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RE: VMs: Enigma connection?
I haven't had much time to spend on looking at these letters, but it seems
to
me that the interesting thing about them is that the author(s) seem to
randomly
use a variant form for any given letter. Luckily, there seems to be only two
variants
for any letter - but some of them are awfully close to other letters in
design.
There are two 'T' forms, two (maybe three) 'E' forms, two 'ya' forms, two
'ch' forms
etc...
do sveCheniYa could actually be do svedaniYa (and is most likely). The d, ch
and 'u' letters are
almost interchangeable at times.
If you've seen the original letter scans, you will not that 'p' and 't' are
very close to
the same letter at times, while at others the 't' is quite unique - but
close to the 'r' or 'z'.
l,m,n,i,k are often very similar to one another as well - but
distinguishable if you spend a little
time with it. The 'e' in the first few words looks like a normal cursive
'e', but when you hit words
like svedaniYa (or sveCheniYa) the 'e' is remarkably different - but there
are a few other words that
the same 'e' is used in.
I'm sorry I haven't had much time to look through this more - and hope that
in the next while
I'll be able to piece together all the letters and make more sense of the
dialog. In the meantime
I'll send off this draft transliteration of what I've scribbled out for the
first letter for anyone
to feel free to follow up with. Claudio has the scans of the documents in
question though if you haven't
seen them.
The first letter for example could transliterate to...
mnogouvaZhaemyj Zhandarm, Chest' imeYu dovesti do sveCheniYa vaShej
Zhandarmskoj blagorodiYa
Chto oba vaShi (ura)tel'..Ts poslaniYa poluChi..
vse obstoit blagopoluChno. nikakix myslej v .... uChastie ... .
Kramo.a(not sure what that word is - but it's used a lot) iskirenena.
v poslednie dni zastavlenYa s....evYat'sYa vo..... vestnik, no i tot stoj
Yavlit'sYa uZhe po
...... v Zhandarmskie upravlenie na .. J.P. DruZhoj sostoit v t..ornost'
vol'nodymstva ne
proYav...chet, no .e tam.. ne meShaet vrYat' ... pod .....snyj nadzor
proYavleniYa bu..ysnik
pist..ktov.
Ya ne mog obo vsem Etoj dovesti rYa.'Schch do sveCheniYa V. blagorodiYa v
vidu ..... Chto ves'
nalichnyj ka.....al uShli na prop..... dvux vverennyx V. ... agentov na
CIRCUS STR.
VneShego pri..tamiYa Krom.ky pu..d.. ne mog za tak kak on o.... neitvet..
kuda i Ch...tsYa V..-Chax.
PrinYaty ...ty dnYa poimiki, no do six por na ..e. ne ..... donese.. iz
franTsii i ShvejChuii glasit
Chto sego zakosie.... i zakoreselavo v prostupkax i prostupleniYax
kramol'nina v Etix zlovreuChevie
anor.... ne obretaetsYa, s druZhoj Zhe sterony glasu Chto tamZhe izdaetsYa
novymi konovadali. ....
kramo.a nar.Voi.. Chest' imeYu Kna... .....
poZhalusta do(lo)Zhit' matu., Chto Ya (Em)y ra... do sCh..a
John.
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-vms-list@xxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:owner-vms-list@xxxxxxxxxxx]On
Behalf Of CDA
Sent: Tuesday, April 29, 2003 6:15 PM
To: vms-list@xxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: 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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