ENCYCLOPEDIA OF Espionage, Intelligence, and Security Volume ...

Colossus Iguerilla control. Violence and sporadic fighting continueto be endemic in the nation, but the government restructuredintelligence, police, and military forces to combatthe problem.❚ DAVID TULLOCHColossus IColombia’s main intelligence service is the NationalIntelligence Service (SIN). The SIN coordinates civilianintelligence efforts, including those of subsidiary departmentssuch as counter-intelligence, anti-terrorism, andsurveillance forces. SIN operations cover both domesticand foreign intelligence, but focus on combating politicalinsurgency and threats to national security. The agencyworks with the Colombian National Police to investigatecriminal activities related to drug cartels or paramilitarygroups, as well as instances of government corruption.The Department of Administrative Security (DAS)works to protect government officials and buildings. TheDAS also conducts limited counter-espionage operationsto ensure the safety and security of government informationand communication systems.Military intelligence in Colombia is the responsibilityof the army and the Intelligence Department (F-2). Militaryintelligence assesses external threats to Colombian nationalsecurity, and conducts surveillance of paramilitaryand rebel groups within national borders.After a series of constitutional reforms in the early1990s, the Colombian government began negotiationswith leftist rebel and right-wing paramilitary groups. Thegovernment in Bogotá ceded control of some remoteareas to opposition control, but the transfers of power didlittle to abate continued violence. The government continuesto use intelligence and security forces for both antiparamilitaryoperations and political espionage with somesuccess. Creation of the Anti-Kidnapping Squad has reducedthe number of government officials, journalists,and foreign businesspeople taken by insurgent forceswho seek to intimidate the government or extract ransompayments.In the midst of political chaos, the presence andinfluence of drug trafficking rings, cartels, and crime syndicateshas increased in Colombia and throughout thesurrounding region. The Colombian government haspledged support to international efforts to reduce thecultivation, production, and trafficking of illicit drugs. Withthe aid of the United States, and other nations, Colombiapatrols its countryside with aerial surveillance, has implementedtighter security in its ports, and begun a campaignto seize illegal funds and halt money laundering operations.❚ FURTHER READING:ELECTRONIC:Central Intelligence Agency. “Colombia” CIA WorldFactbook (April 8, 2003).Colossus I was the world’s first programmable computer.Colossus I was created during World War II by the Britishto speed up the decryption of German messages encodedby the Lorenz Schlüsselzusatz (SZ) 40 and 42 machines.In 1940, the British began to intercept German non-Morse teleprinter text that used the Baudot Code, aninternational standard where each letter is represented byfive binary elements. In modern binary notation, A is11000, B equals 10011, and G is 01011. The Lorenz machineused a code devised by Gilbert Vernam (1890–1960)in 1918. Obscuring letters were added in modulo 2 addition,where adding like to like gives a 0, while like andunlike equals 1.The Lorenz machine added two obscuring lettersgenerated by two sets of five-toothed wheels, and twomotor wheels arranged in any order and starting position.The British did manage to break this system when multiplemessages were sent using the same initial settings,but decoding was time-consuming and only partially successful.Eventually, the internal workings of the SZ machineswere deduced, and allowed decoding, providingthe starting position of the wheels could be found. Decodingby hand, however, took several weeks. Max Newman(1897–1984) used the ideas of Alan Turing (1912–1954) todesign a machine to speed up the process. Called “Robinson”after Heath Robinson, the British cartoonist anddesigner of fantastic machines, it compared the coded textwith another piece of tape that represented the Lorenzwheel settings. However, keeping the two paper tapes insync at high speed was difficult, and they frequently tore.Tommy Flowers (1905–1998), an engineer, had theidea of representing the Lorenz wheel settings electronically,doing away with the need for synchronised tapes.Despite many doubters, Flowers spent ten months buildingthe Colossus Mark I, completed on December 8, 1943.Colossus contained 1500 valves, more than had beenpreviously used in a single device, and used photocells toread punched paper tape at 5000 characters per second. Ithad a limited memory, of five-bits, and used pluggablelogic gates. The wheel settings of the Lorenz ciphers weresimulated in collections of thyratons, gas-filled triodesthat acted as one-bit stores. The results were then printedvia a typewriter.The Colossus Mark I was quickly outdated by theColossus II, the first of which was finished by June, 1944.Nine Mark IIs were built, and the original machine wasupgraded to become the tenth machine, each one occupyinga large room. The Colossus II used around 2500 valuesand read the tape five times as fast as its predecessor.The Colossus machines counted through the lengthof the encoded text many times, effectively trying outbillions of combinations to determine which initial wheel242 Encyclopedia of Espionage, Intelligence, and Security