National Cryptologic Museum, Maryland

During the Covid lockdown, the National Cryptologic Museum in Annapolis Junction, Maryland, (which isn't even close to Annapolis) closed. The owners redid many of the exhibits, creating a new and even more enjoyable experience for visitors. The museum re-opened in October 2022. We visited on Black Friday, trying to avoid the crowds at shopping malls. The joke was on us because everyone else that did not want to shop came here. Even with the crowd, it was a fun experience.

Right by the entrance is a large wheel decoder for encrypting your name.

Or you can just keep spinning it

One hands-on exhibit shows encryption in the ancient world. The ancient Greeks had a code called scytale, where a strap is wrapped around a stick of an exact width to show a message. The sample had several leather straps and several sticks, challenging visitors to match the right stick to the right strap.

Information on transposition cipher, old-style

Success

A less complicated cipher is named after Julius Caesar, who used a simple shift cipher to encrypt his messages. All the letters are shifted a certain number. 

Better than a Caesar's Salad?

A major part of cryptology is understanding other languages. A common source for learning obscure local languages is a Bible. Many missionaries put the hard work in to understand the language and translate the sacred texts for the locals to read and understand. 

Bibles in foreign languages

Obscure languages also make for good codes. An exhibit shows items from Native American Code Talkers. The Comanche language was used during World War II as a very strong code.

Code Talker uniforms

A notebook with translations

The room on languages have a lot of interesting information on the walls, explaining family languages and orphaned languages. They even describe how many languages die out and how they can come back from the dead.  

Language relationships

Zombie languages!

The museum has several Enigma machines that were used by the Nazis during World War II. The Allies captured a machine during the war and were able to decode German messages, creating a huge advantage.

Enigma useable by visitors

The HMFS machine was used by the Germans in World War II to decrypt Soviet intelligence communications. Dubbed the "Russian Fish," it was discovered by the Allies at the end of the war and secretly used to decode the new enemy's intelligence. The Allies renamed it CAVIAR. It became a big success after August 25, 1948, when the Soviets changed all their codes and ciphers. CAVIAR still worked, providing lots of intel for many years during the Cold War.

CAVIAR is a better name, right?

The HF/DF (high-frequency direction finder) was used by the Americans to locate Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army units in the late 1960s.

 

Does it get the good channels?

The M209 was a field encryption device. Its codes were breakable with a few days of work, which was plenty of time to be useful for tactical situations. It was first used by the Americans in World War II and subsequently saw service in the Korean War and the Vietnam War.

Portability is good

The United States Navy used the ECM Mark II starting in the 1930s. ECM stands for Electric Cipher Machine.

More like a regular typewriter

The NSA enhanced a Droid phone in 2012 so that encrypted calls, emails, and data services can be used. 

They have out-captioned me!

Even civilian government agencies need secure communications, like NASA does when sending military or intelligence payloads into space. This KG-46 encryption system was recovered from the wreckage of the Challenger explosion.

From the Challenger Disaster

The OMI Criptograph was an Italian coding machine similar to the German Enigma that was thought to be lost since the 1950s. This machine was found in 2021 in an NSA warehouse!

Does not look particularly Italian, does it?

This M-9 machine was used to confirm messages in World War II decrypted from German. The wheels have to be in exactly the right configuration to decrypt accurately.

M-9 sounds like a rifle, not a decrypter

The DARPA SSITH Automotive Demonstrator is a simulator where the driver can experience what it's like when a passenger vehicle is hacked. The line of kids to try it out was long, so I just got a picture outside of it.

The blogger and the car

The newly refurbished museum has lots of great stuff to see!

Geocaching November 2022

My first cache, on the first of the month, was DIAL 369... which was not at the spot one might think. The location is out back of a gas station/Wendys and the lunch traffic had already died away, so that was good. I did not see a phone booth around anywhere, which is what I was expecting.

Not my car

The next blank day I found Bamboo, Ginger, and an Ape (MW#2), the final cache in a "Morning Walk" series. The hiding spot was a bit more challenging than the usual. It was located at the crossroads of two walking paths, though the paths have almost no cover between them and the neighborhood houses. As I was searching for the cache, some people walked by. We did the suburban thing--politely ignoring each other.

