HC-9

The HC-9 was a mechanical cipher device manufactured by Swedish company AB Transvertex. The HC-9 was designed after World War II and likely remained in use up to the 1970s. The machine was used for low-level communications.

Operation

The HC-9 made use of punched cards instead of the pin-wheel mechanisms of other machines (for example, the Hagelin M-209).

External links

* [http://www.jproc.ca/crypto/hc_09.html Photograph of an HC-9]
* [http://www.gemmary.com/instcat/11/p25-216-11.html Another HC-9 photograph with a description]
* [http://hem.passagen.se/tan01/hc9.html A description of the machine and a simulator in QBASIC]
* [http://web.archive.org/web/20030903192602/fn2.freenet.edmonton.ab.ca/~jsavard/crypto/ro020602.htm Discussion of the machine's operation]

References

* Cipher A. Deavours and Louis Kruh, The Swedish HC-9 Ciphering Machine, "Cryptologia", Vol. 13(3), July 1989, pp.251–265
* Cipher A. Deavours and Louis Kruh, The Swedish HC-9 Ciphering Machine Challenge, "Cryptologia", Vol. 14(2), April 1990, pp.139–144
* H. P. Greenough, Cryptanalysis of the Swedish HC-9: A Known-Plaintext Approach, "Cryptologia", 1997, 21(4), pp353–367.