CALENDAR

Human Complex Systems 19
Espionage, Cryptology
& Psychological Operations
(Spies, Secrets & Deception)
gessler@ucla.edu
Spring 2006

Required:

• 10 Hours of classroom time.
• (you can miss two classes, max).
• 10 Hours of scheduled films.
• 10 Hours of reading/writing.

April 5- INTRODUCTION

Introductions:
Where shall we go in this course?
Spies? Codes? Propaganda?
Ethics of Spying?
Propaganda ?
Cipher Machines?

CD: The Conet Project: Number Stations.
Challenge #1: A decryption exercise with one-time-pads.
Due next week!

FILMS:
The Recruit: Access Bonus: Spy School - Inside the CIA Training Program 2003 (16m).
Top Secret: Inside the World's Most Secret Agencies: National Security Agency 1998 (50m)

April 12

Challenge #1: A decryption exercise with one-time-pads. Due today.
Quick review...

Follow-up:
CIA - Central Intelligence Agency (Human Intelligence - HumInt).
NSA - National Security Agency (Signals Intelligence - SigInt).
NGA - National Geospatial Intelligence Agency (Imagery Intelligence - ImInt).

If you visit Washington, D.C., do visit:
International Spy Museum - Dedicated to those in the Intelligence Service of all nations (thematic displays, thin collections, admission fee).
National Cryptologic Museum - A service of the NSA (rich displays and collections, admission free).

Hand ciphers using monoalphabetic substitution:
Cryptographic slide rules: West German code school, toys and simulations.

Hand ciphers using polyalphabetic substitution:
Pushing the slide rule to its limits and code phrase tables (a polyalphabet grid).

Machine ciphers using electrical rotors:
Enigma (German), Sigaba (US), Fialka (Soviet) and M-155 (Soviet).

Challenge #2: Decrypting 1907 postcards. Due next week!
Handouts (worksheets).

FILMS:
Spies: Codebreaking: Ultra Spies File 1993. (22m)
Spies: Codebreaking: Magician & the Samurai File 1993. (24m)

April 19

Scenes from the movie: 3 DAYS OF THE CONDOR (1975) on our interests in the Middle East. Fact or fiction? Games or plans?

• 3 Days of the Condor: Chapter 14, "Oil Fields..." (4m)
• 3 Days of the Condor: Chapter 16, "Telling Stories..." (4m)

Challenge #2: Decrypting 1907 postcards. Due today.
Quick review...

Hand ciphers using polyalphabetic substitution:
Strip ciphers and Jefferson wheels (c.f. The da Vinci Code movie).
Signal Corps U.S. Army M-138-A (strip) Cipher Device.
Signal Corps U.S. Army M-94 (disk) Cipher Device.

The "Che Cipher," a message encoded by Che Guevara for delivery to Fidel Castro. It is dated May 18, 1967. I have re-encrypted its English translation on a "toy" Jefferson wheel. Your job is to decrypt it.

"Leche" is the code name for Fidel Castro.
"Danton" is the code name for Jules Regis Debray, the liason.

OPLZX UOGIU YYOOB HXWQA
ATUXE CGIAL PXEPE AVHHV
NGVYH BSEJB WSOVL HCGTA
WDQON SRGIL BGREU PJIJH

Challenge #3: Readings:
"Science: Anthropologists as Spies" by David Price.
"Cryptanalysis for Peacetime: Codebreaking and the Birth and Structue of the United Nations" by Stephen Schlesinger.
Your thoughtful response and commentary: 1-2 pages is Due next week!

Also handed out: "The Che Guevara Cipher" by David Kahn, which we will discuss next week.

FILMS: Last minutes of Spies: Codebreaking: Magician & the Samurai File.

April 26

Challenge #3: Your thoughtful response and commentary is due today!
Discussion...

Poor morale in the CIA:
John Negroponte says there are over 100,000 Americans working for the US Intelligence services.
CIA Fires Agent over Leak to Media.
Sacked CIA Leaker Named
1,000 CIA Flights since 2001.

A Swiss enciphered postcard in French.
(Free movie tickets for the first correct decipherment!)

The "Che Cipher" revisited.

The Vernam Cipher:
Ciphertext = Plaintext + Key
Plaintext = Ciphertext - Key
Key = Ciphertext - Plaintext
(All in modulo ten arithmetic).

