Page 344 - The Secret War in the Italian front in WWI (1915-1918)

THE SECRET WAR ON THE ITALIAN FRONT IN WWI (1915 – 1918)

given by some cryptologists in their accounts, and to its later developments, originated significant
and exploitable information only sporadically.
The interaction among the different forms of intelligence also influenced the cryptologic sector,
especially with reference to the impact exerted by human intelligence on the breaking processes of
large and complex codes . In the previous pages we have mentioned, for instance, the statements
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of Luigi Sacco concerning advantages obtained from the availability of Austrian Rotbuch for
breaking the Austrian diplomatic code. On the opposite side, the pre-war purchases of Italian
codes and ciphers made by the Evidenzbureau and the several documents captured in combat have
certainly helped the work of the Austro-Hungarian analysts. However, the achieved support does
not deserve any comment in the memoirs of Andreas Figl and was only mentioned by Maximilian
Ronge, member and then head of the Intelligence Service.

The present interest in the cryptologic struggle during WWI is also due to the significant evolution
of the sector during the conflict, which contributed to its development in the successive years and
wars.
In the frantic search for new encoding systems to eventually impose on the enemy additional effort
and time for their breaking, the code designers pursued the not so hidden intention to extend the
time required for their penetration so long as they could be considered practically unbreakable. In
fact, some of the ciphers introduced during the conflict were not broken due to time constraints
and/or cryptographic material scarcity, even though they should be theoretically breakable.
Nevertheless, the fierce competition aimed at achieving such results generated some significant
innovations.
At the end of 1917, Gilbert S. Vernam, an engineer at the A.T.T. laboratories in New York,
conceived a cipher that bears his name, and that Claude Shannon will later prove as theoretically
unbreakable. Vernam’s cipher was tested during WWI by the American Signal Corps for wired
and radio communications, using Baudot telegraphic machines that Vernam himself had modified.
At the time, however, the method lacked an important feature, namely the practical availability of
random keys, long at least as the dispatches to be transmitted and completely different for each
dispatch: in fact, a prerequisite to meet the conditions assumed by Shannon in full .
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The mechanisation of encoding and decoding operations, combined with a higher degree of
security, was another dream of cryptologists in WWI. It turned into reality between 1917 and
1918 with the ‘almost contemporary’ invention of ‘rotors’ that David Kahn ascribed to at least
four or five different people. This component was the core of the new encoding/decoding electro-
mechanical machines, such as the Enigma, which - since the mid-twenties - began to replace the
traditional tools of cryptology, namely paper and pencil .
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7 The prevalence of cryptology skills or Human Intelligence in such processes is still generating debates, not only with
reference to WWI. Alberto Santoni claimed, for example, that the British were able to decrypt German dispatches encoded
with HVB and SKM codes before receiving the codebooks obtained through Human Intelligence operations. To mask the
capabilities of the legendary “Room 40” of the English Admiralty, Winston Churchill attributed the successes achieved in the
battle against the German fleet to radiogoniometry. (A. Santoni, op. cit., p. 47 - 61).
8 Françoise Cartier, Le secret en Radiotélégraphie, Système G.S. Vernam, Radio Electricité, 25 December 1925 and 10 January
1926. This system was used during World War II and Cold War, including the ‘typewriter hotline’ between Washington and
the Kremlin. The greatest difficulty lies in the need for an ultra-safe channel to transmit a variable random key.
9 D. Kahn, op. cit., p. 411 - 425. The invention of the rotor is attributed by Kahn not only to the German Arthur Scherbius,
who was also the maker of the Enigma machine, but also to the American Edward H. Hebern, the Dutch Hugo Alexander
Koch, and the Swedish Arvid Gerhard Damm. The German navy in 1926 and the American Signal Corps in 1927 were the
first to buy the Enigma machines-

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