M-209
Sign in to saveAlso known as CSP-1500, C-38, hagelin cipher machine, M209
thumb|The M-209 In cryptography, the M-209, designated CSP-1500 by the United States Navy (C-38 by the manufacturer) is a portable, mechanical cipher machine used by the US military primarily in World War II, though it remained in active use through the Korean War. The M-209 was designed by Swedish cryptographer Boris Hagelin in response to a request for such a portable cipher machine, and was an improvement of an earlier machine, the C-36.
~15 min read
Encyclopedic overview
10 sectionsContents
- Basic operation
- Internal elements
- Overview
- Example configuration
- Example encoding
- Security
- Production and usage
- References
- Further reading
- External links
thumb|The M-209 In cryptography, the M-209, designated CSP-1500 by the United States Navy (C-38 by the manufacturer) is a portable, mechanical cipher machine used by the US military primarily in World War II, though it remained in active use through the Korean War. The M-209 was designed by Swedish cryptographer Boris Hagelin in response to a request for such a portable cipher machine, and was an improvement of an earlier machine, the C-36.
The M-209 is about the size of a lunchbox, in its final form measuring and weighing (plus for the case). It represented a brilliant achievement for pre-electronic technology. It was a rotor machine similar to a telecipher machine, such as the Lorenz cipher and the Geheimfernschreiber.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “M-209” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.