VENONA project

The VENONA project was a long-running and highly secret collaboration between United States intelligence agencies and the United Kingdom's MI5 that involved the cryptanalysis of messages sent by several Soviet intelligence agencies. There were known to be at least 13 code words for this effort used by the US and UK. VENONA was the last code word for the project.

Background

U.S. Army Signal Security Agency (commonly called Arlington Hall) codebreakers had intercepted large volumes of encrypted high-level Soviet diplomatic and intelligence traffic during and immediately after World War II. The British had stopped intercepting Soviet traffic, at Winston Churchill's orders, shortly after Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, and had no traffic to contribute to the project after that time.

Related Topics:
U.S. Army Signal Security Agency - Arlington Hall - Encrypted - Soviet - World War II - Winston Churchill

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This traffic, some of which was encrypted with a one-time pad system, was stored and analyzed in relative secrecy by hundreds of cryptanalysts over a 40-year period starting in the early 1940s. Due to what turned out to be a serious blunder on the part of the Soviets - re-using pages of some of the one-time pads in other pads, which were then used for other messages - this traffic was vulnerable to cryptanalysis.

Related Topics:
One-time pad - 1940s

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The Venona Project was initiated under orders from the Chief of Military Intelligence, Carter Clarke, who mistrusted Joseph Stalin. He feared that Stalin and Hitler would sign a peace treaty in order to focus Germany's military forces on the destruction of Great Britain and the U.S.

Related Topics:
Joseph Stalin - Hitler

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