Pocket Apparatus Sphinxl |
Ansicht |
For lack of a proper name, the strip cipher device being described here as "SPHINX" comes from the raised image of Sphinx which appears on the bakelite carrying case. Albert Gentet of Paris received U.S. Patent 1956384 for the device on 24 April 1934. An image of the device, formerly posted to the United States Patent Office web page, describes it as a "Pocket Cryptographic Apparatus". The patent application was dated December 1, 1931. It is not known what brand name the unit was sold under.
The device is made up of 20 alphabet slides that the operator can scramble in any set of 10 pairs. One end is clear text and the other is the encrypted text. In the aluminum Sphinx, the pairs lock together at the ends. In the wood version, they just push against one another. |