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Online cipher machine
- under construction
The TC-58 was an electromechanical online cipher machine,
developed by Gretag AG in Regensdorf (Switzerland) in 1958,
as the successor to the TC-53. It was wheel-based,
just like the TC-53, but introduced automatic synchronisation of the cipher
stream, making it more suitable for use on (noisy) HF communication links.
It was initially developed for the Swiss Army, but was also sold to the
Austrian Army, albeit without the special key production device (SPG).
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The image on the right shows a typical TC-58 unit. It has 12 small windows
through which the cipher wheels are visible: 4 on the left, which are the
actual scramblers, and 8 on the right which control the stepping, just like
on the TC-53.
Below the wheels are two rows of switches. The lower row
(i.e. the black switches) are used to set the initial position of the
wheels. Unlike the TC-53, where the wheels can only be stepped forward,
the wheels of the TC-58 can be stepped in both directions.
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Unlike the TC-53, which was used as a separate device aside an
ETK teleprinter, the TC-58 was designed to go on top of the KFF-58
teleprinter and for a complete -single- unit.
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Key production unit (SPG)
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When using the TC-58, the operator had to set the machine to the daily
key (Grundstellung) plus an additional randomly picked message key. Due to the
way in which the brain works however, such keys are hardly ever random.
For this reason, Gretag developed the SPG, a small key generator
that could be mounted at the left of the front panel of the TC-58.
It was secret and was only supplied to the Swiss Army.
 More information
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- Walter Schmid, Der Krypto-Funk-Fernschreiber KFF-58
October 2008.
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© Copyright 2009-2013, Paul Reuvers & Marc Simons. Last changed: Saturday, 22 March 2014 - 19:15 CET
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