Fumbo (cipher); Kufumba (to mystify)

 

If you’ve used a feature phone before, I bet you can decipher the code highlighted in the bottom of the image. What does it say? The keypad serves as an algorithm for encryption and decryption of the message.

Fumbo – 1. parable 2. puzzle. 3. arithmetic problem, puzzle. 4. riddle, conundrum, mystery. 5. proposition.

Fumbua – 1. solve, decipher, elucidate a problem or riddle. 2. open up e.g., a closed hand or eyes.

 

Simple verb	Reversive	Applicative of reversive
Fumba (encode/encipher)	Fumbua (decode/decipher)	Fumbia (decode for/decipher for)

 

Verb

-fumba (infinitive kufumba)

1.       to shut closed

2.       to mystify or elude

cipher

1. a secret or disguised way of writing; a code. Code, secret writing, coded message, cryptograph, cryptogram

"he was writing cryptic notes in a cipher"

2. a zero; a figure 0, nought, nil, 0, naught

verb

1. to put (a message) into secret writing; encode.

In cryptography, a cipher (or cypher) is an algorithm for performing encryption or decryption—a series of well-defined steps that can be followed as a procedure. An alternative, less common term is encipherment. To encipher or encode is to convert information into cipher or code. In common parlance, "cipher" is synonymous with "code", as they are both a set of steps that encrypt a message.

Originating from the Arabic word for zero صفر (sifr), itself a calque of Sanskrit शून्य (śūnya - emptiness), the Kiswahili iteration being ‘sufuri’, the word "cipher" spread to Europe as part of the Arabic numeral system during the Middle Ages. The Roman numeral system lacked the concept of zero, and this limited advances in mathematics. In this transition, the word was adopted into Medieval Latin as cifra, and then into Middle French as cifre. This eventually led to the English word cipher (minority spelling cypher). One theory for how the term came to refer to encoding is that the concept of zero was confusing to Europeans, and so the term came to refer to a message or communication that was not easily understood.

The term cipher was later also used to refer to any Arabic digit, or to calculation using them, so encoding text in the form of Arabic numerals was literally converting the text to "ciphers" according to Europeans.

Short story:

During the Second World War, GC&CS was based largely at Bletchley Park, in present-day Milton Keynes, working on understanding the German Enigma machine and Lorenz ciphers. In 1940, GC&CS was working on the diplomatic codes and ciphers of 26 countries, tackling over 150 diplomatic cryptosystems. The 1943 British–US Communication Intelligence Agreement, BRUSA, connected the signal intercept networks of the GC&CS and the US National Security Agency (NSA).

An outstation in the Far East, the Far East Combined Bureau, was set up in Hong Kong in 1935 and moved to Singapore in 1939. Subsequently, with the Japanese advance down the Malay Peninsula, the Army and RAF codebreakers went to the Wireless Experimental Centre in Delhi, India. The Navy codebreakers in FECB went to Colombo, Ceylon, then to Kilindini, near Mombasa, Kenya Colony.

From April 1942 through to August 1943 the Mombasa outpost named 'KILINDINI' formed a vital link in the radio eavesdropping chain which blanketed the Indian and Pacific oceans and reported to London, Washington, New Delhi, Melbourne and Hawaii. The outpost was located within the Allidina Visram high school in Mombasa.

*The school was owned and named after an Ismaili Khoja named Allidina Visram, born in 1851 at Kera, Bombay, British India; who sailed to Zanzibar at the age of 12, to serve as an assistant to businessman Sewa Haji (Paroo) in 1863. In due course, he set up his own caravans into the interiors, from Dar-es-Salaam to Ujiji to Congo. Upon the death of Haji Paroo in 1897, Allidina took the caravan trade far and wide to Uganda. He was mainly involved in the hunting of elephants for ivory and was famously known as `King of Ivory'. Aga Khan III bestowed upon him the title of 'Varas Vazier', a first to any Indian.

The collapse of Singapore and - in early 1942 - the Japanese raid on Ceylon, and the growing concern that India itself might come under attack, persuaded the British to withdraw their Far Eastern Fleet out of range of the all-conquering Japanese, hence the retreat to Mombasa.

On April 25, 1942, the British Royal Navy's Admiral Somerville sailed for Mombasa, taking the code breakers with him.

British woman intelligence officer Joan Sprinks recalled:

"We embarked in the AMC Alaunia, surrounded by many ships of the Eastern Fleet: HMS Warspite, the flagship; the carriers HMS Indomitable and HMS Formidable; the cruisers HMS Emerald and HMS Newcastle; and many others. We arrived in Kilindini Harbour, Mombasa, on May 3, 1942, to an accompanying welcome of wolf-whistles from HMS Royal Sovereign and were quartered in a small hotel in Mombasa - the Lotus."

Their controller Paymaster Lieutenant-Commander Harry Shaw and his officers selected an Indian boys' school called Allidina Visram, overlooking the Indian Ocean about a mile outside Mombasa.

While London read the now celebrated 'Enigma' codes from Berlin, and Washington perused Tokyo's 'Purple' cipher, it was in Mombasa that code-breakers helped interpret the all-important Japanese JN4O code.

This later allowed the Allies to keep an hour-by-hour track of all movements by the Imperial Japanese Navy.

 

References

Ali-Karamali, Sumbul (2008). The Muslim Next Door: The Qur'an, the Media, and That Veil Thing. White Cloud Press. pp. 240–241.

Alvarez, David (2001). "Most Helpful and Cooperative: GC&CS and the Development of American Diplomatic Cryptanalysis, 1941–1942". In Smith, Michael; Erskine, Ralph (eds.). Action This Day: Bletchley Park from the Breaking of the Enigma Code to the Birth of the Modern Computer. Bantam Press.

Gannon, Paul (2006). Colossus: Bletchley Park's Greatest Secret. Atlantic Books.

Smith, Michael (2001). The emperor's codes  the breaking of Japan's secret ciphers

TUKI (2001), Kamusi Ya Kiswahili-Kiingereza; Swahili-English Dictionary. Published by Taasisi ya Uchunguzi wa Kiswahili (TUKI), Chuo Kikuu cha Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.