Resources
Thankfully its good to see that GCHQ have the common sense to put resources behind what is going on now and that should always be the case!
Canadian man: I solved WWII WAR HERO pigeon code!
An amateur code-breaking enthusiast and history buff from Canada claims to have succeeded where professional cryptographers from GCHQ failed in decoding a message found on the long-dead remains of a carrier pigeon. Gord Young, from Peterborough, in Ontario, claims that the message can be deciphered using a WWI codebook he …
-
-
-
Friday 21st December 2012 12:10 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Resources
Uk leaders in cryptography who actually invented public-private key encryption but due to the usual utterly short sighted british civil service mentality , decided not to reveal it and hence profit out of it. So the americans re-invented it a decade later and the rest is history.
If ever a country was lions led by donkeys its Britain.
-
Friday 21st December 2012 12:49 GMT Psyx
Re: Resources
"Thankfully its good to see that GCHQ have the common sense to put resources behind what is going on now and that should always be the case!"
Erm... they haven't. Someone spent ten minutes knocking up a statement saying "It's one-time pad, can't be broken without the code book, end of story"
How exactly is that ploughing resources into it?
"decided not to publicly reveal how its intelligence services were using cryptography."
Fixed that for you!
-
Friday 21st December 2012 21:34 GMT Alfred
Re: Resources
"Erm... they haven't. Someone spent ten minutes knocking up a statement saying "It's one-time pad, can't be broken without the code book, end of story"
That's a phenomenal misread. You have essentially completely agreed with the person to whom you are replying, but whilst thinking you're disagreeing.
-
-
-
Saturday 22nd December 2012 10:16 GMT PyLETS
security by obscurity
invented public-private key encryption but due to the usual utterly short sighted british civil service mentality , decided not to reveal it"
Cryptography was considered by this culture something to be kept secret as it was thought your enemy would then find it harder to break. They were aware enough in the seventies of Kerckhoff's Law in relation to the requirement to be able to rekey a system in case an enemy learned a security system design, so by rekeying the hardware implementing this cipher could remain secure, but this came from a culture where non-disclosure of system design was genuinely believed to keep a system secure for longer than would otherwise be possible. The Bletchley Park WW2 Enigma crack was still kept secret until the late seventies and there was a cold war on, because the captured Enigma hardware had been sold on, to new customers who were assured it was still secure and upon whom the UK intended to spy.
Yes it's a very real shame in many ways that such important discoveries were sat on and languished unused - or used little as a consequence. But not publishing Clifford Cocks' public key system until 1997 didn't have such a negative effect on the development of British computing as keeping the Bletchley Park work under wraps did until the seventies. Even so, the more widely usable parts of the Bletchley Park work were reinvented in UK academic and commercial circles - at the cost of a significant few years of development, enabling IBM to capture most of the early computing market.
Raymond's Law: "given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow" adopted by the NSA when the SELinux Mandatory Access Control patch was contributed to the Linux community, and the understanding that cryptographic systems were best selected following public peer review e.g. as with the AES design competition, would take another 20 years or so to be widely adopted as the more sound engineering practice.
-
-
-
-
-
-
Friday 21st December 2012 19:05 GMT MrT
Was that at...
... the pre-WW2 exchange rate of roughly one million marks for a lump of coal? ;-)
I have studied this cryptogram extensively (at least 15 minutes) and can categorically state that it says; "Why have you sent tanks and two more pidgeons? The doorman at the hotel wants hard cash - 30d for the evening, including dinner and a tip for the band." I'm not certain of the location, but it seems to tie in with the 1944 tour itinerary of the Paris Conservatoire, Brighton, a copy of which I inherited with my Grandfather's service medals, false teeth and unused ration books.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
Friday 21st December 2012 11:43 GMT Frumious Bandersnatch
Re: And these idiots at GCGQ are going to ...
Perhaps you mean mean?
Or, to use a word that cropped up in an article here on the Reg just a few days ago, niggardly.
-
-
Friday 21st December 2012 10:33 GMT Psyx
Re: And these idiots at GCGQ are going to ...
"And these idiots at GCGQ are going to ... defend Britain from ne'er do wells? Capture spies and potential bomb tossers?"
What exactly is your point? They've been doing a pretty good job to date and have caught quite a lot of them.
If your point is that GCHQ are inept because they aren't spending the time to crack what should surely be an 'easy' 70 year old piece of code, then you really shouldn't be speaking so candidly about it, because you're not making yourself look clever at all.
The message was encrypted using a one-time pad, and the ONLY way to break a one-time pad is to have the pad or for the generation methods of the pad to be insecure in the first place. That's rather the point of them and why one-time pads are still secure and that's why they were used, and still are.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-time_pad
Any muppet can construct trite backronyms for 30% of the message and ignore the other 70%, or even just make up a message. That's not decrypting it: It's making sh1t up. You can plug a super-computer into it and it will churn out an infinite number of 'possible' messages, but the only way of actually sussing it is by using the pad.
