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Re: VMs: Enigma connection?

I got a copy of the documents indicated below. They are at the Pilsudki
Institute Archives, in folder 9 of the many folders corresponding to the
papers of Major Langenfeld, who was Chief of the Department of Intelligence
in Poland in or about 1935. The folder 9 holds four sets of notes and only
one of those sets correspond to the "Wilfrid Cipher". The others are
typewritten notes on the history of cryptography, details on cryptanalysis
and notes on cyphers and methods used by other countries, some 200 pages in
total, some of the them double-side. The papers were sent to the archive by
Ludwik E. Michael.

The first page and a half of the "Wilfrid Cipher" say (I don't know how to
write the correct characters in Polish):

QUOTE (except for ocassional square brackets with my comments)
==========================================================
Szyfr "Wilfrid"

1. Szyfr "Wilfrid" przeznaczony jest dla kpt.Schmidta dla laczonsci Paryz -
Malmoe.

2. Szyfrant zasadniczy stanowi slownik polsko-angielski "J.Stanislawskiego",
wydanie Minerwa, z wtórnikiem "Calendrier - Semainier".

3. Szyfr jest 6 cyfrowy.

4. Oznaczamie stron: strony od 1 - 99 oznacza sie 901 - 999. Strony od 100 -
416 oznacza sie normalnie.

5. Oznaczenie wierszy: wieraze oznacza sie 3 cyfrowemi liczbami, np. wiersz
1 -001, 2 -002, 3 - 003, 34 - 034 i t.d.,k przyczem wiersze liczy sie od
dolu ku górze.

6. Litery oznacza sie:
   a - 601
   b - 602
   c - 603
   ...
   y - 625
   z - 626
   627  ---> 638 [this is for other Polish letters]

7. Cyfry i znaki pisarskie
   1 - 640
   2 - 641
   ...
   0 - 649

  kropka     650
  dwukropek   651
  ...
  cudzyslów    656

poprzednie slowo czytac wlacznie do litery:
  2 - 657
  3 - 658
  ...
  11 - 666
  12 - 667
   I - 670
  II - 671
  III - 672
  IV - 673
  ...
  IX - 678
  X - 679

 dodajac jako zakonczenie trzy dowolne cyfry.

8. Ukladanie telegramu i szyfrowanie:
    a. Poczatek telegramu stanowi zawaze znak rozpoznawczy
        7777.
    b. Po znaky rozpoznawczym daje sie zaszyfrowana date nadania telegramu.
        Date pize sie w formie 4 cyfrowej grupy, z czego dwie pierwsze
oznaczaja dzien, dwie drugie miesiac, np. 5 czerwca - 0506. Date szyfruje
sie wtóniew na hasle "Wilfrid". W slowie "Wilfrid" numeruje sie poszczególne
litery wedlug porzadku alfabetycznego

    Wilfrid
    7352641

Pisze sie nastepnie date wlasciwa       0506
dodaje sie niearytmetycznie haslo        7352
                                                           -----------
                                                             7858

Cyfra ta stanowi zaszyfrowana wtónie date.
 ...

[Within the part entitled "Deszyfrowanie", the last paragraph says,]
...
Teraz potepuje sie odwrotnie jak przy szyfrowaniu. Depesze i pomoce uzywane
do szyfrowania, wzglednie deszyfrowania nalezy palic.

===========================================
UNQUOTE

>From the description of the library attendant, it seems that the cipher was
used or developed to be used by a certain Captain Schmidt for the traffic
between Paris and Malmoe (present Sweden, across the Sound from Copenhagen,
I presume).

I haven't seen the word "Voynich" anywhere in the documents, nor there is
any date or place mentioned.

Cheers,

Claudio


----- Original Message -----
From: "Nick Pelling" <incoming@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <vms-list@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Sunday, April 27, 2003 4:46 AM
Subject: Re: VMs: Enigma connection?


> Hi Claudio,
>
> >I work in NYC, and was a few blocks from the location of the Jozef
Pilsudski
> >Institute on Friday. I might be able to go to that part of the city on
> >Tuesday morning again.
> >
> >I see that they're open Mon/Tue/Wed from 10 to 5. How should I ask for
the
> >Wilfrid Cipher? Any catalog number? Is it what shows as "64/Major Witold
> >Langenfeld Papers/1925-1947" in
> >http://www.pilsudski.org/English/Collections/arch-collections.htm and as
> >"T.9. Opracowania: Kryptografia, Szyfr Wilfrid, Poczatki kryptografii,
Szyfr
> >pamieciowy, maszynopisy, brak autora (bd.). " in
> >http://dione.ids.pl/~ijp/pol/aog2.html?
>
> AFAICT, that should be exactly as detailed an archive reference as the
> Institute keeps, so should be perfectly sufficient. Thanks and good luck!
>
> >I better take the digital camera with me, the same one I used to take
> >pictures of the three "Russian" letters a few months ago at the Grolier
> >Club. Those letters turned out to be, apparently, partly handwritten in
> >Polish, but they turned to be very difficult to read because it uses old
> >Cyrillic letters (that's what I've been told by two unrelated people).
> >Perhaps they could help me in the library with those letters too.
>
> Well, asking is free... and even if they can't help, they'll probably know
> someone who can... :-)
>
> Cheers, .....Nick Pelling.....
>
>
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