Aussie Phd. "How Japan's War Codes Got (F word)ed"

[homesweethome]

Mathematician reveals flaws in Japan's war code

The Japanese Navy was brought down by a fatal flaw in its secret war code that Allied code breakers exploited during the Pacific War, an Australian mathematician has revealed.

Dr Peter Donovan, a senior lecturer at the University of New South Wales, says he is the first to identify the truth about Japan's operational code JN-25 since archives became available in 1975.

Dr Donovan discussed his discovery ahead of Australia's 60th anniversary of Victory in the Pacific Day on August 15.

[Charles]

Just to be absolutely clear about this:

American and British cryptanalysts broke the JN-25 code, and ozzies didn't have one single goddam thing to do with it. Dr. Ozzie Donovan discovered nothing, he was permitted to read declassified archives and learned how American and British cryptanalysts broke JN-25.

[homesweethome]

That link to the article doesn't seem to work now.
Here is the link and the whole article.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200508/s1433847.htm
Mathematician reveals flaws in Japan's war code
By Judy Skatssoon for Science Online

The Japanese Navy was brought down by a fatal flaw in its secret war code that Allied code breakers exploited during the Pacific War, an Australian mathematician has revealed.

Dr Peter Donovan, a senior lecturer at the University of New South Wales, says he is the first to identify the truth about Japan's operational code JN-25 since archives became available in 1975.

Dr Donovan discussed his discovery ahead of Australia's 60th anniversary of Victory in the Pacific Day on August 15.

He has discovered that the cipher used groups of numbers that were multiples of three.

For instance, he says 0009 may have stood for a certain type of fuel oil.

"The truth was that having multiples of three in the code book was a flawed process which was systematically exploited by the Allies," he said.

Secret revealed

The US, Australia and Britain had originally decided to keep the code-breaking secret for ever but this decision was reversed, giving Dr Donovan and his colleagues access to reams of previously unseen archives.

Having a recognisable pattern made it easy for Allied code busters, including a team of 10 Australians working from a converted office block in Melbourne, to decipher encoded messages between Japanese navy ships.

"Recognising that pattern and putting an awful lot of time into it, [the code] became breakable," he said.

The Japanese Navy introduced JN-25 in 1939.

By 1940, British computer scientist and code breaker Alan Turing, who cracked the code used by German submarines in the Atlantic, had worked it out.

By 1942, the Allies were beginning to read the code, the next stage after cracking it.

By that time the Japanese had revised the code several times, but it was still based on the same flawed code book.

Cracking the code came too late to prevent Pearl Harbour in 1941 but it gave the Allies a leg-up in the Coral Sea Battle of 1942 and provided knowledge about the Japanese advance in what was then New Guinea in the same year.

Dr Donovan says it also made it possible for the Allies to ambush and sink Japanese aircraft carriers in the crucial Battle of Midway in 1942.

Code breakers

At the peak of activity around 35,000 people were engaged in Allied code breaking.

During the Pacific War this involved intercepting Japanese radio waves and using a machine made from old cash register parts in the deciphering process.

None of these devices are believed to remain today but Dr Donovan has made a working model.

"It's just wheels turning and being pushed by rods and you win when you've got the right pattern of colours," he said.

He says the old codes and the methods used to break them are now obsolete thanks to advances in technology and code breaking techniques.

New codes, for example those used to send banking information over telephone wires, are virtually unbreakable.

"The old codes are totally dead," he said. "The modern codes are essentially uncrackable, which is why no sane person would ever re-invent JN-25."

Dr Donovan reported his finding in a paper published in the journal Cryptologia and is writing a book on the subject.

I guess they want to point out the Aussie contribution in light of 'VIP Day'

[Charles]

I guess they want to point out the Aussie contribution in light of 'VIP Day'

If they wanted to do that, they would have written a story about how ozzies sat around doing nothing whatsoever while brilliant American and British cryptanalysts invented new advanced mathematics to break the codes. Somehow they missed that part of the story.

[Greji]

I guess they want to point out the Aussie contribution in light of 'VIP Day'

If they wanted to do that, they would have written a story about how ozzies sat around doing nothing whatsoever while brilliant American and British cryptanalysts invented new advanced mathematics to break the codes. Somehow they missed that part of the story.

The Aussies would have not sat around doing nothing. As a bare minimum, they would have gone to the pub to discuss it over a pint! That is a national requirement.

I seem to recall during military crypto studies that the original code was compromised from a code book taken from a Japanese submarine that had sunk as a result of an accident of the coast of China in the late 1930's, whether that broke the Naval code outright, or was used to develop the cipher, I can't recall, but I was taught that it resulted in the establishment of the "Magic" program.

[Charles]

The Aussies would have not sat around doing nothing. As a bare minimum, they would have gone to the pub to discuss it over a pint! That is a national requirement.

I think that it can be stated without fear of contradiction that drunken ozzies lying face down in a gutter in a pool of their own vomit did nothing to advance the state of cryptography.

I seem to recall during military crypto studies that the original code was compromised from a code book taken from a Japanese submarine that had sunk as a result of an accident of the coast of China in the late 1930's, whether that broke the Naval code outright, or was used to develop the cipher, I can't recall, but I was taught that it resulted in the establishment of the "Magic" program.