-
-
-
Friday 21st December 2012 16:43 GMT User McUser
With apologies to "Helping Children Through Research And Development"
When everyone can open my mental Encyclopedia (nicely to allow requisite shouting) all really easy parts require ten Toms yodeling. Sadly, help is the hardest of the ways humans equate natural interests there. Certainly others might eat some, tasting only mushrooms, apples, kale, interesting noodles, goldfish, and certain roots. Otherwise nothing you might see shall open minds. Every time I make ethanol someone tells Hubert "evolution yes!" Eventually varieties endanger news makers and keep everyone sane. "Enough nonsense," says everyone.
Not sure that makes any sense though...
-
-
-
-
-
Friday 21st December 2012 11:50 GMT Lord Voldemortgage
"Also AOAKN occurs twice in the message. Why would anyone send the same thing twice in a message?"
Well, possibly, I suppose - if it a series of reports from different positions / observers at different times and each needed to be attributed for example.
Still this does all sound rather unlikely.
-
-
Friday 21st December 2012 14:17 GMT I ain't Spartacus
I can't remember if the Germans were using the word Panzer in WW1, and even if so, were the allies? Churchill said that the original codename was cisterns, and he changed it to tanks, as it was easier to say... Saved us from sounding silly at least.
I'm pretty sure neither side was using the word Blitzkrieg anyway. Or even Blitz.
-
-
-
-
-
Friday 21st December 2012 09:38 GMT Vladimir Plouzhnikov
Ludicrous
I don't understand why BBC has wasted screen space on that flight of fantasy?
"HVPKD - Have Panzers Know Directions"
I know that one - "Have spacesuit, will travel".
Seriously, man, if you know directions - give them to us already, or do you need the credit card details first? In this case you will have to wait a bit as they are awfully difficult to find these days, you know, war and stuff...
"FNFJW - Final Note [confirming] Found Jerry's Whereabouts"
Final note? OK, we're listening. Where did you find them?
"DJHFP - Determined Jerry's Headquarters Front Posts"
We thought the last one was final, but yes, great, where are they? Do you mean, if we cut the front posts, the roof will collapse on the Wehrmacht HQ or what?
"CMPNW - Counter Measures [against] Panzers Not Working"
No shit, man! So what do you want *us* to do about that? Or are you sending pigeons to request air support?
"PABLIZ - Panzer Attack - Blitz"
OK, will send three and fourpence, you're going to a dance...
"KLDTS - Know [where] Local Dispatch Station"
Oh, do you? And what do you want in exchange for telling us? Because you must be wanting something, otherwise you would have written the coordinates in the bloody note!
-
-
Friday 21st December 2012 10:43 GMT Psyx
Re: Does it mean anything?
"Was this the style of such messages?"
Quite the opposite: If you are conveying important information via a pair of pigeons you've been carrying, you make darned sure that it's useful information!
What the article doesn't really note is the guy only 'decrypted' [cough] less than half the message. You'd assume that if he was correct that the missing parts would be grid references, encrypted via one-time pad... which STILL makes absolutely FA sense: The key thing about crucial communications is that they must be crystal clear. And mixing a smattering of ad hoc acronyms based on outdated 30 year old ones is going to simply confuse the hell out of the recipient, who has never met you or knows of your annoying habit of totally ignoring standard practice, and wonders if you've got your pad open on the right page, or if you've been captured and this is 'Jerry' ineptly passing misinformation.
-
-
-
Friday 21st December 2012 10:54 GMT Psyx
Re: Panzer in a WW 1 Handbook ???
"I thought the term "Panzer" originated in WW2."
Ummm... no. It means 'armour', so kinda pre-dates that by several hundred years! The first German vehicle called a 'Panzer' [the Panzer 1] was fielded in 1932. However, the word was also being tossed around by German military thinkers and theorists by that time.
But yeah... it's still a pile of rubbish. And 'Panzer blitz'?! Seriously? As opposed to Blitzkrieg attacks NOT being spearheaded by armour?!? /facepalm.
