Welcome to the WWII Forums! Log in or Sign up to interact with the community.

Enigma

Discussion in 'WWII General' started by denny, Apr 29, 2013.

  1. denny

    denny Member

    Joined:
    Jan 16, 2013
    Messages:
    611
    Likes Received:
    47
    Location:
    USA, CA, Solano County
    I did not see this in the search, although it does not let you search "topic", so it is pretty overwhelming.
    Anyway.....Is a 4 rotor machine any easier to deal with today than it was in 1940.?
    Definitely our computers are much better and faster. But you would still need "a way in" would you not.?
    Do "we" have a way to decode, groups of 5 letters of Morse code, when the sender and receiver are each using a 4 wheel machine.?
    Thank You
     
  2. TiredOldSoldier

    TiredOldSoldier Ace

    Joined:
    Sep 14, 2008
    Messages:
    3,223
    Likes Received:
    452
    The short version: Enigma wouldn't have a chance against today's computers that could do a brute force attack in a very reasonable time.

    2 to the 256 power is considered "standard" encryption key space today for block cyphers, though limitations in the algorithms limit the true enthropy to something less, four rotors give a much smaller keyspace (so less keys to guess).

    If you saerch the web you can find plenty of papers where Ennigma whose broken with a PC like this one.
    http://www.cs.trincoll.edu/~crypto/student/emilio/
     
  3. urqh

    urqh Tea drinking surrender monkey

    Joined:
    Dec 23, 2002
    Messages:
    9,683
    Likes Received:
    955
    Have a look at the Enigma 2000 site...They will always answer your questions...But be aware...it may be Enigma in the title of the site but its not a site about Enigma itself. Cryptography...Some of it very surprising and ...lovely...the cold war continues...
     
  4. brndirt1

    brndirt1 Saddle Tramp

    Joined:
    Jul 7, 2008
    Messages:
    9,713
    Likes Received:
    1,501
    Here is something to keep in mind when discussing crypto-machines, only one of the WW2 era went unbroken through out the war and was never broken per se, just taken out of service in the late fifties when it was getting too slow. The American SIGABA internal design features were kept classified until the mid-1990s.

    I ran across an interesting sidebar to the Enigma machine in a book call The D-Day Spys, the story was covering the deception stories floated by the XX bureau and made the Nazis unsure of just where the landings would be. Anyway, the interesting thing I read was that Juan Pojol Garcia (Garbo) missives to his handlers back in the Abwehr would be decoded from his code, encoded in Enigma by the Abwehr, and sent out to all the Abwehr stations everywhere. This made it easy to keep track of just how much of Garcia's fabrications were being swallowed hook line and sinker, and to keep track of whom the Abwehr might suspect of being double agents in Europe. The reason it was easy to crack was that the British had the original, and seeing it changed into Enigma code made it a snap to figure out the rotor and plug settings the Abwehr was using at that moment. This allowed British Secret Service to read ALL communications between all Abwehr stations. Interesting "side effect".
     

Share This Page