The area

The container

By one of the many village centers in Columbia, Maryland, I found Penance! 528+ft away. I don't quite understand the story behind the name--something about claiming one cache as a "Did Not Find" but then finding it, thus having to place a cache nearby. I can't follow that logic, maybe you can. The only tricky thing about this cache is all the muggles walking by at lunchtime.

The way to the cache

Another daytime find was The Midnight Cache, part of a Little Friendly Library in a nearby neighborhood. The boys were with me but only one was not shy about being in the picture.

Turn down the sunshine!

After another run taking my daughter halfway across the county to her Algebra II class, I found By the road, a cache hidden just off a cul-de-sac. A small strip of woods separates the houses from a highway, making it a good location to hide a cache. I was confused by the tree that had an inner tube around it.

View from the cache

Not the cache

Home Sweet Home... must be near somebody's home. I just know if I lived near here this hill would make some excellent sledding dreams come true.

It doesn't look that steep in this picture

I've been making swings through a local rest area on I-95 because there's a cache in a picnic area. Every time I go, someone is actually picnicking! Well, every time except for 1:30 p.m. on a 44 degree Thursday! The cache is called 100 Favorite Points Challenge, where the finder has to qualify by having found between three and ninety-nine Maryland geocaches that have "favorite points" that add up to 100. Premium Geocaching members can give "favorite points" to geocaches that they really like. I was able to pull up an appropriate list and my top four finds had over 100 points collectively. The information below is the cache name, the cache code, how many favorites it has, and when I found the cache (in case the cache owner wants to check that I did it). I imagine that the numbers will only go higher as time goes on.

Grace  GC3V12M Fav=36  2/19/2017

Hat!  GC5GB23 Fav=31  7/2/2020

A Boy’s Bridge Cache GC1PZ40 Fav=19  3/26/2016

A View from the Point  GC6DAF Fav=19  4/2/2016

Favorite points = 105!

Picnic pavilion

I went for a hike in Broad Creek Park, Annapolis (or really a suburb of Annapolis) where I found Hamilton! and Truman Parkway Rain Garden. See my write-up of the hike here.

Toby's Trail is a cache at the end of a trail leading into Scott's Cove, a park on the Rocky Gorge Reservoir part of the Patuxent River. The hike was easy, down a trail used by fishermen. Someone built a shelter nearby!

Shelter!

The cove

After Thanksgiving, that is, on Black Friday, we avoided the malls and sales. Instead, we went to the National Cryptologic Museum and found the virtual cache Angvbany Pelcgbybtvp Zhfrhz. We had to find the answers to a bunch of cryptological questions and send in a picture next to the DARPA SSITH Automotive Demonstrator. The museum was packed with others also avoiding shopping crowds!

At the Cryptologic Museum!

My 700th geocache was Feed the 5000, a mystery cache that starts at a church. I was expecting some sort of sign at the church to be part of the solution but there was no sign. I solved the mystery on my own and quickly found the cache nearby.

Plain Protestant Parish

Right by the GZ for the Christian cache was the starting point for the multi-cache The Labyrinth at Woods. The location has one of those walking labyrinths though the clues are on signs and other objects near the labyrinth. I made the calculations to find the final stage of the cache, which was on my way back to the car! 

View from the final stage

My final cache of the month was The BWPBY Cache... in Burtonsville, Maryland. The location is a former strip mall. All the stores moved across the street for some reason (probably to get to the other side). It was empty and wet when I visited it on the 30th.

I bet the rent is cheap now!

The month ends with my cache count at 703 and only two days of non-caching on the calendar. December will be tough with eighteen blank days, all at the beginning! Wish me luck (and good weather).

Cute Kid Pix November 2017

More pictures that didn't make their own blog post...

Our local library participated in Maryland's 2017 STEM festival with a scientific-themed playtime--Marvelous Magformers. Magformers are geometric shapes with magnets inside that can be connected to each other in amazing ways. My young son, after playing with some duplos, got into the fun.