In-class exercise.

Challenge #4: Given the ciphertext and the solution to the DAILY BRUIN crossword puzzle as a key, what is the plaintext message?

FILMS: Decoding Nazi Secrets, Part 1. (120m)

May 3

Challenge #4: Your decrypted message is due today!
Discussion...

Decoding Nazi Secrets, Part 2. (60m)

Demonstration of Swiss Neu Machine (NeMa)
an improvement on the German Enigma.
It uses a pseudo-random key generated by the initial settings and positions of four (8) out of six (12) rotors. Each rotor is double.

Handout:
"The Creed of a Modern Propagandist," by William E. Daughtery. In A PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE CASEBOOK, Operations Research Office, Johns Hopkins University, Bethesda (1958).
A selection of propaganda leaflets...

May 10

Photos for our Participants page...

Strange thing...

Challenge #5: Your essay on propaganda leaflets is due today!
A short essay: Comparing your leaflet(s) with the article by Daugherty. Does it follow his criteria? Why so? Why not? What is the psychology behind the leaflet? What is the situation being addressed? Who is the target? How well does the propagandist know the enemy?
Discussion...

Intelligence Resource Program - ePrints
Challenge #6: Your short response to the handout:
An Analysis of the Systemic Security Weaknesses of the United States navy Fleet Broadcasting System as Exploited by John Walker

In the News:
Mossad's chocolate assasination.
Ray McGovern, retired CIA analyst, on the board of directors of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS):
Wikipedia Entry
Ex-CIA Accuse Bush of Manipulating Iraq Evidence
The Skeptical Spy
Intelligence Unglued
War on Iraq

FILMS: Decoding Nazi Secrets, Part 2. (120m)

May 17

Challenge #6: Your essay on John Walker, the KGB and the KL-7 is due today!
A short response of one page.
Discussion...

Kryha cipher machine demonstration (1924).

Herb Friedman on the Kiri Leaf propaganda leaflet.

Tamper Resistance - A Cautionary Note
Wikipedia: Van Eck Phreaking. Van Eck's original 1985 article.

The NSA in the News Again - DataMining Telephone Calls:
USA Today's Original Article on May 11:
"NSA has massive database of Americans' phone calls."
A response by George Bush. A follow-up by CNN.
$200 billion lawsuit filed against Bell South, AT&T and Verizon.
A framework for networks.

Operation Cornflakes
Herb Friedman's Webpage
Henry Gitner's Webpage
Richard Kimmel's Notes

Psyops:
Lee Richard's psywar.org

May 24

Challenge #7: Using what you learned from Daugherty's article and Richard's and Friedman's webpages, design two pieces of black propaganda: one for the Iraqi audience and one for the American audience. This is due today!
Discussion...

Ira Winkler: "Why NSA spying puts the U.S. in danger."
"The da Vinci Code" and the cryptex: Wikipedia. Gifts: eBay, mini-cryptex, Cryptextm.

Dust Networks.

• American Swedish Hagelin M-209 demonstration and in-class coding/decoding challenge.
• Steganography 1: Invisible inks for security and automation, an in-class discovery challenge.

May 31

PowerPoint Presentation: Shu Ching on Contemporary Chinese propaganda leafletting.

Code Books: Telegraph, Military and Burst Encoders...

Steganography 2: Hidden marks on currency and copier printouts...

Handout: Chapter 2 of Analytical Culture in the U.S. Intelligence Community by Rob Johnston.

June 7

Cookies, coffee and presentations:

Your written comments due on:
Analytical Culture in the U.S. Intelligence Community.

PowerPoint Presentation: Pavel Gitnik on The Israeli Mossad.

Course evaluations...

Toys...

• Swedish Hagelin BC-543 demonstration and in-class challenge.
• Russian Fialka M-125-3M demonstration and in-class challenge.

Jason's post: Vanity Fair - The War They Wanted; The Lies They Needed.
Black propaganda and yellow-cake uranium in Niger...

HAVE A GREAT SUMMER...

CHECK THIS OUT!
Something to do during the Summer: Diet Coke & Mentos - direct

Movies to rent:

• The Spy Who Came in from the Cold
• The Battle of Algiers
• Syriana
• Munich

WHAT WE DIDN'T COVER:
..................... what follows are only my notes only .........................

