Abstract: An IFF system produces a challenge in which some or all of the anti-interference pulses that are inserted between adjacent bits of an encrypted message are replaced with "information pulses" that convey information which a decryption sub-system uses to decipher the encrypted message. To produce an information pulse that replaces a given anti-interference pulse, the system combines an information bit with the anti-interference pulse. The decryption sub-system recovers the information bit from the information pulse by comparing the state of that pulse with the state of the anti-interference pulse that it replaced. If the states of the two pulses are the same, the information bit is a zero and if the states differ, the information bit is a one. The information included in the information pulses may be, for example, an address that the decryption sub-system uses to select a cryptographic key from one or more stored tables of keys.