...THE NIHILIST CIPHER...
The 'Rote Drie' used a NHILIST cipher however they did make some modifications in its structure thanks to a very smart radio operator of the Swiss-based LUCY group who, incidentally, hailed from Liverpool. As you might expect, there is more than one twist to this story.
The operator concerned, known as (Allan)Alexander Foote, documented and later published the precise methods he used in constructing the messages he was to send to the Moscow Centre.
Very briefly, the Nihilist code originated in Russia in the late 19th Century, it was formulated by an organised group of people who held that Nihilism was the right way forward for not only Russia but for everyone.. They were totally anti-authority, anti-religion, anti-family in fact they were anti-everything that to their minds represented control.
Many of the supporters of the movement were harshly dealt with. The cipher though survived and was later to be adopted by the Soviets and as we have noted before, the mechanisms evolved over the years of its use.
The cipher is a ‘polybius’ cipher it is based on a matrix of 5 x 5 squares representing the alphabet which of course contains one extra letter that exists in this matrix. The letters 'I' was redundant. The other aspect of note is that this cipher had two keywords, the first was a word or set of letters normally 5 or 6 inserted at the beginning of a message. A second keyword was added to each message and it was how this keyword was constructed that piqued my interest.
They formed this second keyword in this cipher using a book, then a page in that book, a paragraph on that page, the position of a letter within a paragraph, a line, and a word. Followers of this blog may recognise the method it being not only a book code but it is very similar to the DANETTA code found in the cases of 4 unusual deaths in Australia including George Marshall, Michael Goreloff, the Somerton Man and Tibor Kaldor.
To add a further level of security and complexity, two recognition groups were added
AN EXAMPLE OF A NIHILIST CIPHER USED BY THE LUCY SPY RING:
Thanks to Alexander Foote, the radio operator for the LUCY spy ring, 9Based in Switzer we have a very good example and a description of the cipher that he used in his time with the ring. He wrote a book about his experiences as a Soviet Spy.
Here are four screen grabs from Foote's book:
Step 1 shows the insertion of the first keyword 'PLAYER' You will note that it has six letters which were part of the directive given by Moscow Centre, six letters that were easy to remember but from here on it gets more complex
We Are Left With 4 Questions
1. Can the cipher text be decrypted
2. Was the message to be sent by radio or had it been received?
Please note that whilst Adelaide University examined the torn slip under a microscope, they were looking to confirm the type of paper used. They did not examine it for any concealment, that search was done by this blog with the results you can now see.
AN MI5 AND AN AUSTRALIAN LINK:
ReplyDeleteIt seems that when Alexander Foote eventually returned to the UK he was interrogated not by SIS but by MI5. There were two interrogators present, Serpell and Hemblys Scales. The latter name will be familiar to many, Hemblys Scales turned up in Australia in 1948.
Another happening in 1948 was a coup D'etat in Czechoslovakia, when the communists took over the country. Purges followed and many fled the country including Czech agents, agents who, coincidentally had been trained in the early 1940s at the Prague, GRU run. school (Comintern until 1943) in codes, ciphers and W/T operations.
The same school that at least one of the Rote Drie agents, KAREL SEDLACEK (Selzinger) had attended and as we know Rote Drie made extensive use of the Nihilist Cipher That being the same cipher that has been found on the torn slip.
Now we can add another question to our list of 4 outlined in the post above:
5. Did a disaffected Czech Intelligence officer make his way to Australia in 1948?
To my clueless friend. In the various posts here the Nihilist Cipher has been highlighted. It is that cipher which has been found concealed on the torn slip of paper. The cipher itself is not particularly straightforward. It has two keys. The first is relatively easy to crack it being a 6 letter word. But, before you can read decry[t the message, you need that second key. As has been described here, the second cipher was based on a book, not just any book but a book whose title was given to individual radio operators. So, operator #1 may have been told to get a copy of a Gideon's Bible, whilst operator #2 had to get a copy of 'Wuthering Heights. Part of the key depended on a page number, then a line number on that page and then a word number within that line. That information was contained in each message meaning that the same operator could have different keys each time they sent a message. Get the picture? These keys act like a one time pad. You need to know the name of the book in each case. If you don't have that, then you can't decrypt the message. I don't have the name of the book hence the message can't be decrypted.
