Читать книгу The Secrets of Spies - Weldon Owen - Страница 63

CHAPTER 4  DECEIT AND DIRTY TRICKS

64

A NEW TYPE OF WAR

World War I involved dozens of nations in

conflict on an unprecedented scale. Various

technologies developed rapidly, including

machine guns, air combat, chemical weapons, and

trench warfare, all of which left their devastating

mark. The impact of this “war to end all wars“

extended well beyond new methods of fighting.

The growing complexity of military data that

accompanied the new hardware was such that

espionage needed to develop to match it, from

more secure forms of cryptography to the

interception of new forms of communication.

STARTING TRANSMISSION

Prior to the twentieth century, espionage had largely been

based on human intelligence (HUMINT)—the gathering

of data from in-person observation. However, with the

development of new methods of communication, including

radio, the gathering and deciphering of intelligence from

communications signals, or SIGINT, became increasingly

important. Electronic communication was a nascent

technology, and the first known SIGINT success had been

recorded with the British interception of Russian radio

messages during the Russo-Japanese War in 1904.

In 1914, Germany's encrypted declaration of war was

almost immediately decrypted by the French. This was

a sign of what was to come.