the introduction of cryptanalytic computers in the 1960s, and terms the work an "essential source for those concerned with cryptanalysis and Communications Intelligence."

Erskine, I&NS 1.2, notes that parts of this book "are very technical"; nevertheless, the text "can generally be followed, given application, without existing cryptanalytical knowledge." Regrettably, the authors "are not always sound on historical detail, especially with Enigma." Overall, however, the book's "weaknesses are far outweighed by its merits."

de Lastours, Sophie, ed. Le Chiffre, le renseignement, et la guerre. [Cipher, Intelligence, and War] Paris: L'Harmattan, 2002.

According to Kahn, I&NS 23.2 (Apr. 2008), this volume consists of "19 studies presented at a conference in Peronne, near Amiens, 21 and 22 March 2001."

de Leeuw, Karl. "Johann Friedrich Euler (1741-1800): Mathmatician and Cryptologist at the Court of the Dutch Stadholder William V." Cryptologia 25, no. 4 (Oct. 2001): 256-274.

Denniston, Robin. "Yardley on Yap." Intelligence and National Security 9, no. 1 (Jan. 1994): 112-122.

The case for the contribution of the Black Chamber "can be better made round the Yap question arising in the course of the communications conference and settled within days of the opening of the Washington Conference, rather than the naval ratios, which have hitherto attracted the attention of historians."

Denniston, Robin. "Yardley's Diplomatic Secrets." Cryptologia 18, no. 2 (Apr. 1994): 81-127.

This is an important piece of the great puzzle represented by Herbert Yardley, and should be read by anyone interested in American history of the interwar period or in cryptologic matters generally. The author focuses on the Yardley who wrote the unpublished manuscript, "Japanese Diplomatic Secrets," completed in 1933 and discovered by David Kahn in 1968.

Denniston views Yardley as "a clever operator and an original man, whose inherent characteristics made him his own worst enemy.... [H]is absence from cryptanalytical progress in America in the 1930s ... stemmed from the flaws in his own character. By publishing The American Black Chamber, with its false claims and dangerous revelations..., he threw away his longterm credibility."

Ferguson, Niels, and Bruce Schneir. Practical Cryptography. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2003.

Kruh, Cryptologia 28.2, identifies the authors as "two of the world's top cryptologic experts.... [They] provide the first hands-on guide" to implementing cryptography and incorporating it into real-world systems.

Friedman, William F.

Materials by and on "the father of American cryptography" are presented in a separate "FRIEDMAN" file.

Gaines, Helen F. Cryptanalysis. New York: Dover, 1956. [Petersen]

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