Project VENONA

The Lawfare Podcast

The Lawfare Institute

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4.7 • 6.4K Ratings

🗓️ 27 January 2021

⏱️ 59 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

David Kris sat down with David Hatch, the senior historian at the U.S. National Security Agency. They discussed Project VENONA, an incredibly significant intelligence program involving encrypted Soviet messages that began during World War II and went on for many years thereafter. It's a story full of unusual events and interesting lessons about intelligence and counterintelligence and spy vs. spy. There's also a little review of encryption—specifically, the risks of reusing one-time encryption pads—and a discussion of the declassification process of Project VENONA and why we can talk about the project at all.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	The following podcast contains advertising to access an ad-free version of the LawFair
0:07.2	podcast become a material supporter of LawFair at patreon.com slash LawFair.
0:14.7	That's patreon.com slash LawFair.
0:18.2	Also, check out LawFair's other podcast offerings, rational security, chatter, LawFair
0:25.6	no bull and the aftermath.
0:55.6	Get a quote now at UNIG.co.uk. Terms and conditions supply.
1:00.3	Full details can be found online.
1:08.6	Working these messages, most of them still only from the wartime period until 1980 helped
1:18.1	the United States understand the nature and procedures of Soviet espionage organizations
1:26.1	and also enabled the United States to discover the identity of Americans who were passing
1:32.9	secrets to the Soviet Union.
1:35.3	It was one of the most powerful counterintelligence tools that the United States had in the 1940s,
1:42.4	50s and 60s.
1:44.6	I'm David Chris and this is the LawFair podcast.
1:47.7	January 27th, 2021.
1:51.2	Today's podcast is the second in what I hope will be a series of deep dive historical inquiries.
1:57.1	A few weeks ago I sat down with the former lawyer and historian for GCHQ, the UK Signals
2:02.5	Intelligence Agency, to talk about the history of British SIGINT.
2:06.8	And today I'm with Dave Hatch, the senior historian at the US National Security Agency.
2:13.0	Dave and I discussed Project Venona, an incredibly significant intelligence program involving
2:18.3	encrypted Soviet messages that began during World War II and went on for many years thereafter.
2:25.2	It's a story full of unusual events and interesting lessons about intelligence and counterintelligence
	...

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