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Metalworking (rec.crafts.metalworking) Discuss various aspects of working with metal, such as machining, welding, metal joining, screwing, casting, hardening/tempering, blacksmithing/forging, spinning and hammer work, sheet metal work. |
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Bletchley Park and the Enigma
In my recent trip to the UK, I had a chance to go to Bletchley Park
where they cracked the Enigma code used by the Germans in W.W.II. Bletchley Park itself was just saved from being bulldozed for a housing development. It looks like a dump, but it was a dump during W.W.II. There is one modest estate home but the rest of the buildings are mostly wooden shacks with pipes and wires running all over. This is where the famed Alan Turing worked. The means of cracking the code were a machine called a Bombe (the Polish word for ice cream). The Bombe's were electro-mechanical machines that did an exhaustive search for the "key" used by the Enigma to encode messages. The key was a 3 letter code that was set into the 3 encoding wheels of the Enigma machine. Each wheel had 26 positions, one for each letter of the alphabet. The Bombe's were a Polish invention that the Polish government gave to the British before they were invaded. Hence the Polish name, Bombe. The Enigma looked like a typewriter. When you push a key, it advances the first wheel one position and one of 26 lights is illuminated. The light indicates the encoded letter. The operator would press a key for each letter of the message to be encoded and write down the corresponding encoded letter. It was a manual process, the Enigma machine does not have a motor. The machines are not heavy, probably 10 LBS. Pressing each letter advances the first wheel. When the first wheel advances one revolution it advances the second wheel one position. When the second wheel rotates once it advances the third wheel one position. It works exactly like a car odometer except that there are 26 positions on each wheel. The wheels themselves have 26 contacts on each side. The wheels are stacked together in the machine so that all contacts from the 3 wheels touch. Thus, current flows through the three wheels. Inside each wheel there are 26 wires that connect the contacts on one side of the wheel to the contacts on the other side of the wheel. The pattern of the wire interconnects is different on each wheel. However, the pattern must be the same for all Enigma machines that can inter-communicate. Bletchley Park had an actual Enigma bolted to a table that you could operate. I had a chance to try. It was a quite simple procedure. Dial in the key and then type in the message while writing down the encoded result. The Bombe machines were all destroyed after the war along with the documentation. They are building a working replica. They got the drawings from the US government under the Freedom of Information Act! The Bombe machine is quite simple. It is about 100 rotary switches that are all geared together driven by a 2 horsepower motor. Each switch has 26 contacts. The wiring to the switches is changed for each new code key search. There is a large jumper panel on the back where the connections are made. When the machine runs all switches rotate. When a circuit is made, meaning that the key is found, the machine stops. The key is then read out on 3 special dials. At the peak, there were over 200 Bombe's running in the UK. Codes were cracked in about 1 hour. This is when the Germans were using 3 rotor Enigma machines. Then the Germans changed to 4 rotor Enigmas and the Bombe's were not fast enough. The German codes could no longer be cracked. This led to the construction of the Colossus, the first electronic computer. The Colossus ran 5,000 times faster than all the Bombe machines. This allowed the German codes to be cracked again. Bletchley Park is also constructing a full working replica of the Colossus. That is about 1,500 tubes! The Colossus had no memory. It did the same sort of exhaustive search as did the Bombe's, it was just much faster. The code to be searched was punched into paper tape and fed through a reader at 30 MPH. If they ran any faster the paper tape would overheat and catch on fire! At Bletchley they had exhibits of the British coding machine. It operated on the same principle as the Enigma but had 5 wheels. It was much larger and motor driven. It also output the code as an electrical signal that could be sent over a phone line or over radio. It was about 2' by 2.5' by 2' high. It probably weighed 150 LBS. Not portable. They explained how they broke the Japanese code. The Japanese had a problem with sending their language over a telegraph. There was no alphabet that could easily be encoded for telegraphy. Their solution was to translate all words used in military communication into 5 digit numbers. These numbers would be encrypted and sent. Once you understood the meaning of each 5 digit numbers, the code cracking process was no different than cracking the German code. Actually, even easier because you did not have to know a foreign language. To crack the German codes you needed to know German. To crack the Japanese codes you did not need to know Japanese! Of passing interest, they had many of the props used to make the 2001 movie, Enigma. There is a 1/5 scale model of a German submarine. There is a full scale model of the conning tower and deck of a German sub. There are some Bombe props. All in all, a great place to visit if you are interested in cryptography. For metalworking content, you can see the workable Bombe that they are constructing. Pete. |
