[Poohbah]

Well, you're the one arguing that we were too harsh on the Rosenbergs.

And Mort Sobell's a piece of work. First, he was part of the ring.

Second, he makes an argument that indicates that he's either (a) willfully ignorant about cryptography (since it's the latest in a string of evidence that says he's guilty, one would THINK that he'd study up on it in order to argue against it effectively), or (b) he does know what he's talking about and is lying.

His argument is that the coming of the computer should have massively increased the number of VENONA decrypts. It sounds plausible, unless you understand how the one-time pad system worked--and why VENONA achieved what it did.

Basically, the idea behind the one-time pad is that the message is turned into a series of numbers using a fixed formula (either a code book or a simple substitution cipher), and the figures on the one-time pad are then added to the message. The important part is that the encryption figures are used only ONCE and then destroyed. If the encryption pad is used only once, then it's impossible for a third party to break out the message.

VENONA relied on two lucky breaks: the recovery of PART of an NKVD code book, and the fact that the USSR's espionage apparatus was so busily energetic in the US that the NKVD was forced to reuse some one-time pads--thus invalidating the entire premise of the system.

Not all NKVD operatives used the same pads--only a few. The Rosenbergs got extremely unlucky.

Sobell's argument treats computers as these amazing devices that can do amazingly new mathematics. Actually, they can't. They can just do a bunch of calculations in the time that it takes to perform one calculation manually. A computer can't break a properly-employed one-time system.

Now, either Sobell's an ignorant fool, or he's a willful liar. Given his background (unrepentant agent of the USSR), I vote for the latter.

[liberallarry]

Well, you're the one arguing that we were too harsh on the Rosenbergs

Based on the article I thought we ignored the protections of the Fifth Amendment and I questioned whether the situation justified that. That's not the same thing.

You know way more about Sobell's argument than I do - and I don't intend to do the research necessary to upgrade my understanding - so I'll leave this to others.

[liberallarry]

Here's an example of the kind of problem I encounter immediately

You say

VENONA relied on two lucky breaks: the recovery of PART of an NKVD code book...

But Sobell says

and it goes on to deny that "the battlefield-recovered Soviet codebooks," which hitherto had received the credit, were available to NSA before 1953.

and

"Almost all of the KGB messages between Moscow and Washington of 1944 and 1945 that could have been broken at all were broken, to a greater or lesser degree, between 1947 and 1952."

What's going on?