ReplyDeleteThe importance of the finding of the Nihilist Cipher is that it was a known Soviet cipher. Thus we have a link between the Soviets and the Somerton Man and as a result of that find we now have a number of new lines to follow.
Earlier today I had a message from a friend suggesting that I could try using a substitution cipher on the full string of groups to see if anything intelligible turned up and from that point work on the remaining alphabet characters. I have done that and have two results.
ReplyDeleteFirst here's the full string of groups:
637952 8452G 75332 49465 45469 R3293 295X5 87250 02XN4 33976 38548 49525 84M85 48967 66478 35459 53553 AVACG RABH4 73553 27335 P2422 54A27 B54GP 6R285 3645 35135 45247 23H28 55X95 4XA22 45352
There's a pattern in the groups, top line groups 7 and 9 and the penultimate line with groups 10 and 11. Each of the 4 groups contain the letter X.
Next lets look at the substitution cipher results thus far. In particular line 2 groups 8 and 9. AVACG and RABH4. The process itself provided a substitution for other letters scattered throughout the cipher text but these two were the most intelligible:
First result provided the word 'RELATED' whilst the second result provided perhaps the most intriguing response 'MENTIES'. Those Australian readers will note that but for one letter, we have the name of the Prime Minister in that year of 1948 being 'MENZIES'.
I must stress that this is not a 100% accurate outcome at this stage, itis possible that I have misinterpreted one or more of the letters/numbers although I did double check I will do so again. More work has to be done to decrypt as many of the groups as possible and recover as many of the 20 remaining letters as I can but it is a start.
A correction, Menzies was opposition leader in 1948 and became Prime Minister in 1949. The PM in 1948 was Chifley. Many Thanks John.
ReplyDeleteThis doesn't affect the importance of finding the name MENTIES or MENZIES if that is the correct translation.
I get why secret messages would be hidden in the verse 70 written by Jestyn, I think that was practice btw. I can also see how they were taken down as strings of letters and numbers on the code page very likely from a Morse code transmission or possibly a numbers station broadcast. That all makes sense because of the difficulty in detecting the codes and because of the nature of the process itself. What I don’t get is why someone would go to the trouble of writing code from a Nihilist cipher inside the letters of TAMAM SHUD on the torn slip, I can see the writing, well some of it but why hide it in that way?
ReplyDeleteThat's a really great question. Lets work through it. The actual process of writing microcode into the letters will take some time, I would suggest that it would take about 40 minutes but maybe less. The next issue would be the ink or perhaps the pencil used. SOE for example wrote micro code in pencil and then wrote over it in ink, they used bleach in those days to remove the ink layer which would of course leave only the pencil markings visible. In the case of the torn slip, the initial larger letters TAMAM SHUD are also in ink so the end result after applying bleach would just be the pencil markings or code.
DeleteNote the micro written component is in the actual cipher text, that would give us three options:
1. The cipher text had been received and written down into the slip as it was being received.
2. It had been encoded and was ready to send.
3. The alternative is that it had been seen by someone and was then copied into the slip then put into the secret fob pocket
My thoughts are that numbers 1 and 2 are unlikely. My reason for saying that is that if he were to take it down as it was received he would have had no idea whether the cipher text would fit into the letters TAMAM SHUD. I think it improbable that he would have enciphered the text and write it into the letters for a similar reason to option 1, too messy and cumbersome.
The third option is the most likely. This would mean that it was the Somerton Man who had the time to copy the cipher text into the slip being aware that the text had to fit into the letters precisely, he then rolled up the slip tightly and pushed it well down into his fob pocket where it was later to be discovered. It means that he may have thought he would have got away with it and that he assumed that he would be able to retrieve it himself later. However he was caught and I think he was drugged to get the truth out of him. He was given too much 'truth serum', (Sodium Pentathol?) with the inevitable result, he died.
Any other thoughts?