Cryptography & Electronic Warfare

Background

None of the information on these web pages is from any of my past work that involved security clearances.  I was a member of the Association of Old Crows (AOC) for about 25 years.  That was because much of the microwave electronics work I did was involved in Electronic Warfare.  I developed and oversaw the production of a combined limiter-detector that was used in the ALR series of radar warning receivers that protected our aircraft from ground radar guided missiles and guns also variants in Shrike and HARM during the Vietnam era.  This is described in a video tape by the AOC called "First in, Last Out".  In order to gather data for our electronic warfare systems the U.S.  flew over Russian radar installations. See Cold War Reconnaissance and the Shoot down Of Flight 60528. The Shrike missile used microwave detectors that were made using raw chips.  This missile has the steering wings located at it's center of mass so that when it steers, it moves sideways.  The AN/APR-39 was used with the ALR-xx series Radar Warning Receiver (RWR).

Books

The Code Breakers - The Story of Secret Writing, by David Kahn, MacMillan Publishing, First printing 1967, mine is ninth printing 1979. Library of congress Catalog Number 63-16109.  This is a very good overview of the history of cryptography. THE classic reference.

The Puzzle Palace, by James Bamford, Penguin Books, ISBN 0 14 00.6748 5. First printed 1982, my copy is 1987.  This is the first book about the NSA.  At the time the book came out Washington called it "No Such Agency" but now we know it as the "National Security Agency" the U.S. center for codes and ciphers.
Body of Secrets is the latest book by Bamford about the NSA. http://www.bodyofsecrets.com is the Random House page for this book.

No Such Agency Part Four Rigging the Game The Baltimore Sun, About December 4, 1995, pp. 9-11. Truman's 10/24/52 establishment of the NSA.

Body of Secrets : Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency : From the Cold War Through the Dawn of a New Century by James Bamford, Hardcover - 400 pages (April 24, 2001) Doubleday; ISBN: 0385499078 - should be out next month

The Code Book by Simon Singh - Very good overview, understandable explanation of public key and the separate problem of a one way function. money challenge  also descriptions of how ancient languages are decrypted even nothing is known about the language.

American Black Chamber by Herbery O. Yardley has been reprinted by Ballantine Books as part of their Espionage/Intelligence Library ISBN 0-345-29867-5

Wilderness of Mirrors by David C. Martim, Ballantine Books as part of their Espionage/Intelligence Library 1981, ISBN 0-345-29636-2.
Dan Rowen, US mobsters, Kennedy, Bay of Pigs, Castro, a tunnel under the East-West German border, and of course James Jesus Angleton, Cuban missile crisis - are all covered in this great book.

Handbook of Applied Cryptography, CRC Press, ISBN: 0-8493-8523-7, October 1996, 816 pages - free chapters on line

Information and Secrecy by Colin B. Burke - 487 pages (June 1, 1994)  Scarecrow Press; ISBN: 0810827832 - has some information about the U.S. Bombe made by NCR to break the German Sub 4 rotor Engima

The Ties That Bind by Jeffrey T. Richelson & Desmond Ball, ISBN 0-04-327092 1, first ed. 1985, Allen & Unwin Ltd.- Intelligence Cooperation between the UKSUA countries: United Kingdom, United States, Canada, Austraila and New Zealand.  Chapter 8: on SIGINT with info on RHYOLITE, AN/FLR-9.  Chapter 9: Ocean Surveillance has info on SOSUS, RDSS & SURTASS, Classic Wizard/White Cloud, P-3 Orion,  Holystone.  On pg. 225 -227 is an account of the Glomar Explorer and HMB-1 with 1985 info.

America's Secret Eyes in Space by Jeffrey T. Richlson, ISBN 0-88730-285-8 Harper & Row, 1990 The U.S. Keyhole Spy Satellite Program.

The Cuckoo's Egg by Clifford Stoll, Doubleday, ISBN 0-385-24946-2, First Edition Oct. 1989. True story of tracking down an international spy that was using the internet.

The Falcon and the Snowman by Robert Lindsey, Simon and Schuster, ISBN 0-671-24560-0 First edition 1979.  The true story of how a couple of spys in the mid 1970's sold the Russians secret codes for the TSEC/KW7 that was in a communications vault at TRW in Redondo Beach, CA.  I was working at TRW Microwave at the time and understand that a truck load of these books were sold to TRW.  28ASR 5 level Teletype machines used with KW-7 data encryption boxes mounted in racks.

