Wheels within wheels

August 22, 2024 11:57 AM

Like the Enigma, the HX-63 was an electromechanical cipher system known as a rotor machine. It was the only electromechanical rotor machine ever built by CAG, and it was much more advanced and secure than even the famous Enigmas. In fact, it was arguably the most secure rotor machine ever built. I longed to get my hands on one, but I doubted I ever would. from The Scandalous History of the Last Rotor Cipher Machine [IEEE]
posted by chavenet (12 comments total)

9 rotors!

Man I love this stuff - thx for posting.
posted by whatevernot at 12:05 PM on August 22 [1 favorite]

Analog encryption seems (to me) like the pinnacle of engineering because it marks the frontier of data as raw bits without intrinsic meaning. Yes, I know about transistors and ASCII and whatnot, but these devices were reprogrammed by manually swapping around the guts.

So cool.
posted by wenestvedt at 12:19 PM on August 22 [11 favorites]

Nice article - scratched a lot of satisfying itches! The accompanying photography is amazing, as well.
posted by niicholas at 12:37 PM on August 22 [2 favorites]

⛮
posted by HearHere at 1:56 PM on August 22 [2 favorites]

If it weren't for electromechanical encryption the computing age would have started much later than it did. That such a machine could do something so sophisticated still amazes me.
posted by tommasz at 1:59 PM on August 22 [2 favorites]

we'll finally understand what Little Orphan Annie's messages were all about
posted by BungaDunga at 2:12 PM on August 22 [2 favorites]

Also in 1970, Hagelin's son Bo, who was the company's sales manager for the Americas and who had opposed the transaction, died in a car crash near Washington, D.C.)
posted by clavdivs at 2:48 PM on August 22 [3 favorites]

Fuck it, we're doing nine blades wheels.
posted by seanmpuckett at 3:27 PM on August 22 [6 favorites]

Curta Calculators...

Just finished Pattern Recognition...

When I was younger. got ahold of a mechanical "adding machine". It was so cool. And so...primitive.

But, math so, always ended up with the right answer after two minutes of figuring and churning and rotors doing things. Wish I still had it...
posted by Windopaene at 3:36 PM on August 22 [4 favorites]

Hm, my dad was drafted in the Korean war in 1952. Because he was a machinist and a tool and die maker, he wound up repairing cryptographic machines. Everyone in the family had a story about how government officials visited them to ask them questions about my father as part of the security clearance process. I wonder if he worked on the HX-63 mentioned in the article. He would never talk about the stuff he worked on, even up to his death in the early 2010s.
posted by mollweide at 5:33 PM on August 22 [4 favorites]

Oops, I meant the KL-7, how did they keep these things straight?
posted by mollweide at 5:40 PM on August 22 [1 favorite]

Also: Picasso Moon
posted by Windopaene at 9:14 PM on August 22 [1 favorite]