#2
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Bletchley Park and the Enigma
They explained how they broke the Japanese code. The JN25 code was cracked by the Americans, at Pearl Harbor. Perhaps a much lower level code, the Japanese Merchant's Code was cracked at B.P. |
#3
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Bletchley Park and the Enigma
"Peter H." wrote in message ... They explained how they broke the Japanese code. The JN25 code was cracked by the Americans, at Pearl Harbor. Perhaps a much lower level code, the Japanese Merchant's Code was cracked at B.P. If anyone wants a good read that gives some details about the inner workings of Bletchley Park (among other remarkable information about the entire war), The book "Churchill's War" by David Irving is marvellous (buy it if you can find it). I have pre-publication PDF fils (3) (totally legal btw) of this book and will send them to anyone on this ng who requests them. These files average 1.5 MB. They will be sent on request in three emails - one attachment each. The book is just short of 900 pages and makes for good entertainment/education on long winter nights. Regards. Ken. |
#4
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Bletchley Park and the Enigma
I read a fascinating biography of Alan Turing. Every computer science
student eventually has to study a theoretical concept called a "Turing machine". He was really a genius and a giant of early computer science. Not too many people know that he was homosexual and was hounded to the point where he committed suicide. Tough go, that. Grant Erwin former computer science type Peter Reilley wrote: In my recent trip to the UK, I had a chance to go to Bletchley Park where they cracked the Enigma code used by the Germans in W.W.II. Bletchley Park itself was just saved from being bulldozed for a housing development. It looks like a dump, but it was a dump during W.W.II. There is one modest estate home but the rest of the buildings are mostly wooden shacks with pipes and wires running all over. This is where the famed Alan Turing worked. The means of cracking the code were a machine called a Bombe (the Polish word for ice cream). The Bombe's were electro-mechanical machines that did an exhaustive search for the "key" used by the Enigma to encode messages. The key was a 3 letter code that was set into the 3 encoding wheels of the Enigma machine. Each wheel had 26 positions, one for each letter of the alphabet. The Bombe's were a Polish invention that the Polish government gave to the British before they were invaded. Hence the Polish name, Bombe. The Enigma looked like a typewriter. When you push a key, it advances the first wheel one position and one of 26 lights is illuminated. The light indicates the encoded letter. The operator would press a key for each letter of the message to be encoded and write down the corresponding encoded letter. It was a manual process, the Enigma machine does not have a motor. The machines are not heavy, probably 10 LBS. Pressing each letter advances the first wheel. When the first wheel advances one revolution it advances the second wheel one position. When the second wheel rotates once it advances the third wheel one position. It works exactly like a car odometer except that there are 26 positions on each wheel. The wheels themselves have 26 contacts on each side. The wheels are stacked together in the machine so that all contacts from the 3 wheels touch. Thus, current flows through the three wheels. Inside each wheel there are 26 wires that connect the contacts on one side of the wheel to the contacts on the other side of the wheel. The pattern of the wire interconnects is different on each wheel. However, the pattern must be the same for all Enigma machines that can inter-communicate. Bletchley Park had an actual Enigma bolted to a table that you could operate. I had a chance to try. It was a quite simple procedure. Dial in the key and then type in the message while writing down the encoded result. The Bombe machines were all destroyed after the war along with the documentation. They are building a working replica. They got the drawings from the US government under the Freedom of Information Act! The Bombe machine is quite simple. It is about 100 rotary