The Rabenhaupt cipher (1646), which has resisted codebreakning efforts for some years, was finally solved by finding the key in the archives. The result is now published by a paper of Eugen Antal, Pavol Zajac, Jakub Mírka in HistoCrypt 2021. See "Some German Ciphers: 1540-1815".
The same proceedings also include a report of a preliminary decipherment of letters to Emperor Maximilian II (1574, 1575) by Nils Kopal, Michelle Waldispühl ("Habsburg Codes and Ciphers") as well as other interesting findings mentioned yesterday and the day before yesterday and more.
16/08/2021
Cipher Letter of French Ambassador Published by the Prince of Orange (1684) Identified and Verified
One of my favourite historical characters is William III, Prince of Orange, as I wrote before. When I encountered a cipher used by Comte d'Avaux, French ambassador in the Hague, some months ago (see here), I remembered an episode that the Prince published d'Avaux's letter that was intercepted and deciphered, and I wanted to inspect the original some day.
To my pleasant surprise, it was done by George Lasry. He conducted codebreaking of a ciphertext found in the Dutch Royal Archives, and when some plaintext was revealed, found that it was this famous letter. He verified that the decipherment published by the Dutch was correct, disproving d'Avaux's claim that the Prince deliberately distorted it for propaganda. This result is now mentioned in Section (1C) in "French Ciphers during the Reign of Louis XIV".
To my pleasant surprise, it was done by George Lasry. He conducted codebreaking of a ciphertext found in the Dutch Royal Archives, and when some plaintext was revealed, found that it was this famous letter. He verified that the decipherment published by the Dutch was correct, disproving d'Avaux's claim that the Prince deliberately distorted it for propaganda. This result is now mentioned in Section (1C) in "French Ciphers during the Reign of Louis XIV".
15/08/2021
Polish Codebreaking as part of UNESCO Memory of the World
I learned that documents including Polish codebreaking activities was added to the UNESCO Memory of the World register in 2018 in Marek Grajek, "Documents of Polish-Soviet War of 1919-1920 Codebreaking" in HistoCrypt 2021 (pdf) (p.64). The official title is "Documents of Polish radio intelligence from the period of the Battle of Warsaw in 1920." The official recommendation explains "The documents of Polish radio intelligence of the Battle of Warsaw are one of the first testimonies to the use of radio monitoring and of new methods of deciphering e enemies' codes. lt was also the Battle of Warsaw here the radio monitoring and those new deciphering techniques played a role that determined the outcome of the battle."
I wonder whether there are other examples where codebreaking is registered as Memory of the World.
The above article interests me for another reason. The codebreaking activities were led by Jan Kowalewski, who taught cryptology to Japanese military officers (in 1923). I didn't know the episode of his first codebreaking in 1919:
"One of the officers of the emerging cipher service of the Polish Army wished to dance at his sister's wedding and asked a colleague for replacement at the night duty. Lieutenant Jan Kowalewski had no previous experience with the ciphers or the codebreaking, but his perfect knowledge of Russian language plus common sense permitted him to break the cipher before the morning. Kowalewski was immediately transferred to the cipher section of the General Staff, where during the following months he managed to organize an effective and efficient codebreaking service." (p.63)
By the way, Kowalewski's job was facilitated by a key the Soviet lost to the enemy, which revealed common features of the Soviet cipher used at the time (p.68). I think it was the one provided by the Japanese military to Poland (see David Kahn, The Reader of Gentlemen's Mail, p.86).
I wonder whether there are other examples where codebreaking is registered as Memory of the World.
The above article interests me for another reason. The codebreaking activities were led by Jan Kowalewski, who taught cryptology to Japanese military officers (in 1923). I didn't know the episode of his first codebreaking in 1919:
"One of the officers of the emerging cipher service of the Polish Army wished to dance at his sister's wedding and asked a colleague for replacement at the night duty. Lieutenant Jan Kowalewski had no previous experience with the ciphers or the codebreaking, but his perfect knowledge of Russian language plus common sense permitted him to break the cipher before the morning. Kowalewski was immediately transferred to the cipher section of the General Staff, where during the following months he managed to organize an effective and efficient codebreaking service." (p.63)
By the way, Kowalewski's job was facilitated by a key the Soviet lost to the enemy, which revealed common features of the Soviet cipher used at the time (p.68). I think it was the one provided by the Japanese military to Poland (see David Kahn, The Reader of Gentlemen's Mail, p.86).
14/08/2021
Ciphers for Military Correspondence in the 1640s in BnF NAF 1045
BnF NAF 1045 includes ciphers for military correspondence of Turenne and others. I inspected the first 20 folios out of 57, and described it in "Ciphers Early in the Reign of Louis XIV".
13/08/2021
Three More Unsolved Letters of Catherine de Medicis, Charles IX, and Henry III
I was made aware of three undeciphered letters in the 1560s-1570s by Cipherbrain: one from Catherine de Medicis to Philibert du Croc, ambassador in Scotland (1567), one from Charles IX to Philibert du Croc, and one from Villeroi to Henry III (1577). I made references to these in "Unsolved Historical Ciphers" and "French ciphers during the Reigns of Charles IX and Henry III".
Note (20 September 2021): The following is my preliminary assignment of symbols in Villeroi's letter. It was derived from the few plaintext written between the lines. It can recover some meaning text such as "tout cest" or "aurons tout", but I cannot yet derive further meaningful text from these.
10/08/2021
Another Cipher Letter from Charles I at the Isle of Wight
Cipher letters of King Charles I, executed by the Parliamentarians in 1649, continue to attract attention. The other day, the King's letters of September to November 1648 to Prince Charles during his captivity in the Isle of Wight were deciphered by Norbert Biermann and Matthew Brown (see "What It Takes to Break Charles I's Cipher Used in the Isle of Wight").
Now, I came across a record of another cipher letter of Charles I from the same period. It is a copy of a cipher letter from Charles I at Newport to the Duke of Ormonde dated 28 October 1648, preserved in Northumberland Archives. I have not seen it and does not even know whether it is deciphered. At least, I added a reference to this in "King Charles I's Ciphers".
Now, I came across a record of another cipher letter of Charles I from the same period. It is a copy of a cipher letter from Charles I at Newport to the Duke of Ormonde dated 28 October 1648, preserved in Northumberland Archives. I have not seen it and does not even know whether it is deciphered. At least, I added a reference to this in "King Charles I's Ciphers".
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