Most school children learn all about the treasonable conduct of Benedict Arnold when he was in command of the American forces at West Point, but they probably don’t learn that practically all of his communications exchanges with Sir Henry Clinton, commander of the British forces in America, were in cipher or invisible inks. In his cipher messages, Arnold usually left a few words “en clair,” the ones he considered unimportant; for the important ones he used a dictionary as a codebook, indicating the page number, column number, and line number corresponding to the position in the dictionary of the plaintext word the code group represented. Arnold added seven to these numbers, which accounts for the fact that the first number in a code group was never less than eight or more than thirty-six.
Continue reading “Ciphers and Silver Balls in the American Revolution”
Navy SEALs (Sea, Air, Land) operating in Afghanistan in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. From left to right: Sonar Technician (Surface) 2nd Class (SEAL) Matthew G. Axelson, 29, of Cupertino, Calif; Senior Chief Information Systems Technician (SEAL) Daniel R. Healy, 36, of Exeter, N.H.; Quartermaster 2nd Class (SEAL) James Suh, 28, of Deerfield Beach, Fla.; Hospital Corpsman 2nd Class (SEAL) Marcus Luttrell; Machinist’s Mate 2nd Class (SEAL) Eric S. Patton, 22, of Boulder City, Nev.; Lt. (SEAL) Michael P. Murphy, 29, of Patchogue, N.Y. With the exception of the lone survivor, Luttrell, all were killed 28 June 2005 by enemy forces while supporting Operation Redwing. (U.S. Navy Photo)
Continue reading “October 7, 2001, Operation Enduring Freedom kicked off in response to the 9/11 Attacks.”
Philippine fishermen have pulled up another unauthorized research or espionage drone within the country’s waters, the latest in a series of catches that have raised concerns about Chinese spying as tensions rise in the South China Sea.
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Seoul, South Korea —
A Japanese warship is on the way to the United States to be fitted with Tomahawk cruise missiles, the latest move by Washington and its Asian allies to beef up firepower as adversaries like China and North Korea expand theirs.
Continue reading “Japan is arming a warship with US missiles that can hit targets up to 1,000 miles away as Pacific arms race heats up”
Shanghai Finally Closes
In 1935, Capt Lasswell, USMC was assigned to the American Embassy in Tokyo to received Japanese language training. Upon completion of this training, he was transferred to the Philippines and reported to Marine Barracks, Navy Yard Cavite, on September 4, 1938. At Cavite, he was assigned a cover billet as “Assistant War Plans Officer” for the 16th Naval District. However, his actual duty was as language officer to the Asiatic Decryption Unit of the Communication Intelligence Unit, relieving LT Joseph Finnegan, USN. He had no formal cryptanalytic experience but was trained on the job by LT Dennis, USN the Asiatic CIU’s OIC.
Continue reading “History of U.S. Marine Corps COMINT Effort (Part 6 of 6)”
Personnel and Perception Problems
During the late 1930’s, fundamental issues arose which ultimately resulted in the withdrawal, until World War II, of enlisted marine intercept operators for COMINT operations. The similarly of background of both marine intercept operators and general service communications personnel at Shanghai and Peiping gave rise to certain perception among the intercept operators as described in a CinCAF inspection report of Shanghai, probably written in late 1935, which stated:
Continue reading “History of U.S. Marine Corps COMINT Effort (Part 5 of 6)”
Station HYPO 