HX-63

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Schematic representation of the feedback loops of the HX-63

The HX-63 was an electromechanical rotor cipher machine . In the roughly 50-year history of this type of cryptographic machine , which began shortly before 1920 and ended around 1970, it is one of the last and at the same time the most advanced.

The HX-63 was developed from 1952 by the Swedish entrepreneur and cryptologist Boris Hagelin (1892–1983) in the Swiss Crypto AG . In contrast, for example, to the German Enigma machine with its only three or four rotors (rollers) with 26 contacts each, the HX-63 had nine rotors with 41 contacts each . As with the Enigma, 26 contacts were assigned to the 26 capital letters of the Latin alphabet . The remaining 15 "free" contacts have been used to the current flowing through the rolls electric current feed back . This made the current flow much more complicated and consequently the encryption much stronger than with the Enigma.

In addition, the cryptographic security of the machine was strengthened by an irregular roll advance , which the German predecessor also did not have. In addition, the HX-63 not only had a single connector board , like the Enigma, but had two connector boards , one for the input letters and the second for the feedback loops.

This resulted in a significantly increased combinatorial complexity and a much larger key space . While it is around 10 23 for the Enigma I , corresponding to a key length of around 76 bits , and for the Enigma-M4 it is around  10 26 or almost 86 bits , for the HX-63 it is around 10 600 or almost 2000 bits .

Around 1963, a total of only twelve copies of this machine were made, which were used by a French government agency. The era of the mechanical cipher machines ended shortly afterwards and computers have been used for encryption since then.

literature

  • Cipher A. Deavours, Louis Kruh: Machine Cryptography and Modern Cryptanalysis. Artech House Publishers, Dedham MA 1985, ISBN 0-89006-161-0 .
  • Klaus Schmeh : Code breakers versus code makers - The fascinating history of encryption . W3L-Verlag, Dortmund 2014 (3rd edition), ISBN 978-3-86834-044-0 .

Web links

  • HX-63 (Crypto AG) at Jerry Proc. Photos and a short description. Retrieved January 20, 2017.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Klaus Schmeh: Code breakers versus code makers - The fascinating history of encryption . W3L-Verlag, Dortmund 2014 (3rd edition), p. 208. ISBN 978-3-86834-044-0 .