Delusions of Intelligence: Enigma, Ultra, and the End of Secure Ciphers (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780521855228)

In 1974, the British government admitted that its WWII secret intelligence organization had read Germany's ciphers on a massive scale. The intelligence from these decrypts influenced the Atlantic, the Eastern Front and Normandy. Why did the Germans never realize the Allies had so thoroughly penetrated their communications? As German intelligence experts conducted numerous internal investigations that all certified their ciphers' security, the Allies continued to break more ciphers and plugged their own communication leaks. How were the Allies able to so thoroughly exploit Germany's secret messages? How did they keep their tremendous success a secret? What flaws in Germany's organization allowed this counterintelligence failure and how can today's organizations learn to avoid similar disasters? This book, the first comparative study of WWII SIGINT (Signals Intelligence), analyzes the characteristics that allowed the Allies SIGINT success and that fostered the German blindness to Enigma's compromise.

Author: R. a. Ratcliff
ISBN-10: 0521855225
ISBN-13: 9780521855228
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Language: English
Published: 08/14/2006
Pages: 334
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.32lbs
Size: 9.10h x 6.30w x 0.98d

Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 06/12/2006 pg. 43