switches that are all geared together driven by a 2 horsepower motor. Each switch has 26 contacts. The wiring to the switches is changed for each new code key search. There is a large jumper panel on the back where the connections are made. When the machine runs all switches rotate. When a circuit is made, meaning that the key is found, the machine stops. The key is then read out on 3 special dials. At the peak, there were over 200 Bombe's running in the UK. Codes were cracked in about 1 hour. This is when the Germans were using 3 rotor Enigma machines. Then the Germans changed to 4 rotor Enigmas and the Bombe's were not fast enough. The German codes could no longer be cracked. This led to the construction of the Colossus, the first electronic computer. The Colossus ran 5,000 times faster than all the Bombe machines. This allowed the German codes to be cracked again. Bletchley Park is also constructing a full working replica of the Colossus. That is about 1,500 tubes! The Colossus had no memory. It did the same sort of exhaustive search as did the Bombe's, it was just much faster. The code to be searched was punched into paper tape and fed through a reader at 30 MPH. If they ran any faster the paper tape would overheat and catch on fire! At Bletchley they had exhibits of the British coding machine. It operated on the same principle as the Enigma but had 5 wheels. It was much larger and motor driven. It also output the code as an electrical signal that could be sent over a phone line or over radio. It was about 2' by 2.5' by 2' high. It probably weighed 150 LBS. Not portable. They explained how they broke the Japanese code. The Japanese had a problem with sending their language over a telegraph. There was no alphabet that could easily be encoded for telegraphy. Their solution was to translate all words used in military communication into 5 digit numbers. These numbers would be encrypted and sent. Once you understood the meaning of each 5 digit numbers, the code cracking process was no different than cracking the German code. Actually, even easier because you did not have to know a foreign language. To crack the German codes you needed to know German. To crack the Japanese codes you did not need to know Japanese! Of passing interest, they had many of the props used to make the 2001 movie, Enigma. There is a 1/5 scale model of a German submarine. There is a full scale model of the conning tower and deck of a German sub. There are some Bombe props. All in all, a great place to visit if you are interested in cryptography. For metalworking content, you can see the workable Bombe that they are constructing. Pete. |
#5
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Bletchley Park and the Enigma
"Peter H." wrote in message
... They explained how they broke the Japanese code. The JN25 code was cracked by the Americans, at Pearl Harbor. Perhaps a much lower level code, the Japanese Merchant's Code was cracked at B.P. I was always taught at school that the Brits had cracked the Japanese codes in 1940 and had warned the US that they were to be attacked in 1941. The warnings were ignored by Roosevelt's intelligence advisers as part of Churchill's campaign to get the USA to join the war against the German Axis. |
#6
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Bletchley Park and the Enigma
Ken, thanks for the reference. I did some searching on google and it
appears that David's book can also be legally downloaded he http://www.fpp.co.uk/books/Churchill/2/index.html I've got some reading to do... "Ken Davey" wrote in message ... "Peter H." wrote in message ... They explained how they broke the Japanese code. The JN25 code was cracked by the Americans, at Pearl Harbor. Perhaps a much lower level code, the Japanese Merchant's Code was cracked at B.P. If anyone wants a good read that gives some details about the inner workings of Bletchley Park (among other remarkable information about the entire war), The book "Churchill's War" by David Irving is marvellous (buy it if you can find it). I have pre-publication PDF fils (3) (totally legal btw) of this book and will send them to anyone on this ng who requests them. These files average 1.5 MB. They will be sent on request in three emails - one attachment each. The book is just short of 900 pages and makes for good entertainment/education on long winter nights. Regards. Ken. |
#7
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Bletchley Park and the Enigma
"AL" wrote in message
news:AKqUa.149298$Ph3.18919@sccrnsc04... Ken, thanks for the reference. I did some searching on google and it appears that David's book can also be legally downloaded he http://www.fpp.co.uk/books/Churchill/2/index.html I've got some reading to do... Is that the David Irving who denies that the NAZIs exterminated 8 million people in the death camps? |
#8
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Bletchley Park and the Enigma
"Peter Reilley" wrote in message ...
