Russians cracking ENIGMA

I recently came across a reference that the Russians had broken the ENIGMA code around the same time as the Brits. Anyone else heard about this?

 

Sounds a bit like the "claims" that Russians had invented everything from gun-powder rockets (not the Chinese), lightning rods (not Ben Franklin), powered aircraft (not the Wright brothers), and penicillin (not Fleming). There is an "excellent" article in an old Popular Science (or Mechanics) from the fifties on this very subject.

While it isn't impossible, and they did occupy Poland for quite a while where the original Enigma machines were broken by Polish mathematicians, I wouldn't hold my breath on it being proven true. The USSR had some brilliant scientists, mathematicians, and physicists but still.......

 

I think June 22nd 1942 is the best evidence that the Soviet Union knew nothing about reading Enigma Codes

 

I think you mean 1941 here "belasar". Probably just fast typing, but good point.

 

You are right sir, I thought I had such a brilliant post, but then my brain got stuck in neutal again

 

The comment stated it was a "recent" revelation (in the last 10-15years). I'm not sure if it is claimed to have happened pre-Barbarosa. Still, the Allies could never act upon every single ENIGMA intercept. Intel is a double-edged sword.

 

The Brits tried to warn Stalin of the upcoming Operation Barbarossa, passing on information they had deduced through their own Enigma intercepts, and spying work. Since Hess had just defected to Britain, he (Stalin) was suspect of the information since he thought they were trying to trap him into attacking Hitler first and make him the "aggressor" in the world's eyes. He had received some very bad press after his own invasions of Poland and Finland after all.

 

I didn't know Hess knew about Barbarosa and passed it on. I know several sources reached out to Stalin but to no avail.

 

If it was a Russian source saying it I'd want to have it fact checked by at least 20 other non-Russian sources.......

 

I didn't mean to imply that Hess either knew of or passed on anything about Barbarossa. Simply that he had defected, Stalin knew of the defection, and may have been highly suspicious of any information coming from the West while he was still in mid non-aggression pact with Herr Hitler.

 

Here is that article from February of 1954 with the claims of Russian inventions that I mentioned in my first post (#2).

Goto:

Popular Mechanics - Google Books

Starting on page 140.

 

Actually, it is not so complicated to break Enigma code. Principle of work is simple.
Problem is to do it quickly, there are too many combinations to do with paper and pencil.
And without computer, it would take too much time to decipher single message.
So, even if they knew how to break it, they couldn't do it efficiently.

 

Show us the Soviet Bombes first...

Bombe - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Breaking it is one thing...the orginisation behind Britains codebreaking ibvolved much mote..interception..dissemination..sigint in uk was so far logistically advanced by 45 that russia even if it did break some would not have had the whetherwithall on how and when to use it. Britain thank god had many mi6 vissionaries working out of Broadway before the war which enabled bletchly park to fit neatly into sigint org. Enigma may have been gifted..but the org and logistics were ready and waiting..russia had none of this.The reason why menwith hill exists today..the reason for most of brit usa deals from 50s to present including usaf bases in uk and poloris and trident..are due to brits unique setup of sigint even mentioned by present pm on his blundering talks about the special relationship...russia had to rely on defections and kgb etc to get the scraps from our tables..Russia was after enigma sure..the brit mil mission to poland which hoisted many folk and kit under the infamous gibbons of auxilleries fame and soe..beat them to it but left the scraps off the proverbial table for them

 

I think the "it is not so complicated" portion is a bit of a mis-leading statement. It was extremely complex, and not just the settings of the wheels either, but the plug-in combinations had to be known as well just to start off with the first version of Enigma. The Turning "Bombe" would also be a requirement, and the later even larger computers, but just getting started wasn't going to be "simple".

Here is a fine old program called "Secrets of War", and dealing with the machine.

Goto:

Hulu - Secrets of War: The Ultra Enigma - Watch the full episode now.

I enjoyed it very much myself.

 

The Polish had cracked a three rota Enigma before the invasion of Poland. The idea was given to British and French but the French didn't bother with it. The British did.

There is a story of messages a German delegate in Warsaw being read whilst the Germans were promising that they wouldn't attack Poland. The Poles knew they were lying but couldn't tell anyone other than Polish that they knew.

In fact the name Bombe (the search engine machine that searched for the rotor settings that can be found at Bletchley Park) is a Polish name for an ice cream that resembled the cascaded rotors inserted in the search engine.

 

If the encryption of the message is done correctly you will still have a problem breaking the code. Even with a high speed computer and a search algorithm.

The key to breaking the code is by the use of known phrases that you know will be in the message.

For example.

The bored outposts who continually sent in the message using the new rotor settings - Nothing to report

When they sent in their message Nothing to report they were in fact reporting a great deal about the new rotor settings.

Other cribs were

Heil Hitler - Always appeared conveniently at the end of a message.

They sometimes marked gaps in words with Xs. What a wonderful gift for Bletchley's search engine.

Remember that Bletchley wasn't initially concerned with the message but only wil the new rotor settings for the day so they could read all of the messages at will.

The Luftwaffe enigma were particularly lax at giving away their new rotor settings. Sometimes Bletchley were reading the message before the German operator.

The Kreigsmarine were the exact opposite.

 

Whether or not the Russians ever actually read Enigma enciphered messages as a result of their own cryptanalysis attacks is not something I am aware of, though it wouldn't be a massive shock if they did. However, they most certainly were reading Enigma messages. Soviet spies among the Allies were feeding Moscow raw ULTRA decrypts, translated messages and intelligence summaries. For example John Cairncross, one of the Cambridge spy-ring, was actively employed as a translator at Bletchley Park and he sent a great many decrypts to his Soviet handlers.