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← 2013 Latest news 2015 →
This page contains some of our preview news clippings.
Please note that the information below has been written some time ago
and my have lost its relevance by now. The information is retained here
for historical reasons only.
➤ Click here for the latest news
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History of Mils Electronic uncovered
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17 July 2014
More that a year ago we started researching the history of the Austrian
crypto-manufacturer Mils Electronic. This company has been successfully
implementing the unbreakable One-Time Pad cipher (OTP) for many years
and has its roots in post-war Germany. Although the company is very
successful on the international market, their history was only known
to a few. Until now that is.
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We visited Mils Electronic in July 2013 and were kindly granted access
to their archives. Since then, we spoke with numerous people and
uncovered many documents, which has enabled us to piece together a
complete picture of the company's history. Did you know that shortly
after WWII, Mils sold refurbished Siemens T-52 Geheimschreibers?
➤ History Mils Electronic
➤ Cipher machines made by Mils
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Original Russian Fialka discovered
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7 July 2014
Hot on the heels of our discovery a few days ago of a complete set
of Fialka wheels from Hungary, we can now show the first pictures of
an original Russian M-125-3 Fialka machine. It belongs to a former
KGB officer who lives in Latvia.
Contrary to what we thought, this machine has rounded keys and yet it
is the later M-125-3 model. Confused? We'll explain it all.
➤ Read all about the Russian Fialka
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5K Fialka wheels discovered
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5 July 2014
So far, only the cipher wheels of the
Fialka machines used in
Czechoslovakia (6K) and Poland (3K) have been discovered and for a long
time we thought that we would never find the wheels of any other Warsaw
Pact country.
All that changed when, on a recent trip through Europe, we found wheels
with a 5K prefix that were used in Hungary during the Cold War.
➤ More about the 5K Fialka wheels
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HAM Radio 2014 great success
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30 June 2014
This year's HAM Radio 2014 in Friedrichshafen (Germany) was a great success.
The event was held from 27 to 29 June 2014 and attracted Radio Hams and
cipher collectors from all over the world. As usual, Crypto Museum was
present at the Enigma stand, which was even larger than the previous year.
As usual, many historians, collectors and cipher enthusiasts met here
and many rare items changed hands.
➤ Read the full review
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Rare Russian M-105 (Agat) cipher machine rediscovered
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12 May 2014
- wanted item
Last summer, during one of our foreign trips through the former
Eastern Block countries, we rediscovered the rare
Russian M-105 cipher machine.
The machine, which is also known as AGAT, is
actually a mixer machine
that uses the unbreakable One-Time Tape principle.
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Whilst visiting a collector for something else, the machine
was unexpectedly placed in front of us with the question: ' do you
know what this is? '. After raising our eyebrows a couple of times, we
explained what it was and started investigating the machine.
Luckily we had our camera with us, and were able to make some hi-res
images of the machine, which are now available for review.
➤ More about the M-105
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Rohde & Schwarz donates FSH-3 spectrum analyzer
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15 April 2014
For years we've been demonstrating our Rohde & Schwars
FSH-3 portable spectrum analyzer
for finding radio bugs.
Last summer however, the FSH-3 broke down and appeared to
be beyond repair. It was an anonymous gift that we
had received in 2005 on a HAM radio fair in Germany.
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After investigation by Rohde & Schwarz (R&S), our unit appeared to be
an engineering sample that contained neither the appropriate hardware
nor the matching software. However, when the nice people as R&S learned
that it was for the Crypto Museum, they decided to donate a brand new
FSH-3 to us!
➤ About the FSH-3
➤ About the gift
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Bletchley Park fires long-term volunteer
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Although not everyone is aware of it, the
Colossus Rebuild display is
actually part of the computer museum (TNMOC), one of the park's
attractions, which is not owned by the Bletchley Park Trust.
In the past this never appeared to be a problem and on guided tours,
people would be shown everthing that is connected to wartime BP,
including the
Colossus Rebuild project.
Tony Carroll was one of the BP tour guides who talks passionately
about BP's wartime work.
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Bletchley Park is currently spending Lottery money to restore a number
of the wartime huts to their former glory and work is well underway
to give the park a modern professional update. But the BP management
is not happy with the fact that not all high profile attractions that
are on diplay at the park, are theirs. In a new directive, the
mangement has now forbidden its volunteer tour guides to mention
Colossus,
the first electronic computer that was built at Bletchley Park
during WWII in order to break the
German Lorenz.
They no longer want to show it to the public.
Last week, the conflict reached a new height when the BP management
fired Tony Carroll, a long-term passionate volunteer tour guide who
still included Colossus in his tours. The management's decision came
as a complete surprise and even shocked the other tour guides who
had left after previous conflicts. The image above was taken from a
BBC newscast
that shows Tony minutes after he was fired.
He now works for the computer museum (TNMOC).
Sadly, this is not an isolated incident.
In September 2013, the BP management closed down
David White's spy-radio display in Hut 1
and before that the Churchill exhibition
and the Milton Keynes Amateur Radio Society.
The dismissal of Tony Carroll
is the last in a series of conflicts that has caused a massive
exodus of BP volunteers, many of which are now working for TNMOC.
The BP board decisions are difficult to understand. Its seems that the
current Bletchley Park management is not only alienating its
contributors and volunteers, but now also the public.
➤ Watch the full BBC newscast
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