Talk:Magic (cryptography)

Untitled
This article needs to be cleaned up. Some of the language, such as "toing and froing" is simply awkward. The extensive use of parentheticals, especially in the 'Decryption' section, further degrades readability. 24.107.177.15 11:51, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

For real. It looks as if parts were ripped from a school report. 24.211.171.23 (talk) 15:08, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

I thought that Magic applied to All Japanese high-grade sigint (or All Japanese sigint), not just PURPLE. See Harry Hinsley, David Kahn, & Alan Stripp: ‘’Codebreaking in the Far East’’ page 152 (1989, 1995 Oxford pb) ISBN 0-19-280386-7 Hugo999 10:58, 5 February 2007 (UTC)


 * According to Mr. Gordon Prange's tome on the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour ('At Dawn We Slept'), Magic did indeed refer to all Japanese diplomatic codes derived from Purple. These included Red, Purple and the J codes. Note that by the time of the attack the navy codes hadn't been broken yet, so these are stricly diplomatic in nature (although some information sent to the Honolulu contains purely military instructions). -- Ishikawa Minoru 17:16, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

This article needs sources!!!! Amirman 03:35, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Information carried in PURPLE traffic
What is underneath the first heading does not seem to correlate with the title and/or is out of place in this article and would probably be better placed in an article regarding the attack on Pearl Harbor or an article regarding the post attack hearings.

Also I removed the last sentence "Magic was the Japanese Code, after Purple was figured out by the United States." this appears to be outright wrong if the rest of the article is correct. ASA-IRULE 20:58, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

How secret was Magic?
Some may question the statement by Alvin Kernan about the USS Enterprise's crew knowing that the Japanese code had been broken and that the Battle of Midway was being planned. Kernan is a respected writer and distinguished academic and taught for many years at Yale and Princeton Universities. When he wrote Crossing the Line, he was Senior Advisor in the Humanities and Director of the Graduate Fellowship Program at the Andrew F. Mellon Foundation. Previously, he was Director of Humanities at Yale and Director of the Graduate School at Princeton. He holds a Ph.D. in English literature. He is the author of eight books. He joined the Navy in March 1941, and left it in December 1945 with the rank of aviation chief ordnanceman. He attended Williams College on the G.I. Bill and won a fellowship to Oxford. Not bad for a guy who came down out of the Wyoming mountains to go to sea. My point here is that he doesn't need to lie to draw attention to himself or his accomplishments. Then take into account that his book was published by the Naval Institute Press. Reviewers there would have jumped on this statement if they thought there was no substance to it. Apparently, Magic wasn't the secret that the U.S. government thought it was. Thomas R. Fasulo (talk) 16:04, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

== With all due respect to Professor Kernan, I find his statement difficult to accept. A wonderful CV should not give anyone a pass on the truth. Is it true; is it false? Did Kernan lie or misremember? I don't know the answers but I think the possibility that there was a Magic leak in Pearl Harbor deserves a more rigorous examination. Are there any other Enterprise sailors who reported the same thing? Was Rochefort or anyone else involved in the Pearl Harbor decoding effort aware of these rumors? Oldbubblehead (talk) 04:23, 22 April 2018 (UTC)

What does the following sentence mean? "The Lexington's executive officer, Commander Morton T. Seligman was assigned to shore duty and retired early". The Lexington has not been mentioned previously; it seems to bear no relation to the rest of the paragraph. Was Commander Morton T. Seligman or The Lexington in some way related to the Barnett, or the Tribune article? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.233.189.239 (talk) 08:26, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

Reading Japanese
Since this has come up twice now, & edit summaries are a bit short: what is the problem with, "the Japanese were very careful not to discuss their plan in Foreign Office communications"? In the first place, we're clearly talking about a Japanese plan. In the second, it's clearly "Japanese FO", since we're talking about "their [the Japanese] plan". In the third, there's no reason whatever the Japanese military would be discussing any plan in FO messages; yet again, it's clearly a Japanese plan ("their plan"). So where is the problem? TREKphiler  any time you're ready, Uhura  09:36, 25 December 2011 (UTC)


