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Mansa Musa was the ruler of the Mali Empire in West Africa. Details recorded here should be sourced; unknown information is left blank.
MORE →Reflects the personal views, recollections, and perspective of the author, Mike Davis.
This is a personal recollection on the Move fire on May 13, 1985
German code breaking in World War II achieved some notable successes cracking British naval ciphers until well into the fourth year of the war,[1] using the extensive German radio intelligence operations during World War II. Cryptanalysis also suffered from a problem typical of the German armed forces of the time: numerous branches and institutions maintained their own cryptographic departments, working on their own without collaboration or sharing results or methods. This led to duplicated effort, a fragmentation of potential, and lower efficiency than might have been achieved.[2] There was no central German cryptography agency comparable to Britain’s Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS), based at Bletchley Park.[3]
In Germany, each cryptographic department was responsible for cryptanalytic operations. They included:
While most contributed little to the German war effort, the Navy's OKM did have some remarkable successes in breaking Allied codes. The 2. Abteilung der Seekriegsleitung included the Marinenachrichtendienst (M.N.D.) and its III. Abteilung, radio intelligence. The B-Dienst (Beobachtungsdienst, "surveillance service",) and the xB-Dienst ("decryption service") were able to break into several important Allied radio communication circuits.
The B-Dienst, created in the early 1930s, had broken the most widely used British naval code by 1935. When war came in 1939, B-Dienst specialists had broken enough British naval codes that the Germans knew the positions of all British warships. They had further success in the early stages of the war as the British were slow to change their codes. The B-Dienst could regularly read the Broadcast to Allied Merchant Ships (BAMS) code, which proved valuable for U-boat warfare in the early phases of the Battle of the Atlantic. In February 1942, B-Dienst broke the code used for communication with many of the Atlantic convoys.[4]
Before the US entered the war at the end of 1941, B-Dienst could also read several American codes. This changed after April 1942, when the US Navy changed their code systems, but earlier, the ability to read American message traffic contributed to the success of Operation Paukenschlag (Operation Drumbeat), the destructive U-boat attacks off the American East Coast in early 1942.
In 1941, the US Navy refused, for security reasons, to equip the British Navy with their ECM Mark 1 encryption devices, so the British Admiralty introduced "Naval Cypher No. 3" for Allied radio communication and convoy coordination in the Atlantic. The B-Dienst concentrated on deciphering the new code, in September 1942 and from December 1942 to May 1943, 80 percent of the intercepted radio messages were read but only 10 percent were decrypted in time to take action.[5]
The British Naval Cypher No. 5 is also known to have been broken by the B-Dienst, as were various low-grade British Naval and Air codes, including COFOX, MEDOX, FOXO, LOXO, SYKO, Air Force code and Aircraft Movement code. The US "Hagelin" M-209 field cipher machine and the French "Anglp"[clarification needed] code were also often read.
In addition, B-Dienst cracked Soviet and Danish code systems.
Apart from the notable successes of the German navy's decryption services, there were also some useful results from other institutions. For example, the Reichspost was able to descramble scrambled voice transmission of transatlantic radiotelephone conversations between the USA and Great Britain. For this purpose, an interception and descrambling facility was built in Noordwijk, near the Hague in occupied Holland. From 1940, the Mail Service's descrambling specialists intercepted and understood classified telephone conversation between President Roosevelt and the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill.[6]
The scrambler worked by voice inversion around a chosen frequency, so that the high frequencies become low and vice versa. It was impossible for a casual listener to break. However the Germans, by recording the telephone message on a BASF tape recorder, could quickly identify the scrambling method by playing the tape a few times through the few possible combinations of coding, to unscramble it.[7]
In 1943 the facility relocated to a purpose built bunker facility in Valkenswaard, south of Eindhoven to avoid a potential commando raid on the northern coast. Valkenswaard remained operational until August 1944 when the facility had to relocate to Germany to avoid the advancing British.[8] The most important intercept was a conversation discussing on 29 July the pending Italian surrender, weeks before the event took place on 3 September 1943, giving the Germans time to plan the occupation of Italy and disarming of Italian soldiers. The interception potential thereafter decreased, as did the number of phone calls intercepted.[9]
This was not codebreaking, but an adjunct to it - the exploitation of understanding of a sophisticated technology for the purpose of data interception.
Another success was the OKW/Chi 1941 cryptanalysis of the "Black" code used by US diplomats. Due to this, a huge interception facility in Lauf (Bavaria) could decrypt communication between US diplomats and Washington DC. The specialists in Lauf concentrated on messages from Bonner Fellers relating to the North African Campaign, so they could pass information to Feldmarschall Erwin Rommel about Allied plans and operations. The Germans also received the "Black" code from the Italians; Italian spies had photographed the code tables in the US embassy in Rome in September 1941. While the Germans appreciated the gift from their ally, they did not explain that they were already able to read "Black" code messages.
In general, however, German performance in code breaking was weak due to the fragmentation of responsibility and specialized personnel.[citation needed] The Navy's B-Dienst was an exception to the rule, although its successes largely ended when the Allies began using more sophisticated encryption methods by 1943.
Source: Wikipedia. Article content is retrieved live through the MediaWiki API.
German code breaking in World War II achieved some notable successes cracking British naval ciphers until well into the fourth year of the war, using the extensive German radio intelligence operations during World War II. Cryptanalysis also suffered from a problem typical of the German armed forces of the time: numerous branches and institutions maintained their own cryptographic departments, working on their own without collaboration or sharing results or methods. This led to duplicated effort, a fragmentation of potential, and lower efficiency than might have been achieved. There was no central German cryptography agency comparable to Britain’s Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS), based at Bletchley Park.
Breaking the Code is a 1986 British play by Hugh Whitemore about British mathematician Alan Turing, who was a key player in the breaking of the German Enigma code at Bletchley Park during World War II and a pioneer of computer science. The play thematically links Turing's cryptographic activities with his attempts to grapple with his homosexuality. It was adapted into a 1996 television film directed by Herbert Wise, with Derek Jacobi reprising his stage role as Turing.
Breaking the Magician's Code: Magic's Biggest Secrets Finally Revealed is a United States television series of specials and episodes in which the methods behind magic tricks and stage illusions are revealed. The tricks and illusions were filmed inside a warehouse at 516 South Anderson Street in Boyle Heights, Los Angeles, United States with the performances carried out by an anonymous “Masked Magician” described as a world‑class illusionist who remains silent and wears a mask to conceal his identity. He is assisted by female performers and magical stagehands who appear on camera but are not part of his regular stage crew. The Masked Magician in the original 1997–1998 specials was later publicly identified as American illusionist Val Valentino. The franchise originally consisted of four specials broadcast in 1997–1998, followed by a standalone special, Escape From the Ice, in 2002, which featured a different masked magician. A street‑magic themed spinoff special, Secrets of Street Magic Revealed, aired in 2007 and also used a different performer in the role. The series was revived in 2008–2009 with thirteen new episodes, during which Valentino returned as the Masked Magician.
Breaking the Code is a 1996 BBC television movie directed by Herbert Wise, based on the 1986 play by Hugh Whitemore about British mathematician Alan Turing, the play thematically links Turing's cryptographic activities with his attempts to grapple with his homosexuality.
Before the 1921 destruction of Tulsa’s Greenwood District, Black residents had created a remarkable center of business and community life. The district included stores, professional offices, entertainment venues and homes owned by Black citizens. Understanding Greenwood means learning what was built—not only what was burned.
MORE →Joe Louis.