THE FIRST ELECTROMECHANICAL ROTOR-BASED ENCRYPT🔯ION MACHINE, ONE OF ONLY 13 KNOWN EXAMPLES AND THE♈ ONLY EXAMPLE TO COME TO AUCTION

Electromechanical rotor-based encryption machines, like the Enigma and those from Hagelin, became the dominant cryptographic machines from the World War II era onward, but the Hebern machine is considered the first. Edward H. Hebern’s invention originated from his early cryptographic devices created from 1912-1915 and led him to the idea of two ty🧸pewriters connected by 26 wires, one for each letter in a random fashion. A letter struck on the plaintext keyboard would cause a ciphertext character to print on the other machine. The idea of a wired rotor-based machine to more succinctly accomplish this first appeared in his 1917 drawings and a machine was built the following year. 

Hebern, who was based in Oakland, California, journeyed to Washington to demonstrate his machine to Navy Commander Milo F. Draemel in 1921. The Navy had been looking for a new device for secret communications and were receptive to the new machine. Hebern, encouraged by the meeting, incorporated Hebert Electric Code, the first U.S. cipher machine company, and sold shares of stock in his company, quickly generating $1,000,000. He broke ground the next year for a building on the west side of Harrison Street between Eighth and Ninth in downtown Oakland (which still stands today) to house a 1,500-person 🐬factory that would include a buffing-and-polishing room, a plating room, a 200-foot-long assembly room, a tool and die room, etc. He hired Navy cryptanalyst Agnes Meyer Driscoll, who had solved Hebern’s earlier code, to help make improvements to his machine as well as a Navy liason. 

Unfortunately, orders were slow coming. The Navy and Army purchased just a handful of machines and few were sold elsewhere. The company defaulted on the mortg😼age interest in mid-1924 and Shareholders were, by 1925, growing impatient and took legal action. Hebern was brought to trial and found guilty of violating California’s corporate securities act. The verdict was later set aside, but Hebern ♔Electric Code consequentially went bankrupt. 

H🐓ebern was still optimistic that military orders would eventually come and set up the International Code Machine Company in Reno, NV. The Navy did go on to buy a total of 34 machines, which saw heavy use until 1936 (and a few were reconditioned and used as late as 1942). He was unaware that the Army had the Chief Cryptanalyst of the Signal Corps, William Frederick Friedman, considered on the greatest cryptanalysts, test one of Hebern’s five-rotor machines. Friedman’s solution laid the foundations for the “Purple” machine solution (of the Japanese Type B Cipher Machine), and many later solutions of modern rotor machines. The Arm♐y would buy no further Hebern devices. 

Friedman would go on to file multiple patents, at least partially based on improvements of ✃Hebern’s ideas, that would result in machines such as the Converter M-134-C (a.k.a. SIGABA), Converter M-228 (SIGCUM) and the Converter M-325 (SIGFOY). Hebern made a claim for $50,000,000 in 1947 against the military that they were using his ideas throughout the war without compensating him. He died in 1952 and the Army, Navy and Air Force rejected his claim the subsequent year. The government eventually settled in 1958, paying $30,000 to Hebern’s heirs, solely because of concern that cryptographic secrets would be revealed in court. Friedman, on the other hand, was later in life awarded $100,000 for his Signal Corps work by a bill passed by Congress and signed by President Eisenhower. “It must be stated that justice was not served thereby. In the case of the seven inventions that were filed in the patent office, at least five were derivative – mere improvements upon the basic creation of others. Such were the rotor machines, compensation for which should have gone to the estate of Edward Hebern” (Kahn p392). 

The present machine is a “Super Code” version of the Hebern Rotor Machine and uses three circuit rotors with odometric motion. It has keys like a portable typewriter and꧋ enciphered or deciphered characte🐽rs are revealed by a light board directly above the keys, similar to that of an Enigma machine. Internally there are wires that make connections between the 26 possible characters and, combined with the position of the rotors, determine the encrypted character. The machine is powered by a single 5H7 dry cell battery. It is one of only 13 known examples of Hebern cipher machines and one of only two known 3-rotor versions. 

The provenance of this particular machine reveals a little-known side-story. Included paperwork provides evidence of the use of cipher machines for Canadian bootleggers during prohibition. Documents, mostly typed, include a list of codes for drop spots along the Pacific Coast; an explanation of position codes; a sheet of codes entitled “Bentleys Code. Private Code arranged with Sir George & Sir Edward,” dated September 28, 1927 that includes codes for a list of Canadian brewers and distillers including namesakes Sir George Prescott and Sir Edward Elgar; two sheets labeled “Brand Code Tenders” that includes 3-lette𒁃r codes for various brands and varieties of liquor; several sheets of code names for various bootleggers and liquor-related terms; a sheet of “Number Code Tenders” that is crossed through with pencil and marked “cancel”; seven holograph sheets with 5-letter codes for various terms used in bootlegging; a sheet titled “Position Addenda”; a sheet titled “Key to Machine Code” with directions on setting the Hebern. 

It's important to note that there is very little information about bootleggers’ use of cipher machines. David Kahn, in his classic text The Codebreakers, notes that bootleggers had used codebooks and other low-tech cipher techniques, but the included papers seem to provide heretofor❀e unknown evidence. 

REFERENCES:

Kahn, David. The Codebreakers. [New York] Scribner, [1996]. 

Johnson, Kevin Wade. The Neglected Giant: Agnes Meyer Driscoll. [Glen Burnie, MD]: National Security Agency Center for Crypt😼ologic History, ⛎2015.