CX-52

A Hagelin CX-52. The six rotors arranged next to each other are clearly visible (front right) ...

... which can be seen even better with the lid open.

The CX-52 , like its immediate predecessor, the C-52 , is a mechanical rotor cipher machine that was introduced in 1952, i.e. during the early days of the Cold War , by the Swedish inventor and entrepreneur Boris Hagelin from his in the same year Switzerland founded Crypto AG was established.

history

After the commercial success of his predecessor machine, developed before the Second World War , called the C-36 or C-38, which was used in a slightly modified form in the war under the name M-209 on the American side in quantities of around 140,000, Boris Hagelin decided after the war to develop a further improved successor. Due to its progressive design, the CX-52, which was a slightly improved version of the recently developed C-52, was a particularly cryptographically strong machine in its time . The reason was their high combinatorial complexity , which resulted in a very large key space. Within a few years, the C-52 and CX-52 were exported to more than sixty countries. As has now been revealed, the CIA and BND were able to decrypt the encrypted traffic. Under the code name " Operation Rubikon " they had bought the manufacturer together through Siemens as a straw man in the 1970s.

Principle and structure

The printer is on the left side of the machine. He prints plain text and ciphertext side by side on a gummed paper strip.

Six individually rotatable key wheels are arranged next to one another and can be selected from an assortment of twelve wheels. Each individual wheel has a different subdivision along its circumference, namely 25, 26, 29, 31, 34, 37, 38, 41, 42, 43, 46 and 47. The product of these twelve numbers is 4,471,925,691,552,664,800 . In addition to the factors 2 ⁵ , 3 and 5 ² , the product consists of the prime factors 7, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29, 31, 37, 41, 43 and 47.

Plain and ciphertext are printed on a piece of gummed paper using a printer integrated on the left side of the machine . Also on the left side of the machine next to the paper feed knurl is the switch for decrypting (D) or encrypting (C).

Light H-54

The Hell H-54 is a licensed replica of the CX-52

After the war, when the young Federal Republic of Germany was still forbidden to develop its own encryption technology, the CX-52 was manufactured as a licensed replica in the Hell works . The usability and reliability were improved by Rudolf Hell , and it came onto the market in 1954 as the Hell H-54 .

literature

• Friedrich L. Bauer : Deciphered Secrets. Methods and maxims of cryptology. 3rd, revised and expanded edition. Springer, Berlin a. a. 2000, p. 477.
• Jan Bury: From the Archives: CX – 52 Messages Read by Red Poles? , Cryptologia , 33: 4, pp. 347-352, 2009. doi: 10.1080 / 0161-1190902742467
• H. Paul Greenough: Cryptanalysis of the Hagelin C-52 and similar Machines a known Plaintext Attack , Cryptologia, 23: 2, pp. 139-156, 1999. doi: 10.1080 / 0161-119991887801
• Louis Kruh: Devices and Machines. Cryptologia, 3: 2, pp. 78-82, 1979. doi: 10.1080 / 0161-117991853864

Web links

Commons : CX: 52  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files

• CX-52 from Dirk Rijmenants , accessed on May 22, 2017.
• CX-52 in the Crypto Museum , accessed May 22, 2017.
• CX-52 from Jerry Proc , accessed May 22, 2017.
• Hell H-54 in the Crypto Museum , accessed May 23, 2017.
• Hell H-54 from Jerry Proc , accessed May 23, 2017.
• Hagelin BC-52 simulator

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Hagelin C-52 and CX-52 Cipher Machines , accessed on May 22, 2017.
2. ↑ ZDF Frontal21 February 11, 2020
3. ↑ Friedrich L. Bauer: Deciphered secrets. Methods and maxims of cryptology. 3rd, revised and expanded edition. Springer, Berlin a. a. 2000, p. 477.