The Department of Mathematics and Statistics
invites you to join us for a special presentation:
Mamba vs. JN-25
presented by
Jared Antrobus
Friday, November 1, 3:00 pm, MEP 461
Abstract:
A postwar report shows that during World War II OP-20-GM, the research section of
Naval Communications, planned and the Naval Computing Machine Laboratory
engineered and produced at least 27 different codebreaking machines or attachments and
did developmental work on others. This is the story of one of those machines – Mamba.
The documentation relating to Mamba is thorough enough that it is possible to track the
development of Mamba from an idea based upon the error-detection property built into
the Japanese naval cipher JN-25 through planning and engineering to a finished machine.
This is that story; it is told mostly from the writings of those who participated in the
development of Mamba.
The speaker is a senior mathematics and statistics major at NKU. He recently presented
the results of his undergraduate research on cryptology at the National Security Agency’s
2013 Cryptologic History Symposium.