The C-35 and C-36 were cipher machines designed by Swedish cryptographer Boris Hagelin in the 1930s. These were the first of Hagelin's cipher machines to feature the pin-and-lug mechanism. A later machine in the same series, the C-38, was designated CSP-1500 by the United States Navy and M-209 by the United States military, who used it extensively.
In 1934, the French military approached Hagelin to design a printing, pocket-size cipher machine; Hagelin carved a piece of wood to outline the dimensions of a machine that would fit into a pocket. He adapted one of his previous inventions from three years earlier: an adding device designed for use in vending machines, and combined it with the pinwheel mechanism from a late 1920s cipher machine Hagelin had developed. The French ordered 5,000 in 1935. Italy and the USA declined the machine, although both would later use the M-209 / C-38. Completely mechanical, the C-35 machine measured 150 by 115 by 50 millimetres (6 in × 4.5 in × 2 in), and weighed less than 1.5 kilograms (3 lb).
A revised machine, the C-36, was similar to the C-35, but had a different distribution of the lugs on the bars. Six C-36 machines were purchased by the Swedish Navy for testing in October 1937. Both machines had five pinwheels with 17, 19, 21, 23 and 25 pins, each individually settable, giving a maximum period of 3,900,225 for the machine. The C-362 revision included a few other improvements, most notably movable lugs instead of fixed. One variant had a Thai alphabet on the pinwheels, rather than the usual Latin alphabet.
References
Citations
- U.S. patent 1,846,105
- Alexander, John; Pablo, Fernando (2012-08-29). Proc, Jerry (ed.). "Hagelin C-362". jproc.ca. Archived from the original on 2024-06-28. Retrieved 2024-09-30.
The Hagelin C-362 has some improvements over the C-36 design
Bibliography
- Andersson, Torbjörn. "The Hagelin C-35/C-36". hem.passagen.se. Archived from the original on 2002-12-02. Retrieved 2005-11-15.
- Hagelin, Boris C. W. (1994). Kahn, David (ed.). "The Story of the Hagelin Cryptos". Cryptologia. 18 (3): 204–242. doi:10.1080/0161-119491882865. Retrieved 2024-09-30.
- Kahn, David (1967). "Secrecy for Sale". The Codebreakers. New York: Macmillan Inc. pp. 426–428. ISBN 0-684-83130-9. Retrieved 2024-09-30.
Further reading
- Deavours, C.A. (1990). "Solution of C-35 Texts with Partial Key". Cryptologia. 14 (2): 162–168. doi:10.1080/0161-119091864869.