• Declassification in reverse: secret document reclassification program.
• Great Britain admits to allowing CIA "extraordinary rendition" flights.
• General counsel of the US Navy, Alberto Mora's report.
• US covert propagandizing in Iraq still continues.

MUNICH: Analyses of mindsets of espionage, propaganda, insurgency and counterinsurgency. The characters.

• Understanding does not entail committment:
• THE ART OF WAR. 3:18 "Know your enemy and know yourself..."
• Ethics: The evaluation of one's actions based on their anticipated effects in maximizing the values placed upon a conflicting set of goals. (c.f. Working Groups on Ethics.)

A decryption exercise: 1907 Post Card. (Scroll down to the bottom.)

"Ethics & Intelligence 2006," the "official" site. Thanks to Allison.
Note on a new book: "The Ethics of Spying" by Jan Goldman.

Ethics:
Core and peripheral "values," their relative weights and interactions...
"Values," how are they expressed? In written statements? On the fly?
"Values," how are they mapped to actual behaviors (situations)?
"Values," responsibilities of government servants to their public, of employers to employees, of employees to employers, of peers to peers, of persons to "others" (their perceived and/or actual adversaries, opponents, enemies, etc.).
"Ethics," a motivating creedo or a post-hoc rationalization?

The October 2005 "drawings" and their republication in Egypt. Iran invites cartoons on the US, Israel and the Holocaust.

The Challenge: MUNICH:

• Read Neal Ascherson's essay in the Guardian on Gillo Pontecorvo's "Battle of Algiers" and Steve Spielberg's "Munich."
• Read the "Potential Working Groups" topics at "Ethics & Intelligence 2006."
• Go see the film Munich! It is playing at the Crest theater in Westwood and many other locations.
• Pick one of the topics and discuss it with reference to the movie and the Guardian essay.
• Turn in your essay and the movie theatre ticket stub next week

Need to know: Secrecy and Deception. Comand and limiting knowledge.
c.f. U-751, From Silk to Cyanide, Battle of Algeirs...

Raleigh International Spy Conference
Gonzales defends Bush's NSA Spy Program
Fake European propaganda movie hits Austria and Bologna
Dissimulation and Simulation

Rotor machines demonstration: Hebern, NEMA, Fialka...

Code books & book codes...

Alphabetic Substitution Ciphers:
Mono Alphabetic and Keys. Letter Frequency.
Poly Alphabetic and Keys.
The Vernan Cipher, One-Time-Pad, (One-Time-Tape). Random One-Time-Keys.
Cryptology Collection.
Cryptology Simulations.

Chris Andrew: "Five Controversial but Secure Propositions."

1. That some KGB operations in the US were far better than most Americans ever thought.
2. Also that they were significantly worse than the American intelligence community feared.
3. That KGB operations in the United States were more dangerous than anyone thought.
4. That the KGB was at its most dangerous when it was performing badly, rathar than it was when it was performing well.
5. That the KGB made a modest but significant contribution both to ending the Cold War and to bringing down the Soviet system.

Simulations - Collections
Poly Alphabetic Ciphers and Keys revisited: Jefferson Wheel.
The Vernan Cipher:
Random One-Time-Keys (One-Time-Pad or One-Time-Tape): Hagelin CX-52.
Pseudo-Random keys: Reihenschieber, Hagelin M-209.
Key Management.
Steganography.

FILMS: Gillo Pontecorvo's "Battle of Algiers."
Commentary on The Battle ofr Algiers: A Case Study with Richard A. Clarke and Michael A. Sheehan, moderated by Christopher E. Isham. Special feature on Special Edition DVD.
FILMS: Breaking the Codes: The Rise of Enigma, 1916. (71m)
FILMS: Breaking Codes: The Triumph of the Codebreakers, 1940. (74m)
FILMS: U-571: Bonus Materials: 2nd Screen: Inside the Enigma. (8m)
U-571: Bonus Materials: 2nd Screen: Britain Captures the U-110. (9m)
U-571: Bonus Materials: 2nd Screen: A Submariner's WWII Experience. (9m)
U-571: Bonus Materials: 2nd Screen: Capturing the U-505. (9m)

FILMS: Stephen Spielberg's "Munich."