-
-
This post has been deleted by its author
-
-
Friday 21st December 2012 15:20 GMT Androgynous Crackwhore
Re: don't waste your time
We're no strangers to love
You know the rules ... and so do I
A full commitment's what I'm ... thinkin' of
You wouldn't get this from any other guy
I just wanna tell you how I'm feeling
Gotta make you ... understand
Never gonna give you up
Never gonna let you down
Never gonna run around and desert you
Never gonna make you cry
Never gonna say goodbye
Never gonna tell a lie and hurt you
We've known each other ... for so long
Your heart's been aching, but ... you're too shy to say it
Inside we both know what's been ... goin' on
We know the game and we're ... gonna play it
And if you ask me how I'm feeling
Don't tell me you're to ... blind to see
Never gonna give you up
Never gonna let you down
Never gonna run around and desert you
Never gonna make you cry
Never gonna say goodbye
Never gonna tell a lie and hurt you
Never gonna give you up
Never gonna let you down
Never gonna run around and desert you
Never gonna make you cry
Never gonna say goodbye
Never gonna tell a lie and hurt you
Oooooooooh ... give you up
Oooooooooh ... give you up
Never gonna give never gonna give
Give you up
Never gonna give never gonna give
Give you up
We've known each other ... for so long
Your heart's been aching, but ... you're too shy to say it
Inside we both know what's been ... goin' on
We know the game and we're ... gonna play it
I just wanna tell you how I'm feeling
Gotta make you ... understand
Never gonna give you up
Never gonna let you down
Never gonna run around and desert you
Never gonna make you cry
Never gonna say goodbye
Never gonna tell a lie and hurt you
Never gonna give you up
Never gonna let you down
Never gonna run around and desert you
Never gonna make you cry
Never gonna say goodbye
Never gonna tell a lie and hurt you
Never gonna give you up
Never gonna let you down
Never gonna run around and desert you
Never gonna make you cry
Never gonna say goodbye
Never gonna tell a lie and hurt you
-
-
-
Friday 21st December 2012 10:24 GMT Jon Green
One simple proof that the "decrypt" is bogus
"PABLIZ". And that's it. That's all we need in order to demonstrate that the so-called decrypt has been invented, and fitted to the text.
The original cyphertext was written in pentablocks: five-character groups. There should have been (and were) no six-character groups. The would-be decrypter's "LI" is a "U" - written in the approved fashion using squared corners, so that there's no ambiguity with 'V'. There are other examples in the same text.
-
-
Friday 21st December 2012 10:37 GMT Anonymous Coward
Was Canada one of the Commonwealth countries that we encouraged to use the "totally uncrackable Enigma machines" who were then pretty p-ed off when 20-30 years later details of what Bletchley Park had achieved started to be revealed and they realized their "uncrackable" message had probably been readable by MI6 all the time.
-
-
Thursday 27th December 2012 11:00 GMT Psyx
Re: What is the most likely clear text?
"Based on what I don't know, I'd choose (b)"
Occam's razor says that you're wrong.
It was found on a dead, rotting pigeon in a chimney. The discoverer went to news outlets about it. GCHQ have said "don't bother it's a one-time pad", and indeed such messages WERE sent with a one-time pad, AND GCHQ actually bother to tell people that things are recruitment tests.
Where'as your recruitment drive theory requires an HR bod at GCHQ to suggest planting a message on a rotting pigeon in a chimney and manipulating the entire UK press and waste hours ploughing through wacky backronyms from morons without in any way appealing to a target audience.
-
-
-
-
Friday 21st December 2012 20:07 GMT asdf
Re: Can I Play?
>only good whiskey comes out of Scotland
only good pure malt whiskey comes out of Scotland, but if you don't mind some corn in your whiskey nobody does sour mash Bourbon like us Americans. Who do you think smooths out the freshly made oak barrels for everyone else including the Scots?
-
-
-
Friday 21st December 2012 15:56 GMT cortland
The choice is between silk and cyanide...
The last four words (part of a conversation he recounts) are the title of Leo Marks' book about his time as SOE's top coder and the upgrading of easily and too often broken agent codes to more secure ones (eventually to one time pads) printed on highly combustible silk, a strategic and hard to justify material, thus the title.
http://www.amazon.com/Between-Silk-Cyanide-Codemakers-1941-1945/dp/068486780X
-
Friday 21st December 2012 20:30 GMT Anonymous Coward
Why...
...would he encrypt his name in the message (or, if he didn't, where did this Canadian chap get the name from?) If they knew who the message was from, why bother telling them?. If they didn't, then how would they know how to decode it? If just anybody had access to the same method of encryption and the same key then how secure could that be?
-
Friday 21st December 2012 20:36 GMT Dave Bell
This guy might have pinpointed Sergeant Stott, and if the link to the pigeon IDs can be confirmed we might get a better context for the message.
Problem 1: The only battalion of the Lancashire Fusiliers to serve in Normany did not arrive until the 29th June, though it was part of the 59th Infantry Division which started arriving on the 27th. It makes the timing odd.
This does leave open the possibility that he was attached to a different unit. It seems that soldiers who served in the Parachute Regiment are listed under their original Regiment.
Problem 2: There are only 8 soldiers named Stott buried in France in WW2 (source: Commonwealth War Graves Commission website), but none of them are recorded as Sergeants. If it was an acting rank, it might not be recorded, but the only Lancashire Fusilier was Fusilier William Stott, 3454758, and it's very unlikely that a fusilier would be rated as acting Sergeant.
I am not convinced that the correct Sgt Stott has been found.
-
Wednesday 26th December 2012 21:26 GMT Pete 8
Yet,
...if One were to be able to decode the message, One might need to consider that the decoder/key holder(s) face risks.
As with any 'leak' of information, there are stakeholders (keyholders), their agendas, and potentially unwanted and to-be-avoided on-peril-of-death consequences of crossing paths with said stakeholders, who, if not pidgeoning positions of lowly legions, probably preferred prime party pontificate prose prevail permanently private, potentially posing great risks, both to said seer of the then unwound thread, and it's tailor's tribe.
This topic is closed for new posts.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
