Page 247 - The Secret War in the Italian front in WWI (1915-1918)
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CHAPTER ELEVEN
11.9 Coding (on left) and decoding first pages of the “Withe Cover Code”
Although some systems adopted in limited sectors were acceptable in cryptographic terms, a ‘do-it-
yourself’ approach did not grant, in general, an acceptable degree of resistance to breaking attempts.
During 1917, however, a significant change in the design of codes and ciphers began to occur, since albeit
gradually and painfully, their design was entrusted to experts of the Cryptographic Unit who, in addition,
issued strictly defined criteria to be adopted by all the Headquarters in drafting their coding systems.
11.4 NEW CIPHERS FOR THE ITALIAN ARMY
The sI code
The poor reliability of Italian ciphers and codes had become increasingly evident to the
Cryptographic Unit.
However, some parts of the Army resisted to the innovation efforts to increase the security of
cryptographic system, opposing claims of autonomy. As stated by O. Marchetti:
The Encoding Office (of the Supreme Command, A/N) immediately protested, because of
longer time required encoding and decoding operations. Unfortunately, the protest was not
only academic. Quite often, the prescribed encoding complications recommended in order, at
least, to lengthen duration of the enemy decrypting work were neglected .
48
48 O, Marchetti, op. cit., p. 161.
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