RIP, Carl Gorman, Code Talker

Mr. Carl Gorman, one of the few remaining Navajo 'Code-Talkers' of 
WWII fame, died yesterday of cancer at the age of 90. Along with
his fellow Navajo, he encrypted military voice communication by 
using his native language over the radio in the Great American 
Imperialist Struggle against the Great Japanese Imperialist
Initative.

Just a few thoughts:

- when asked why he helped America after all the abuse he took 
growing up as a Navajo, he basically said (my interpretation
here) he was fighting to protect the Navajo, not particularily
America, from the Japanese. A geographical dilemma.

- aside from the NSA sucking up everything in sight relating to
languages, doesn't Chomsky's theoretical 'Universal Syntax' (all
human languages have an identical fundamental syntax) negate the 
effectiveness of the Code-Talker approach in the long run? 

- on the other hand, the lovely ambiguities of natural language
would seem to be capable of effectively obscuring the meaning of
the message even if the plaintext were revealed. For example,
President Clinton's reference to 'blowjobs' not actually being
a sexual act. While the President is innocently asking a normal
person to provide him with a urgently needed act of personal 
hygiene, that person mistakingly would be thinking he wants oral 
sex. An effective obscuration of the Prez's message.

- now-a-days of course, if the shoe were on the other foot, the
Navy's NOSS satellite constellations would trianglate on the
radio signal and feed the coordinates to one of the TDRS sat-
ellites to target the crusie missles we just launched, effectively
ending the conversation prematurely without regard to syntax. 
[Sexy Hi-Tech Option]. Using radio for passing encrypted comm
seems to require a few non-traditional approaches. For example,
using a repeater system that would present the NOSS satellites
and any RDF equipment in the neighborhood with 'a thousand
points of...' RF energy - the 'needle-in-the-haystack' 
approach. The source would be difficult to find amongst its
many (presumedly cheap) clones.

Oh well. Good bye Carl. Thanks for the help. Sorry we were such
jerks. On the bright side - we're such third-rate fuckups it's
a sure thing the Navajo will out-live us if they just hang in
there a little bit longer. Your living to 90 was a fine 
example. Survival is always the best revenge.

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(As Gary seems to be a newcomer, let me remind him and others that
"cypherpunks@toad.com" is not the place to send messages to the list.
Please use one of the distributed addresses.  It's been a year since the
list moved off of toad.com. I wish John would just start bouncing messages
sent to toad.com and be done with it.)


At 11:16 PM -0800 1/30/98, Gary Harland wrote:

>- when asked why he helped America after all the abuse he took
>growing up as a Navajo, he basically said (my interpretation
>here) he was fighting to protect the Navajo, not particularily
>America, from the Japanese. A geographical dilemma.

Never understimate the power of blind chauvinistic patriotism. Killing Japs
was the honorable thing to do, even for Injuns.


>- aside from the NSA sucking up everything in sight relating to
>languages, doesn't Chomsky's theoretical 'Universal Syntax' (all
>human languages have an identical fundamental syntax) negate the
>effectiveness of the Code-Talker approach in the long run?

"All crypto is economics." One doesn't have to jump to theoretical mumbo
jumbo about a putative "identical fundamental syntax" to know that the
Navajo code talkers were not using an unbreakable system.

But what mattered is that, for the level of security needed on the
battlefield, the system was "essentially secure" against Japanese
translation. Sure, in time the Japanese could have found some experts on
Navajo, could have trained their own code talker translators, etc. But they
didn't have this time. (And if we posit "enough time," then the U.S.
military would have had enough time to drop the Navajo code talkers and
replace them with Ebonics code talkers. Dat be da jive, mo fo.)

"All crypto is economics."

--Tim May

The Feds have shown their hand: they want a ban on domestic cryptography
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
ComSec 3DES:   408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
Higher Power: 2^2,976,221   | black markets, collapse of governments.
"National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

Tim May <tcmay@got.net> writes:

> (As Gary seems to be a newcomer, let me remind him and others that
> "cypherpunks@toad.com" is not the place to send messages to the list.
> Please use one of the distributed addresses.  It's been a year since the
> list moved off of toad.com. I wish John would just start bouncing messages
> sent to toad.com and be done with it.)

When are cocksuckers John Gilmore and Guy Polis planning to die from AIDS?

---

Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM
Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y.: +1-718-261-2013, 14.4Kbps

At 10:29 AM -0800 1/31/98, Tim May wrote:
>But what mattered is that, for the level of security needed on the
>battlefield, the system was "essentially secure" against Japanese
>translation. Sure, in time the Japanese could have found some experts on
>Navajo, could have trained their own code talker translators, etc. But they
>didn't have this time. (And if we posit "enough time," then the U.S.
>military would have had enough time to drop the Navajo code talkers and
>replace them with Ebonics code talkers. Dat be da jive, mo fo.)

When I was in China, I noted that French accented English was "essentially
secure" against understanding by our Chinese hosts.  We Americans did a lot
of English to English translation on that trip.


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>
>- aside from the NSA sucking up everything in sight relating to
>languages, doesn't Chomsky's theoretical 'Universal Syntax' (all
>human languages have an identical fundamental syntax) negate the
>effectiveness of the Code-Talker approach in the long run?
>

Not really; at its core, Chomsky's theory is a claim that every
human can learn any human language -- something that 2-year old
infants prove every day. I.e., nothing in language is specific
to any particular human social or racial group: the differences
are learned.  There is a fair body of research that indicates
that, after (roughly) puberty, humans do not learn foreign
languages in the same way that infants learn their first language;
but rather overlay the new language on top of their existing
language.

>- on the other hand, the lovely ambiguities of natural language
>would seem to be capable of effectively obscuring the meaning of
>the message even if the plaintext were revealed.

The code talkers used a variety of puns and allegorical metaphors
to hide the underlying meaning from someone who could translate
Navaho but lacked the overall shared culture of the Navaho sailors.
During the 1940's, only a handful of non-Navaho (generally linguists)
were fluent in the language (probably less than two dozen).

Incidently, in a recent episode of the South Bronx tv series, a crime
was solved because a black policeman was fluent in Japanese.

Martin Minow
minow@apple.com