Breaking The Ring by Johm Barron, Houghton Miffin Co. ISBN 0-395-42110-1 First edition 1987.  In June of 1979 the Russians were breaking the KL-47, KL-11, KW-26, Adonis, KW7 (see Falcon & Snowman above), KY-8, KG-14, KY-36 systems "with no problems" only the KWR-37 was giving them trouble.

The Man Who Broke Purple by Ronald Clark, Little, Brown and Company, ISBN 0-316-14595-5, First American Edition, 09/77.  The life of Col. William F. Friedman who deciphered the Japanese code used in WWII. Paper on Purple.  Friedman coined the term "cryptanalysis" (Kahn pg 371).

The Sigint Secrets by Nigel West, William Morrow and Company, ISBN 0-688-07652-1, First U.S. Edition, 1988.  Nigel makes a case that the Enigma was not broken using a cryptographic attack but rather based on poor operating practices that comprised the key setting.  He says that much can be learned about an enemy by listening to encrypted messages without decoding the messages.  This relates to traffic analysis, i.e. who talks to who, how many messages, how long are the messages, how strong is the signal, what bearing, etc..

Dark Waters: An Insider's Account of the NR-1, the Cold War's Undercover Nuclear Sub,  a small sub with tires it can "drive" on the botom.

Elementary Cryptanalysis a Mathematical Approach by Abraham Sinkov, The Mathimatical Association of America, LOC # 72-89953, copyright 1966 - This is an excellent book for understanding numerical methods and the application of computers.  The appendix has a number of basic programs.

If you are using a computer to decrypt messages, you need a way for the computer to know that it has succeeded.  I used the shape of the single letter frequency distribution.  By computing the square root of the sum of the squares of the distances and normalizing the result it's easy for the computer to solve Caesar shifts in <=26 tries.
This could be extended to general monoalphabetic cyphers by using a diagraphic frequency distribution.  For polygraphic cyphers you would need to also look at the diagonals (both 26  up and 26 down).

Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson (@amazon.com)- Novel incorporating descriptions of some crypto systems and actual events. 917 pages.  Counterpane Systems - Solitare - pontifex (Pearl-CGI)

AEGEAN PARK PRESS is a publisher of declassified and interesting publications related to cryptography.

Cloak and Dagger Books a very large collection of out of print books.
 

SOSUS & the Glomar Explorer

'The Silent War by John Piña Craven, A Touchstone Boook 2002, ISBN 0-684-87213-7 (25 years after the book "A Matter of Risk")
John wrote this book based on his own knowledge and involvement in the events described.  He says that our first knowledge of the missing Russian sub was the open search by the Russians.  We later discovered the SOSUS indications that the sub had gone down at 180.0 Lon x 40.0 Lat (about 2,000 miles NW of Hawaii) a point more than 300 miles off the course the Russians were searching.  Doing underwater explosions as part of the research related to the Scorpion sinking led John to speculate that the explosion recorded at 180x40 had to be very loud, not something caused by an air tank imploding.  Also the sub sank without the normal sounds of locked compartments imploding, meaning that the hatches were all open.  This and other evidence indicated the sub was a rogue and the crew had attempted to launch a nuke missile at Hawaii, but to do this they attempted to over ride control systems that probably caused the missile to destroy itself and in the process ignited the liquid fuel carried on board the sub, causing a fire and explosion.

At that time the U.S. had the capability to do an underwater recovery to confirm the rouge nature of the sub, but instead the Glomar Explorer was constructed and deployed.  One explanation for this is that the U.S. wanted the Russians to be aware that we might make make the evidence public that they had a rouge sub, and hence that they had lost control of their forces.  President Nixon presented the crew of the Halibut, in Hawaii, the Presidential Unit Citation.  He flew there in a secret way and not on Air Force One and there is speculation that he had some other meeting, probably with a Russian, to let them know about their rouge sub.
26 Dec 2004 - some research on the sub and what weapons it was carrying.  The K-129 Diesel-electric was first called B-103 and later renamed K-129 (probably when converted to a Golf II).  A 629 Golf class boat carrying liquid-propellant R-11FM with the 0.5 megaton RDS-4 nuclear explosives and/or R-13 missiles.  14 of the project 629 subs were converted to 629A Golf II class carring the D-4 launch system and R-21 missles with a 1400 km range.   IOC was 1963.