In my recent trip to the UK, I had a chance to go to Bletchley Park Hi folks, Just before I visited Bletchley Park in about June 2000, Their Enigma was stolen, I think from memory on April the first. No joke, there was quite a storm about how it could be stolen from there, I'm sure I read that it was eventually recovered. B.T.W. in almost all of the W.W.II. museums in Germany there is at least one Enigma(plus lots of other interesting stuff) Cheer's, Ian Sutherland (Oz) |
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Bletchley Park and the Enigma
For more info on JN25 and the mathematical model that William Friedman
wrote for building the decoding machine (Purple), see David Kahn's "The Codebreakers". Regards, Marv Peter H. wrote: They explained how they broke the Japanese code. The JN25 code was cracked by the Americans, at Pearl Harbor. Perhaps a much lower level code, the Japanese Merchant's Code was cracked at B.P. |
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Bletchley Park and the Enigma
Peter Reilley wrote: In my recent trip to the UK, I had a chance to go to Bletchley Park where they cracked the Enigma code used by the Germans in W.W.II. snipped IIRC the Enigma was a German adaptation of a Swiss or Scandinavian code machine originally intended to safeguard commercial information sent by telegram. Is my recollection correct? Jeff Jeff Wisnia (W1BSV + Brass Rat '57 EE) "I before E except after C"....(The height of insufficient weird ancient science...) |
#12
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Bletchley Park and the Enigma
I saw a guy with several Enigma machines, complete with manuals, for sale at
a ham radio flea market in New Hampshire last fall. He wanted 10 or 12 K for each, if I remember correctly. He was also selling copies of the manuals on CD, with engilsh translation. I asked where he got them, and he said that he travels to Germany frequently, and that they "turn up" if you ask enough people. He said thet there are still some floating around that where issued to officers and government officals that ended up in attics and garages at the end of the war thet get discovered from time to time. Neat thing to see. "Ian Sutherland" wrote in message om... Hi folks, Just before I visited Bletchley Park in about June 2000, Their Enigma was stolen, I think from memory on April the first. No joke, there was quite a storm about how it could be stolen from there, I'm sure I read that it was eventually recovered. B.T.W. in almost all of the W.W.II. museums in Germany there is at least one Enigma(plus lots of other interesting stuff) Cheer's, Ian Sutherland (Oz) |
#13
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Bletchley Park and the Enigma
Take a look at:
http://www.enigma-replica.com/index.html Paul K. Dickman steamer wrote in message ... -- the Enigma machine: I've often thought this would be a kewl project to model in some scale other than 1:1. Might be a chance for Model Engineer to stretch beyond endless articles on locomotives... :-) --According to my sources even before the current hysteria it was very, very illegal to take one of these machines across a U.S. border. I got to see a borrowed one (on its way to a conference) close-up and there's nothing in there that couldn't be duplicated in a home shop with a little ingenuity. Finding dimesioned drawings, now, *that* would be a feat! :-) -- "Steamboat Ed" Haas : California: "The crap magnet Hacking the Trailing Edge! : in America's crankcase". http://www.nmpproducts.com/intro.htm ---Decks a-wash in a sea of words--- |
#14
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Bletchley Park and the Enigma
Hmmm. Some more info I did not know. It seems they are the same person.
Thanks. "Roger Martin" wrote in message ... "AL" wrote in message news:AKqUa.149298$Ph3.18919@sccrnsc04... Ken, thanks for the reference. I did some searching on google and it appears that David's book can also be legally downloaded he http://www.fpp.co.uk/books/Churchill/2/index.html I've got some reading to do... Is that the David Irving who denies that the NAZIs exterminated 8 million people in the death camps? |
#15
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Bletchley Park and the Enigma
"Jeff Wisnia" wrote in message ... Peter Reilley wrote: In my recent trip to the UK, I had a chance to go to Bletchley Park where they cracked the Enigma code used by the Germans in W.W.II. snipped IIRC the Enigma was a German adaptation of a Swiss or Scandinavian code machine originally intended to safeguard commercial information sent by telegram. Is my recollection correct? Jeff Jeff Wisnia (W1BSV + Brass Rat '57 EE) "I before E except after C"....(The height of insufficient weird ancient science...) Yes, that is correct. The inventor even patented the machine so the internal workings were known to all sides. The Germans did modify the design to make it more secure. In the early 1930's a German working for the German government approached the French intelligence service and offered all sorts of information. Part of the information was the operations manual for the Enigma machine. The French offered the information to the English. The English refused. It was the usual French - English distrust. The French then offered it to the Poles. The Poles took it and ran with it. The Poles distrusted the Germans. The Poles invented the Bombe's as a result. The identity of the German spy has never been revealed. Pete. |
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Bletchley Park and the Enigma
"AL A." wrote in message ... I saw a guy with several Enigma machines, complete with manuals, for sale at a ham radio flea market in New Hampshire last fall. He wanted 10 or 12 K for each, if I remember correctly. He was also selling copies of the manuals on CD, with engilsh translation. I asked where he got them, and he said that he travels to Germany frequently, and that they "turn up" if you ask enough people. He said thet there are still some floating around that where issued to officers and government officals that ended up in attics and garages at the end of the war thet get discovered from time to time. Neat thing to see. I am told that Enigma machines are relatively common. After the war the Allies kept secret the fact that the Enigma code had been cracked. The companies that made the original Enigmas kept on making them. They were mostly sold to third world countries and used for their secure governmental and military communication. Some 30 years after the war, it was revealed that the Enigmas were cracked. All those governments stopped using them. That is the origin of most of the available machines. They are authentic Enigma machines, there were not used by the Germans in the war however. Pete. |
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Bletchley Park and the Enigma
I was not aware of this connection either..