Starting with Duplos

Not the most stable tower

Dinosaur helps out

Not sure about these Magformer thingies

More comfortable

He did get a bit abstract with his construction, promising a future in the arts, or at least in art museums.

Maryland had a STEM festival which was supported by more than the library. A local museum had a bunch of STEM activities one night. We went straight for the "use math to get out of handcuffs," though that turned out to be more than (and less than) we bargained for. The cuffs weren't real handcuffs, just two loops with a big string in between. Two people would be cuffed with the long string looped through and then they would have to figure out how to separate without taking the "handcuffs" off. There wasn't really any math or any handcuffs or even getting the handcuff-subsitutes off. I'd seen this before so I knew the solution but the kids couldn't figure it out and just got frustrated. So that was the end of STEM night at the museum.

Getting strung out over a couple of strings

The cub scout pack meeting had the boys making care packages for soldiers stationed overseas, as well as practicing some Christmas tunes for a nursing home visit in December. Hopefully we'll have some pics in December!

My son the scout

The elementary school had their book fair. We went on Friday night and got pictures with a celebrity!

Meeting Clifford

Hugging Clifford

We did buy way too many books, as usual. We were supporting a good cause, right?

Armed Forces Day 2015

For Armed Forces Day (May 16 in 2015) we went back to the Cryptologic Museum for their festivities. The day celebrates all those who defend our country. It was created in 1949 as a consolidation of the various Army, Navy, and Air Force Days (since they were all integrated into the Department of Defense that year). The Marine Corps still celebrates their own day but they also participate in Armed Forces Day.

The sign

Walking in from the parking lot, the first display was the radio station, where ham radio operators demonstrated their equipment and techniques. They had a radio from World War II and some telegraph equipment (along with a chart showing Morse Code). J and L were fascinated by the old-style equipment.

Ham radio demonstrations

Old tech-the kids loved the typewriter

Morse Code and broadcasters

Another set

At another booth, Naval cadets taught knot tying. L was more interested than J, though that may have been due to the colorful little ropes on which they practiced.

The nice lady demonstrates a square knot for L

L ties the knot!

Further on was a thank you card to sign to troops out on deployment.

L signs

J signs

Also outside were several emergency response vehicles from the Maryland National Guard. One looks like a communications vehicle with its special dome antenna. No one was there to talk about it. The doors were open so J and L both sat at the wheel.

Communications/response vehicle

J at the wheel

L ready to drive

Front view of the car

The other vehicle is basically a mobile crime lab. Meant to analyze CBRNE (chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, or explosive) materials, it is useful during large scale incidents or in handling much simpler issues like an envelope with suspicious white powder.

Mobile CBRNE lab

We saw where the band would be playing later in the afternoon, but L had a birthday party to attend, so we never got to hear them. Maybe next year!

Band stand before band's arrival

On our way inside, L and J picked up sheets for the scavenger hunt, which consisted in finding letters at various stations and displays and matching them up to different lines on the sheet. The SIGABA cipher machine was used by the Americans in World War II.

SIGABA Machine provided scavenger hunt letter E!

Across the hall is a display for the Wind Talkers, Navajos who used their language as a code indecipherable to the Axis powers in the Pacific.

Wind Talkers display

Another fun activity indoors was the invisible ink display. In the American War of Independence, colonial spies used invisible ink to hide messages in mundane correspondence. A reactive agent made the words reappear!

J and L write with invisible ink

L restores her letters

Another interesting code is this random sheet of letters (bottom of the picture) that is discernible only when the top sheet is placed over it.

Will the proper letters please make themselves known!

Many other displays show the various devices used to keep information secure, including the famous Enigma machine.

Enigma

A bit from the Colossus computer

Vietnam-era reconnaissance 

Old-fashioned satellite

After completing the scavenger hunt, J and L turned in their sheets for the prize--ice cream.

A sweet, sprinkly treat

One last station outside had an enormous Jenga block tower. We didn't try our hand at it but admired others who did.

Super Jenga

We were happy to celebrate Armed Forces Day in such an informative and fun way.