"On 15 May 1963 deployment of the D-4 launch system on Golf and Hotel submarines began. The R-21 remained in operational service from 1963 to 1989, during which time 193 out of a total of 228 launches were successful. Over this period the service life of the fueled missile was increased from six months to two years."
The K-129 was upgraded to 629A class, see:  Steel in the Deep 

Note the Hawaiian islands span a distance of 1,970 to 3, 010 km from 180 Lon x 40 N Lat. (according to my globe) so if the K-129 was a Golf class then it's missile range would have been only 150 km.  But a Golf II class sub carries R-21 (SS-N-5) missiles that have a range of  875 NM (1,400 km) and a payload somewhere in the 0.8 to 3.5 MT area.  A 1 MT warhead has a 50% kill radius less than 20 km so it's hard to see how a Golf II sub at 180x40 could attack any of the Hawaiian islands, but is in range of Midway.  165x35 or 175x25 would get in range of Necker which is West and North of Hawaii.  But in the book A Matter of Risk, the sinking subs location is given as 750 miles NW of Hawaii which would be about 165 x 30 N.  Being the first book on the subject it may be wrong.

The Amazing Story of the K129 -

April 2000 Update

A couple of years ago, the Navy leased the Glomar Explorer to Global Marine, (the original contractors) for 30-years. After 20-years in mothballs, the GE was converted to a drill ship, and is currently drilling off of the coast of Nigeria. It is scheduled to return home in 3- to 4-weeks, to resume drilling in the GOM.
State-of-the-Art Drill Ship Conversion by Cascade General
Glomar Explorer (AG 193) (ex-Hugh Glomar Explorer) at the Naval Vessel Register -

November 6, 2000 Russian merchant ships used in spying (this has been going on for as long as I can remember) - laser zapped eyes of 2 in helicopter.  Blackbird.pdf a novel by Craig J. Coley about a similar situation.

Blind Man's Bluff : The Untold Story of American Submarine Espionage, by  Sherry Sontag 1998 PublicAffairs; ISBN: 1891620088  "Most of the stories in Blind Man's Bluff have never been told publicly," they write, "and none have ever been told in this level of detail." Among their revelations is the most complete accounting to date of the 1968 disappearance of the U.S.S. Scorpion; the story of how the Navy located a live hydrogen bomb lost by the Air Force; and a plot by the CIA and Howard Hughes to steal a Soviet sub. The most interesting chapter reveals how an American sub secretly tapped Soviet communications cables beneath the waves. Blind Man's Bluff is a compelling book about the courage, ingenuity, and patriotism of America's underwater spies.

Spy Sub by Roger C. Dunham An Onyx Book, 1997, ISBN 0-451-40797-0
This book is mostly about what it's like to serve on a sub, the Halibut, written by one of those in control if it's nuclear reactor.  But it does talk about them finding and photographing the Russian sub that later was picked up by the Glomar Explorer.  The photos taken by the Halibut provided much of the evidence that the sub was a rouge. 

Spy Sub is the tale of a top-secret submarine named Halibut that lowered miles and miles of special cable along the bottom of the Pacific Ocean in order to investigate a sunken Soviet sub. The mission was such a success that the Halibut itself received a Presidential medal in a secret ceremony. It's a true story, even the part about the sub getting a medal. Roger C. Dunham, a nuclear reactor operator on board the Halibut during the mission, provides a firsthand account of an aspect of Cold War espionage that has only recently begun to surface. To this day, the Pentagon refuses to acknowledge such missions, in all likelihood because they are still going.

The Jennifer Project by Clyde W. Burleson, 1997 Texas A&M University Press; ISBN: 0890967644 The Jeniffer Project tells, documentary style, of the most difficult deep-sea salvage mission of all time, the CIA's effort to raise a Russian missile submarine that sank 750 miles northwest of Hawaii in 1968. Political infighting between the White House, the Pentagon, and a few select members of Congress changed a mission that was to be accomplished by small remote submarines (ala Bob Ballard/Titanic) to one which spent in excess of $200 million dollars to research, design, and built the Glomar Explorer, a one-of-a-kind salvage ship under the cover story that it was to be used by Howard Hughes to mine the world's oceans.

