outer@utcsrgv.UUCP (Richard Outerbridge) (05/30/83)
Well, another inquiry. Can anyone who has read the April 83 issue of CRYPTOLOGIA and who has some side information on TYPEX tell the world whether the article by Deavours&Kruh is definitive? I know it is an unreferenced first-shot study based on inference from photographs, but how much did they get right and wrong? One thing's for sure: the system is A LOT like ENIGMA. So, we know that it WAS NOT the German ciphers that were to blame for the Allied cryptanalytic victory but rather (as we suspected) abysmal key management and the fragmented organization of the NAZI intelligence systems. ENIGMA actually seems to have been potentially the stronger crypt... It would be interesting to learn what SIGABA was all about - besides "stepping switches". -Richard Outerbridge University of Toronto / CRSG utcsrgv!outer