Known as the ‘Counter Machine’ due to a counter which incremented on each key press, this 4 rotor device was used by German Intelligence during WWII.
20 cipher devices
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This device which combines elements from manual and electric typewriters with a scrambling wheel, is the ancestor of all Enigma style machines.
One can’t help but wonder if Jefferson would have been given the credit for the multitude of different inventions that he is associated with today, had he not been the founding father of what became the world’s most powerful nation. Nonetheless, the simple wheel cipher, shown is often called a Jefferson disk, after its inventor.
This is the simplest of the Enigma machines, a 3 rotor version. Originally commercial encryption machines, many variants were produced for the German military with up to 8 rotors. The successful allied effort to crack the Enigma was instrumental in winning the Second World War.
Introduced in the mid 60s and used right up until the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Fialka was the encryption machine used by the Russians during the Cold War.
The SIGABA was the US encryption machine during WWII. Used until the 50’s its messages may have been unbroken.
An adaptation of the pre-war commercial version of the Enigma, the Typex was a more secure device, used by the British and developed into several versions during WWII.
The KL-7 replaced the SIGABA towards the end of WWII and was used by the US National Security Agency.
An improvement on the C-36, this truly portable device was used up until the Korean War and represents one of the most sophisticated pre-electronic code machines.
The NEMA was based directly on the Enigma and was used by the Swiss in the 50s. If you want to pick up what is essentially an Enigma device, for a fraction of the price, this is the machine.
Produced in the late 50s the Hagelin CD-57 was a handheld portable crypto device manufactured by Boris Hagelin’s company, Crypto AG.
The Japanese Navy used a different machine from the Enigma based army devices, during WWII. Like the Enigma, the Purple (as it was called by the US) was cracked during the war.
While the Enigma was used as a portable field unit, the bulky Lorennz Cipher, with teleprinter, was used for German high-level command messages.
Most enigma machines had 3 or 4 rotors, although these were selected and swapped out from a selection of up to 8 rotors.
The completely mechanical Hagelin C-36 was developed by the Swedish cryptographer in the 1930s, after having been approached by the French to develop portable cryptographic systems. Working out of Switzerland, Hagelin machines are the Swiss watch of crypto devices and commanded prices such that Hagelin became a millionaire. Later variants of these very elegantly designed machines were used by the US.
Used by more than 60 countries, the extremely secure, all mechanical Hagelin C-52 was perhaps the definitive device used for encryption, during the Cold War.
With a very similar operation to the Enigma (3 rotors and a reflector), more than a thousand of these machines were used by the united States Foreign Service during WWII.
This early electronic crypto device, the Electronic Teleprinter Cryptographic Regenerative Repeater Mixer or ETCRRM was developed by the Norwegian Army in 1950. It was used to encrypt the first hotline between Washington and Moscow in 1963.
Used by the German Diplomatic Corps in the 50s, the Kryha was a relatively weak encryption device that was entirely mechanical.
The T52 was the German airforce and navy equivalent of the army’s Lorenz Cipher, a non portable machine used for communication from command centers rather than in the field.
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