 * The problem is the paragraph is not always clear as to what group of Japanese are being referred to. Sometimes the indicated group is obvious as in the phrase "the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor" which obviously means the Japanese naval fleet assigned to the Hawaiian attack and not the Japanese FO.  And the expression "Japanese FO" clearly indicates the Japanese people working in the Japanese Foreign Office. But in the phrase "the Japanese were very careful..." it is not clear which group of Japanese are being indicated.  I simply made it clear by inserting the word "military".  This eliminates an unintended implication that civilian Japanese were being referred to, or that a non-military group in the Japanese government were referred to.  The "very careful" clause applies only to those Japanese who had access to the Hawaiian attack plans.  Those would be in the Japanese military, so the sentence should say so.  Greensburger (talk) 15:37, 26 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Except that raises the obvious question of why the Japanese military would be discussing their plans in FO messages in the first place... As I'm reading it, the plan is Japanese (gov't or miliary makes no difference IMO) & it's not being discussed in FO messages. What appears to be needed is explaining FO was never told about the plan, so there's be no mention of it in FO messages, which is how I'm reading the intent, & is the situation in play anyhow.  TREKphiler   any time you're ready, Uhura  23:12, 26 December 2011 (UTC)


 * In military security, there is strict enforcement of "need to know" to prevent leaks of secret information, especially when the Japan FO was negotiating with the USA State Dept. The Japan FO did not have a need to know about the Hawaii attack plans and so the Japan military was prohibited from discussing or even hinting about the plans except within a small group of military officers and their planning staff.  Even within the Japan military, most people did not have a need to know.  The Japan military was prohibited from mentioning or discussing the attack plans in FO messages.   Greensburger (talk) 16:57, 27 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Do you seriously think I'm unaware of "need to know"? You still haven't explained why the military would be discussing their plans in FO msgs to begin with. It's not as if MAGIC was reading JN-25 at the time...  TREKphiler   any time you're ready, Uhura  19:10, 27 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Who said the Japan military would be discussing their plans in FO msgs? That clearly did not happen, so why bring it up? Greensburger (talk) 19:56, 27 December 2011 (UTC)
 * "Who said the Japan military would be discussing their plans in FO msgs?" You did, when you changed the original wording.  TREKphiler   any time you're ready, Uhura  20:09, 27 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Ok, I finally understand what you object to my wording: "the Japanese military was very careful not to discuss their plans in Foreign Office communications". Yes, the J. military did not send FO messages - the J. FO did that.  Although I could reword it to say that the J. military was careful not to reveal any of the Hawaiian attack plans to the FO so there could be no leaks in FO commenications, I do not know whether some top FO officials were briefed on the plan on a "need to know" basis prior to the order to burn all secret documents.  A few sentences in the article explaining who in the J. FO knew some of these plans and what they knew prior to the burn order would be a useful addition. Greensburger (talk) 19:00, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
 * That's what the quote was trying to get across: the attack plan was never going to turn up in the Purple intercepts to begin with, so reading them meant nothing. It is, as IIRC David Kahn puts it, a "purple herring" (a phrase I wish I'd come up with!)
 * I agree, something on who in FO knew might be useful; my sense is, nobody did.  TREKphiler   any time you're ready, Uhura  23:38, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

"However, Galantin refers to Magic as "Ultra" which was actually the name given to the breaking of the German code."?
Ultra was the designation adopted by British military intelligence in June 1941 for wartime signals intelligence obtained by breaking high-level encrypted enemy radio and teleprinter communications at the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) at Bletchley Park.[1] Ultra eventually became the standard designation among the western Allies for all such intelligence. The name arose because the intelligence thus obtained was considered more important than that designated by the highest British security classification then used (Most Secret) and so was regarded as being Ultra secret.[2] Several other cryptonyms had been used for such intelligence. British intelligence first designated it Boniface — presumably to imply that it was the result of human intelligence. The U.S. used the codename Magic for its decrypts from Japanese sources. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Constantinehuk (talk • contribs) 04:00, 14 November 2013 (UTC)