The Magic program attacked the Japanese diplomatic PURPLE code, which was broken by the American cryptological genius William Friedman, solely by numerical analysis. JN-25 had nothing to do with that, PURPLE was broken years before JN-25.

[kurohinge1]

...

Mathematician reveals flaws in Japan's war code
By Judy Skatssoon for Science Online

... The US, Australia and Britain had originally decided to keep the code-breaking secret for ever ...

Having a recognisable pattern made it easy for Allied code busters, including a team of 10 Australians working from a converted office block in Melbourne, to decipher encoded messages between Japanese navy ships.

... Dr Donovan reported his finding in a paper published in the journal Cryptologia and is writing a book on the subject.

I guess they want to point out the Aussie contribution in light of 'VIP Day'

I'd seen this in another report too - how the code was broken down under in one of the southern states - Victoria or South Australia.

Dr Donovan was one of my lecturers at university and always reminded me of Professor Calculus from the Tin Tin comics.



I also saw another doco that suggested the Germans gave up on aerial assualts after Crete without realising that the heavy losses their paratroopers sustained resulted from the fact that the allies had broken their code and had some warning they were coming. I guess its a fine line between using the information and making it obvious you've broken the code.

[Greji]

[Kuang_Grade]

[kurohinge1]

On the subject of codes, the US sadly let themselves down with the Pearl Harbour attack at the last hurdle.

Having successfully decoded the last page of the Japanese declaration (and almost all asepcts of that were impressive), they then insisted on sending it by code & courier to Pearl Harbour, which meant they weren't adequately warned in time.

There comes a point when timing and importance suggests picking up the telephone and saving a few hundred of your countrymen's lives rather than following the book but I guess no one was prepared to take that responsibility.

It was a costly lesson for the intelligence community but not paid for by them.

[Greji]

[quote="""]On the subject of codes, the US sadly let themselves down with the Pearl Harbour attack at the last hurdle.

Having successfully decoded the last page of the Japanese declaration (and almost all asepcts of that were impressive), they then insisted on sending it by code & courier to Pearl Harbour, which meant they weren't adequately warned in time. /quote]

The actually war alert message initially was sent by Western Union telegraph, which was dramatically played up in "Tora,Tora,Tora" to arrive in the middle of the attack, but in truth, cables for communications were quite prominent in those days. Unfortunately, no emails in 1941.

[homesweethome]

This is from GB's thread Should Truman Have Dropped the Bomb

quote="jingai"]The essay in a nutshell:

There are a good many more points that now extend our understanding beyond the debates of 1995. But it is clear that all three of the critics' central premises are wrong. The Japanese did not see their situation as catastrophically hopeless. They were not seeking to surrender, but pursuing a negotiated end to the war that preserved the old order in Japan, not just a figurehead emperor. Finally, thanks to radio intelligence, American leaders, far from knowing that peace was at hand, understood--as one analytical piece in the "Magic" Far East Summary stated in July 1945, after a review of both the military and diplomatic intercepts--that "until the Japanese leaders realize that an invasion can not be repelled, there is little likelihood that they will accept any peace terms satisfactory to the Allies." This cannot be improved upon as a succinct and accurate summary of the military and diplomatic realities of the summer of 1945.

This would get me crucified if I put it on the main board, but anyway

http://www.timescommunity.com/site/tab1.cfm?newsid=15007444&BRD=2553&PAG=461&dept_id=506035&rfi=6

VICTORY, plus 60 years
'Thank God for the atomic bomb'
By J.J. Ebro
08/09/2005


Their numbers are rapidly dwindling. The young men who once took the bayonet to the enemy are in their 80s, or nearly there.

Their eyesight, hearing and memories are dimming. But as they speak of their roles in defeating Japan and ending a World War 60 years ago this week, the jut of the jaw, the misty eye and a quiver in the voice convey the fact that while old soldiers may fade away, their pride and patriotism never die.


You won't see VJ Day (Victory over Japan) marked on many calendars these days. VE Day (Victory in Europe) had been accomplished three months earlier.

Japan was the last Axis power to fall. After two of Japan's largest cities – Hiroshima and Nagasaki – were destroyed by the most powerful bombs ever dropped, Japanese Emperor Hirohito finally agreed to surrender. When President Truman announced the surrender on Aug. 15, 1945, the euphoria was felt worldwide.

On Sept. 2, 1945, Gen. Douglas MacArthur oversaw signing of the papers of surrender on the USS Missouri.

"We were laying out airstrips on Okinawa, preparing for the invasion of Japan when the [surrender] news came in," said Carlton Hughes, of Warrenton, who was a staff sergeant in the Army Air Corps. "Boy, were we relieved. The Japanese were tough fighters, wouldn't give up. We knew the invasion of Japan was going to be bloody.

So Aussie participation or not aside, Truman knew what they were saying and even if the Japanese had known that he knew, it would have not made any difference because they were not saying the right things We Surrender So he made the decision.

Not Guilty 7 to 2.

[Mulboyne]

[Coligny]

There comes a point when timing and importance suggests picking up the telephone and saving a few hundred of your countrymen's lives rather than following the book but I guess no one was prepared to take that responsibility.

pfffff... wake up sheepulz, they staged the attack of Pearl with commuter planes hijacked by small eyed islamofascist to have an excuse to attack the japanese for their oil...


maybee...

and Bildurburg...waaargaaaarblll...