Other books since the original 1977 publication have shed more light on the story ("Spy Sub" & "Blind Man's Bluff" for example) of how involved the salvage mission really was. Most reports say the mission was a failure, and only part of the submarine was recovered. But one question has yet to be answered: If the submarine was to be brought up in one piece, as nearly every story written about it has stated, how then does one pull a 300+ foot long sub up through an opening of 199 feet, which was the length of the "moon pool" in the bottom of the Glomar Explorer. A very good docu-story. (ans: in three separate lifts.)   Table of Contents

"S.J. Mercury, 5 Nov. 1982 dateline San Francisco- The world's first fully submersible dry dock, built as part of a CIA plan to raise a sunken Soviet sub, is being claimed by the Navy for a new secret project, it was reported Thursday.  Navy officials said they have asked the National Park Service to turn over the Hughes Mining Barge-1 (HMB-1), which is docked at Todd Shipyards in San Francisco.  They plan to move it to Redwood City for use in a Lockheed Missiles and Space Co. project "in which the Navy has an interest." said Lt. Commander Tom Jurkowsky, a Navy spokesman. He declined to elaborate."

A Matter of Risk by Roy Varner & Wayne Collier, Ballantine Books 1978, ISBN 0-345-28639-1  First Edition May 1980.  This is the story of the Glomar Explorer built by Howard Hughes to recover the crypto equipment from a Russian Golf-class sub K-129 that sank 3 miles deep about 750 miles NW Pearl Harbor on 11 April 1968 heard by the SOSUS  (see 1968) (SOSUS Museum). 

Pearl Harbor

The U.S. handling of the secret messages has been thoroughly investigated with the conclusion that there were a number of mistakes.  My own theory is based on the fact that England had a well oiled system of intercepting, decrypting, and disseminating the fruit of the intercepted messages.  The method of communication at the time was H.F. radio that not only goes to the recipient but also "skips" all over the world.  I think that England received the same messages that the U.S. did, but unlike us, both decoded them and understood what they meant. I believe that England communicated to the U.S. that Pearl Harbor would be attacked and about when.

In Jan. 1941 Abe Sinkov, Leo Rosen, Robert Weeks and Prescott Currier hand delivered to B.P. a working Purple machine, a kana typewriter, and stacks of documents.   Starting Feb. 1941 SIS and OP-20-G the Purple messages were read almost currently. (from a book about Purple.)  This may not be too important if JN25 was used for pre attack messages, or they may have gleaned some info from Purple.

Commercial Spy Satellite Imaging

1 Meter Resolution

These companies started offering in 1999 high resolution 1 meter photographs made to order.
Prior to this the resolution was 5 meters or greater.

Autometric - incorporated in Cayman Islands
Earth Watch Inc. - Quickbird 1 -
Space Imaging, Inc. - Ikonos -
Orbital Imaging Corp. - OrbView-3 and OrbView-4 - in full minute increments with a minimum requirement of a continuous two-minute imaging window. The pricing is $10,000 per minute
FAS - Imint Gallery -
Global Security - Picture of the Week (click on image for new web page)

5 Meter & Greater Resolution

SPOT - French - 5 - 10 meter
Terra Server - my location N39:11:24.692 - W123:09:50.548 -
USGS - National Mapping and Remotely Sensed Data - Earth Resources Observation System (EROS Data Center) - Multispectral Scanner Landsat Data - 50 meter
Earth Observing System Data Gateway -

? Resolution
GlobeXplorer - works like Terra Server

Web Links

Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) - on the  NIST   Encryption web page that also has some declassified information on KEA and Skipjack
Association of Old Crows - for people involved in Electronic Warefare
Cryptographic Module Validation (CMV) Program -
Air Force Technical Applications Center - McClellan Air Force Base -  responsibility for managing the Atomic Energy Detection System [AEDS] discovering foreign atomic tests and other nuclear weapons related activities
Alan Turing Home Page   by the author of a book about the man who thought of the "Turing Machine" and developed code breaking computers in England
alt.locksmithing answers to Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Simulators

Brooke's Home, Crypto Machines,  Military Information, Electronics, Page

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