Tag Archives: NSA

NCM discovers incredibly rare OMI Cryptograph machine in “a dusty crate”

OMI Cryptograph, an Italian cipher machine built by Ottico Meccanica Italiana (OMI), is part of the National Cryptologic Museum’s (NCM) collection of artifacts. (Photo by NCM)

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Andrea Borgnino, who shared the following news from the NSA Museum (the National Cryptologic Museum) in Fort Meade:

Long lost and rare Italian cipher machine found

FORT MEADE, Md. — At the outbreak of WWII in 1939, Nazi Germany’s Enigma encryption machine stood as the state-of-the art method for sending and receiving secret messages. It wasn’t until 1940 that English mathematician Alan Turing, and the team at Bletchley Park, cracked the daily changes Berlin made to its cipher system, and helped the Allied powers win the war.

While the Enigma stands out as the most famous of encryption machines, Italy, set out to develop a high-end machine to rival its war partner, Germany. In 1939 Italy’s government secretly tasked a little-known photogrammetric equipment company, Ottico Meccanica Italiana (OMI), to build a device capable of rivaling its more famous cousin. Founded in 1926, OMI’s tools were used to create precision topographical maps and surveys using stereoscopic aerial photography. The technical expertise made OMI a natural fit for the job. The end result was OMI’s first cipher machine known as the Cryptograph Alpha.

OMI built cipher devices throughout WWII, and into the 1960’s, including: the OMI Cryptograph, the OMI Cryptograph-CR and the OMI Cryptograph-CR MkII. While many of these devices managed to survive passing through the hands of various collectors and museums, examples of the second iteration, the OMI Cryptograph machines, were widely believed to have been destroyed long ago. Until now. Digging through its vast collection of warehoused artifacts, the National Cryptologic Museum (NCM), curators found an OMI Cryptograph machine in its collection.

NCM Collections Manager Spencer Allenbaugh recently discovered the OMI Cryptograph in a dusty crate and immediately knew he had found a treasure.

“This find gives the National Cryptologic Museum the chance to recover an artifact once thought to be lost forever. This device provides a small glimpse into Italy’s cryptologic history and how Italian cryptologists operated during that time period. This recovery also strengthens our already-strong reputation in the field of cryptologic history and will give people more reason to come and see the device up close once the museum re-opens,” said Allenbaugh.

“When the device is on display, researchers and historians will have the opportunity to see the artifact, study it, and learn more about its history and design,” he added.

Originally introduced around 1954, the OMI Cryptograph operated similarly to the German Enigma, with five moving cipher wheels to encipher/decipher messages, but, unlike the military Enigmas, it also had a built-in printer that produced its output directly onto a paper strip. This model was operational until the late 1950s when the OMI Cryptograph-CR succeeded it.

Visitors to the NCM can look forward to see this treasure on exhibit when museum renovations are completed and the museum reopens in Spring of 2022.

Click here to read this story at the NSA website.

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“The Last Elephant Cage” is a fascinating NSA documentary about the monolithic FLR-9 antenna system

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Andrea Borgnino (IW0HK), who shares the following video–a 15 minute NSA documentary–about the FLR-9 “Elephant Cage” antenna in Anchorage, Alaska.

Click here to view on YouTube.

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The NSA’s Software Defined Radio application “RedHawk” is now open source

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Andrew, who writes:

Not kidding, a friend told me that NSA released a bunch of software to open source, the main list being here:

https://code.nsa.gov/

While looking at the list of projects on that page, halfway down the page, I found a project called “RedHawk” which is described as:

“A software-defined radio (SDR) framework designed to support the development, deployment, and management of real-time software radio applications.”

Now, being curious I opened the github link:

https://github.com/redhawksdr

[It] contains quite a number of subprojects, modules and other stuff, then I checked the main “RedHawk” project:

https://github.com/RedhawkSDR/redhawk

Here’s the documentation:

https://redhawksdr.github.io/Documentation/index.html

It seems really interesting; apparently it allows to define a wealth of processing stages (e.g. filters, converters…) and connect them to process signals coming from an SDR; I think it may be a very interesting and useful tool to fiddle/experiment with SDR receivers, if I’m not wrong it may allow to push an SDR to the limits, improving its performance, and may also be useful to write SDR software!

Fascinating! Thank you for the tip, Andrew!

Post Readers: It appears this project has been in the public domain for a little while. Please comment if you’ve tried implementing RedHawk in your SDR system!


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The Intercept: The US Spy Hub in the Heart of Australia

(Source: The Intercept via Dan Robinson)

A SHORT DRIVE south of Alice Springs, the second largest population center in Australia’s Northern Territory, there is a high-security compound, code-named “RAINFALL.” The remote base, in the heart of the country’s barren outback, is one of the most important covert surveillance sites in the eastern hemisphere.

Hundreds of Australian and American employees come and go every day from Joint Defence Facility Pine Gap, as the base is formally known. The official “cover story,” as outlined in a secret U.S. intelligence document, is to “support the national security of both the U.S. and Australia. The [facility] contributes to verifying arms control and disarmament agreements and monitoring military developments.” But, at best, that is an economical version of the truth. Pine Gap has a far broader mission — and more powerful capabilities — than the Australian or American governments have ever publicly acknowledged.

An investigation, published Saturday by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in collaboration with The Intercept, punctures the wall of secrecy surrounding Pine Gap, revealing for the first time a wide range of details about its function. The base is an important ground station from which U.S. spy satellites are controlled and communications are monitored across several continents, according to classified documents obtained by The Intercept from the National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden.[…]

Continue reading at The Intercept…

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NSA declassifies “Receiver Dynamics” primer

The Watkins-Johnson HF-1000 (and NSA version, WJ-8711) are mentioned in this article

On January 11, 2012 the National Security Agency (NSA) released a pre-1995 article entitled “Receiver Dynamics” from its classified internal magazine, Cryptologic Quarterly. It contains an excellent, well-written explanation of the specifications of shortwave receivers used by some of NSA’s K4 divisions.

Download the article here (PDF).

Thanks to Ed in the SWLfest list for the tip!

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