Talk:C-52 (cipher machine)

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Does anyone have any information about the electronic version produced by Hell during the 1960's? It was basically a transistorized Vernam machine using modified IBM 80-column cards instead of punched tapes.

CXM-52

Only this machine was delivered with 6 pin wheels, all of which had 47 pin positions (apparently at the suggestion of Peter Jenks, NSA, because such a machine can be cracked with acceptable effort). Here too, rods 28 to 32 in the rod basket were used exclusively to advance the pin wheels "unregularly". The CX-52, on the other hand, also had 12 pinwheels with the same number of positions as the C-52, but the CX version no longer had every pinwheel turning at every cipher step. Instead, the clips ("lugs") on the 32 bars of the machine influenced the extremely irregular advance of the pinwheels via additional teeth ("cams") at six positions : there were four different versions of these cams : A - pinwheel advanced when bar was pushed to the left. B - pin wheel advances when the bar is NOT moved to the left, C - pin wheel ALWAYS advances, regardless of whether the bar is moved to the left or not, Ø - pin wheel NEVER advances, regardless of whether the bar is moved to the left or not. In addition, there were special rods with K-cams (far left), where the type wheel with the letters continued to turn when the rod was moved to the left, rods with non-K-cams (horizontal line above the K), where the type wheel continued to turn when the rod was NOT moved to the left, and rods without K-cams, where the type wheel NEVER continued to turn at all.

In addition, there were bars on which no clips (lugs) could be fitted, preferably for cage bars 28 to 32, which in some machines, but not in the most complicated models (CX-52, only delivered to the members of the NATO), were responsible for the regular or "irregular" (CXM-52) progression of the pin wheels. In the CX-52, the permutation of the pinwheels was important because of the highly irregular progression of a pinwheel (by up to 32 positions per pinwheel and cipherstep !), but not in the C-52, where the progression of the pinwheels was absolutely regular, as in the C-38 (M-209). In order to achieve a permutation of the pinwheels here, the lugs on the 27 rods (28 to 32 were only used for regular progression in later models) could also be permutated in a columnar arrangement, which has the same effect.) The C-52 was compatible with the M-209: pinwheels 26 and 25 were installed on the far left, followed by pinwheels 46(2*23), 42(2*21), 38(2*19) and 34(2*17). On the pinwheels 46, 42, 38, and 34, the pin-setting of the M-209 pinwheels 23, 21, 19 and 17 then only had to be set twice in succession on the double size pinwheels. The C machines could use up to six clips per bar, but the M-209 could only use a maximum of two clips per bar. Permissiveactionlink (talk) 07:44, 27 July 2025 (UTC)

Hell 54

The Hell 54 was by no means just a licensed copy of the C-52; it used only the six pinwheels with position numbers that were all odd and prime (29, 31, 37, 41, 43, 47, permutable in 720 alternatives) and, unlike the C-52, had extremely irregular stepping of its pinwheels. The model was also called CX-52bk in NATO and at Crypto AG: unlike the C-52, the device already had "cams" on the 32 rods of the rod basket (bar 32: six C-cams, remaining bars: six B-cams each, normal k-Cams on the left side at all bars, all bars could carry up to six lugs). The irregular progression could be changed in 8 positions with an adjustment slide above the pin wheels. The principle of this modified form of irregular advance was first used by the Germans during the war in the SG-41 machine (introduced by "Regierungs-Oberinspektor" Fritz Menzer). This procedure, later called the "Hüttenhain feature" (Dr. Erich Hüttenhain, mathematician, head of the German crypto authority after the war, then still a department of the BND ("Bundesnachrichtendienst"), today the Federal Office for Information Security, BSI, "Bundesamt für Sicherheit in der Informationstechnik"), made the machine much more secure than the C-52. The H 54 device was used by the Bundeswehr for encryption. Details of the "Hüttenhain feature" can be found at Cryptomuseum.com under "CX-52bk". Permissiveactionlink (talk) 09:19, 28 July 2025 (UTC)