[Verse 1] In nineteen forty-three the war was raging on Soviet messages flew through the night and dawn One-time pads they used, unbreakable they claimed Each key used just once, that's how the game was played But pressure makes us slip, and clerks began to err Reusing precious keys, a mistake that would occur [Chorus] Venona, Venona, patterns in the code Statistical breaking found the hidden road One-time pad vulnerability, the fatal flaw revealed Pattern recognition algorithms made the secrets yield Venona, Venona, thirty-seven years Cracking Soviet mysteries through mathematical tears [Verse 2] The codebreakers noticed something wasn't right Repetitions in the messages that came through every night Statistical algorithms started counting up the clues Pattern recognition found what the Soviets would lose When one-time pads repeat, the cipher starts to break Perfect secrecy crumbles from one simple mistake [Chorus] Venona, Venona, patterns in the code Statistical breaking found the hidden road One-time pad vulnerability, the fatal flaw revealed Pattern recognition algorithms made the secrets yield Venona, Venona, thirty-seven years Cracking Soviet mysteries through mathematical tears [Bridge] Julius Rosenberg's name appeared in black and white Hundreds of Soviet agents brought into the light Atomic secrets stolen, networks running deep The mystery of penetration, no longer theirs to keep [Verse 3] From forty-three to eighty, the project carried on Reading Soviet secrets from dusk until the dawn What seemed unbreakable fell to math and time Pattern recognition made their cipher schemes decline The deepest penetration finally came to light When algorithms triumphed over cryptographic might [Chorus] Venona, Venona, patterns in the code Statistical breaking found the hidden road One-time pad vulnerability, the fatal flaw revealed Pattern recognition algorithms made the secrets yield Venona, Venona, thirty-seven years Cracking Soviet mysteries through mathematical tears [Outro] Nineteen ninety-five, the secret was revealed How algorithms broke what should have stayed sealed
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