 * Galantin wrote his book post war. By that time Ultra had long supplanted Magic as a general descriptor for signal intelligence products. He may have simply forgotten that at one time the material had been referred to as Magic.Oldbubblehead (talk) 03:59, 22 April 2018 (UTC)
 * He may not have forgotten; he may have done what a lot of postwar writers did, & used the term which has become more familiar. It's akin to using "JN-25" even referring to a time before the JN-25 designator was assigned.  TREKphiler  any time you're ready, Uhura  01:07, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

This statement in the current article is simply not true ....
"though no evidence exists that such intercepts were the actual rationale for EO 9066."

(1) The only remaining Executive Department official who was still alive in the 1990's both testified and otherwise stated on record that the intercepts were a consideration in the lead-up to the decision for EO 9066. From memory, he was an undersecretary in the War Department? He testified in the hearings by the rigged committee that recommended the $70,000 payments to babies and even traitors who had renounced U.S. citizenship and returned to Japan after the war.

(2) The timing, progression, and pattern of the intercepts themselves provide evidence for the decision for EO 9066. Even though all radio traffic was not even intercepted -- leading to perfectly reasonable suspicions about what additional Japanese spying activities and sabotage plans might NOT be being picked up by the intercepts -- FDR would have been fully aware of the very disturbing sequence of messages that WERE intercepted, especially beginning from the early part of 1941, which resulted in the FBI "bust" of the California spy ring that summer and stated plans by Tokyo to move and continue spying/sabotage operations from Mexico (which also, like Canada, had already removed ethnic Japanese from its coastal area BEFORE the USA did). Starhistory22 (talk) 14:55, 12 December 2015 (UTC)
 * My understanding is, the quote meant intercepts were not the sole basis, & IMO that's a solid statement. If you can actually source testimony contradicting it, please do. Using the timing of intercepts as evidence of anything, OTOH, is a flimsy reed to build on. Moreover, relying on breaking spy rings, which AIUI were entirely made up of Japanese nationals, as a justification for interning American citizens is exactly the problem: you're doing exactly what the USG was doing, & you're just as wrong.  TREKphiler   any time you're ready, Uhura  19:56, 12 December 2015 (UTC)

I am changing that text, and providing the direct authoritative reference to testimony of Dr. McCloy, who unequivocally stated that the MAGIC intercepts were a "very important factor." Not the only factor of course, because there were a huge number of issues causing the War Department to exclude people from various regions of critical military importance. The spy rings explicitly did include American citizens, so the comment just above is incorrect. (Thousands of Japanese-Americans actually renounced their American citizenship to, on purpose, become "enemy aliens." They then left and joined the Japanese war effort.) Mr Pete (talk) 12:39, 9 February 2018 (UTC)
 * I'd change it back, except it is cited. The trouble is, Malkin's "investigative" work is flimsy & makes the kind of faulty connections mentioned above to justify internment of American citizens for crimes by Japanese nationals. (I know, I've read it.) While not as thin as Stinnett, better sourcing for this claim would be a good idea.  TREKphiler  any time you're ready, Uhura  21:56, 9 February 2018 (UTC)

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Executive Order
The deciphered messages quoted to show evidence of Japanese spy activity seem to fall a little short of proving that a major Japanese spy effort existed especially one which would justify the forced relocations and internments. The messages seem to be more a collection "Wanna dos" as opposed to "Have dones." In other words it appears to be your typical bureaucratic cover your ass memo. Sure there were fears but what was the actual reality? How many Japanese nationals and Japanese Americans were arrested, tried, and convicted for espionage carried out before and during the war? How many networks were uncovered? Overall, the article seems to have veered away from a discussion of Magic itself into a discussion of Magic as it relates to the internments. Perhaps, this topic should be removed from the Magic article and either folded into the articles dealing with internment or made an article by itself.Oldbubblehead (talk) 04:43, 22 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I'd agree with that. That's more "applications of MAGIC intelligence" than about the MAGIC system proper.  TREKphiler  any time you're ready, Uhura  01:17, 23 April 2018 (UTC)