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Solution for Playfair Cipher
Back to Hint #2
We can use similar hypotheses and deductions to complete the
square recovery to find that FINAL VICTORY is the keyphrase,
written in a spiral:
F I N A L
H K M P V
G X Z Q C
E W U S T
D B Y R O
Decrypting the message, we find the ominous message:
MOST URGENT STOP
ALL MEMBERS OF GLIDER TEAM KILLED STOP
IN CONTACT WITH NORSK HYDRO INformANT STOP
RED PENGUIN FRENZY STOP
DO NOT SEND FOLLOWUP TEAM UNTIL I GIVE
COORDINATES AND TIME FOR SAFE LANDING ZONE END
Since the duress code �RED PENGUIN FRENZY� was used, we know
the Nazis captured the agent and forced him to send this
message. It would have been a bad idea to follow the
instructions when they arrived, since �safe landing zone�
would have had a different meaning to the enemy.
This cipher is an amalgam of several real incidents during the
war. Thirty-four officers and men were sent in gliders to blow
up the Norsk Hydro heavy-water facility in Norway, and the
operation was a complete fiasco. Both gliders crashed, and
many of the men in them died outright; the Nazis took the
injured men to a hospital, where a quisling doctor gave them
lethal injections. The Nazis rounded up and executed the rest
of the team, even though they were in uniform. A later team
successfully sabotaged the heavy-water plant, setting the Nazi
nuclear effort back six months. Duress codes were in fact used
and were very important, because the Nazis did attempt to keep
captured wireless operators in play: The �Englandspiel� in the
Netherlands, in which they were able to fool the British into
sending many agents directly into their hands for years, is a
prime example.
For more background see
Between Silk and Cyanide: A Codemaker's War 1941-1945
by Leo Marks (Free Press, 1999), and Set Europe Ablaze by E.
H. Cookridge (Thomas Y. Crowell, 1967).
Back to Playfair Cipher
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