The Bletchley Park Codebreakers (68 page)
Read The Bletchley Park Codebreakers Online
Authors: Michael Smith
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| key-list | a list of keys, generally daily, for a cipher. |
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| KGB | Komitet Gosudarstvennoi Bezopasnosti , or Committee for State Security, the commonly understood title for the Russian state secret services. These had a variety of different titles throughout the period covered. The title KGB was not introduced until March 1954 and was abolished in October 1991, but for ease of understanding it is used throughout. |
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| Kriegsmarine | the German Navy in the Second World War. |
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| Luftwaffe | the German Air Force in the Second World War. |
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| MI1b | the department of British military intelligence dealing with Sigint during the First World War. |
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| MI5 | the Security Service, title dates from the First World War and the immediate aftermath of the Armistice when it was part of Army intelligence and in theory its only role was to root out subversion within the armed forces. |
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| MI6 | common wartime name for the British Secret Intelligence Service, technically the Army intelligence branch that liaised with SIS. It was not introduced until 1940, but for ease of understanding it is used throughout. |
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| MI8 | the department of British military intelligence dealing with Sigint during the Second World War. |
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| MND | Marinenachrichtendienst (Kriegsmarine Communications Service). |
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| M3 | the Kriegsmarine three-rotor Enigma machine. |
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| M4 | the Kriegsmarine four-rotor Enigma machine. |
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| menu | a series of linked plain-text/cipher text letters used for giving instructions to bombe operators on setting up the bombes. |
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| message key | (Enigma) the rotor starting positions for a specific Enigma signal. |
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| message setting | the message key (q.v.). |
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| NID25 | Naval Intelligence Department 25. The Royal Navy’s Sigint branch during the First World War, better known as Room 40 from the room in the Old Admiralty Buildings in Whitehall that it occupied. |
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| NSA | National Security Agency. |
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| Offizier | a system for doubly enciphering naval Enigma signals, which ensured that only officers could read their substantive text. |
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| OKH | Oberkommando des Heeres (High Command of the German Army). |
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| OKW | Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (High Command of the Wehrmacht ). |
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| OKW/Chi | OKW’s Amtsgruppe Wehrmachtnachrichtenverbindungswesen Chiffrierabteilung the section responsible for cipher security. |
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| OTP | one-time pad. A series of random additives intended for use once only. If used correctly, the system is unbreakable. |
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| perforated sheets | see Zygalski sheets. |
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| psilli | psychological cilli. An Enigma message setting which is so closely related to the message Grundstellung that it can be guessed (e.g., Grund ‘HIT’ might give message setting ‘LER’). Also a guessable keyboard sequence, such as ‘QWE’. |
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| Purple | the Japanese diplomatic cipher machine, angoo-ki taipu b (Type B machine), codenamed Purple by the US Army. |
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| RAF | Royal Air Force. |
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| Red | the principal Luftwaffe Enigma cipher (codename assigned by Hut 6). |
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| Red (Japanese) | the Japanese diplomatic cipher machine, angoo-ki taipu a (Type A machine), codenamed Red by the Americans. |
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| re-encipherment | the encipherment of the same plain-text in two or more ciphers. |
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| Ringstellung | ring setting. The setting of the ring (or tyre) on an Enigma rotor. |
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| romaji | system of transliteration allowing kana to be spelt out in Roman letters. |
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| rotor | (Enigma) rotating disc (or wheel) with randomly wired electric contacts used for encipherment in Enigma. |
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| rotor order | (Enigma) the order in which rotors were inserted in Enigma (e.g., III, I, IV), looking at the machine from the front. |
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| R/T | radio telephone. |
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| Schlüsselkenngruppe | (naval Enigma) see cipher indicator group. |
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| Schlüsselzusatz | cipher attachment. |
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| SD | the Sicherheitsdienst (the intelligence service of the Nazi party). |
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| Sigint | signals intelligence. All intelligence derived from studying radio and other signals. |
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| SIS | (American) Signal Intelligence Service – the US Army’s codebreaking unit (the name was changed on several occasions during the war). |
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| SIS | (British) the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6). |
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| SKL | Seekriegsleitung (the German naval war staff). |
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| SOE | Special Operations Executive |
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| Spruchschlüssel | see message key. |
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| SS | Schutzstaffeln . Protection squads formed in the 1920s, which became a powerful organization in the Nazi party, and Germany, with a military section, the Waffen SS. |
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| SSA | Signal Security Agency. The codebreaking unit of the US Army (which had a variety of names during the war; cf. SIS (American)). |
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| SSD | Signal Security Detachment. A codebreaking section in the US Army. |
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| Stecker | short for Steckerverbindungen (plug connections). |
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| Steckerverbindungen | the plug connections in Enigma’s plugboard. |
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| Stichwort | (naval Enigma) cue word – a procedure modifying a daily key when a key-list had been compromised. |
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| Stop | the position at which a bombe stopped, corresponding to a possible Enigma key. |
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| Sturgeon | GC&CS codename for the Siemens and Halske T52 series of teleprinter cipher machines. |
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| success rate | decrypts as a percentage of the signals intercepted. |
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| superenciphered code | see enciphered code. |
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| SZ 40 or 42 | the Lorenz Schlüsselzusatz (cipher attachment) for teleprinters. |
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| TA | see traffic analysis. |
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| TJAO | Temporary Junior Administrative Officer |
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| traffic | radio signals, generally encrypted, between two or more stations, or using a common code or cipher. |
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| traffic analysis | the study of the external characteristics of signals (such as call signs and frequencies used) in order to derive intelligence. |
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| trigram | a group of three figures or letters. |
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| Tunny | GC&CS codename for the Lorenz SZ 40/42 teleprinter cipher attachment. |
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| Typex | the British cipher machine, based on Enigma (but without an entry plugboard). Never broken by the German codebreakers. |
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| Uhr | a device which made Enigma’s plugboard largely nonreciprocal (see Chapter 19). |
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| UKD | see Umkehrwalze D. |
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| Ultra | ‘special intelligence’ – intelligence derived from high-grade codes and ciphers, such as Enigma and Fish. |
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| Umkehrwalze | (Enigma) reflector. |
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| Umkehrwalze D | (Enigma) reflector Dora (UKD), which was rewirable in the field as part of an Enigma key (see Chapter 19). Used almost exclusively by the Luftwaffe . |
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| Walzenlage | (Enigma) rotor order (e.g., II, V, III). |
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| WEC | Wireless Experimental Centre. British signals intelligence site set up just outside Delhi in June 1942. |
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| WED | Wireless Experimental Depot. British intercept and decryption site based at Abbottabad on the North West Frontier, set up in the 1920s. |
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| Wehrmacht | all three branches of the German armed forces in the Second World War. |
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| Werftschlüssel | dockyard cipher – a manual cipher system used by the Kriegsmarine . |
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| wheel | see rotor. |
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| Wren | member of the WRNS (q.v.). |
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| WRNS | Women’s Royal Naval Service. |
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| Y service | the intercept and DF service (before October 1943, the service also dealt with traffic analysis and broke some lowgrade codes and ciphers). |
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| Zählwerk Enigma | see counter Enigma. |
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| Zygalski sheets | lettered sheets with holes punched in them, showing which combinations of rotor starting positions and wheel orders produced females. By suitably aligning the relevant sheets on top of each other, the Ringstellungen and rotor order were revealed by the coincidence of holes in some sheets. |
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