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CRYPTOLOGIA
2016

Ciphertext-only cryptanalysis of Hagelin M-209 pins and lugs

7 years 12 months ago
Ciphertext-only cryptanalysis of Hagelin M-209 pins and lugs
The Hagelin M-209 was a mechanical encryption device used by the US Army during World War 2 and the Korean War, as well as by other armies and in embassy settings. In this paper, we present a 4-stage hillclimbing algorithm for recovering the full key settings from ciphertext only. The two first stages are based on a divide-and-conquer approach developed by Geoff Sullivan. In our performance evaluation, we show that our method is able to recover key settings from messages as short as 750 letters, compared to 2 000 − 2 500 letters with prior methods. With this method, we solved several M-209 ciphertext-only challenges, including the final exercises in W. Barker’s 1977 book, Cryptanalysis of the Hagelin Cryptograph.
George Lasry, Nils Kopal, Arno Wacker
Added 01 Apr 2016
Updated 01 Apr 2016
Type Journal
Year 2016
Where CRYPTOLOGIA
Authors George Lasry, Nils Kopal, Arno Wacker
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