It really is not relevant in the context of the book 'Churchilll's War'. To my recollection no reference to the 'Jewish question' enters this book. It is a remarkably scholarly work. Regards. Ken. "AL" wrote in message news:ipGUa.154030$N7.21088@sccrnsc03... Hmmm. Some more info I did not know. It seems they are the same person. Thanks. "Roger Martin" wrote in message ... "AL" wrote in message news:AKqUa.149298$Ph3.18919@sccrnsc04... Ken, thanks for the reference. I did some searching on google and it appears that David's book can also be legally downloaded he http://www.fpp.co.uk/books/Churchill/2/index.html I've got some reading to do... Is that the David Irving who denies that the NAZIs exterminated 8 million people in the death camps? |
#18
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Bletchley Park and the Enigma
You are partially correct. The inventor and patentholder was Alexander
Koch, 49, of Delft Holland. In 1927 he assigned the patent to a German, Arthur Scherbius. Scherbius built a mechanical monstrosity in 1923 called the Enigma A and, with investors, founded Chiffiermaschinen Aktiengesellschaft (Cipher Machines Corp). The company was dissolved in 1934 without having any commercial success. The assets were transferred to Chiffriermaschinen Gesellschaft Heimsoeth and Rinke - which then, it is assumed - was absorbed into the Nazi war machine. There were four variants of the basic rotor patent, the Koch patent was the most comprehensive and best thought out. Regards, Marv Jeff Wisnia wrote: Peter Reilley wrote: In my recent trip to the UK, I had a chance to go to Bletchley Park where they cracked the Enigma code used by the Germans in W.W.II. snipped IIRC the Enigma was a German adaptation of a Swiss or Scandinavian code machine originally intended to safeguard commercial information sent by telegram. Is my recollection correct? Jeff Jeff Wisnia (W1BSV + Brass Rat '57 EE) "I before E except after C"....(The height of insufficient weird ancient science...) |
#19
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Bletchley Park and the Enigma
Better to concentrate on the Hagelin rotor machine known by the US
military as the M-209 Converter. Hundreds of thousands of these were made, under license, in the United States. However, the original production version of the Enigma has a US Patent: #1,657,411. You can get the patent on line. Regards, Marv steamer wrote: -- the Enigma machine: I've often thought this would be a kewl project to model in some scale other than 1:1. Might be a chance for Model Engineer to stretch beyond endless articles on locomotives... :-) --According to my sources even before the current hysteria it was very, very illegal to take one of these machines across a U.S. border. I got to see a borrowed one (on its way to a conference) close-up and there's nothing in there that couldn't be duplicated in a home shop with a little ingenuity. Finding dimesioned drawings, now, *that* would be a feat! :-) |
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Bletchley Park and the Enigma
--Very neat; thanks for that link! :-)
-- "Steamboat Ed" Haas : California: "The crap magnet Hacking the Trailing Edge! : in America's crankcase". http://www.nmpproducts.com/intro.htm ---Decks a-wash in a sea of words--- |
#21
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Bletchley Park and the Enigma
Great stuff, the enigma.
According to "The Code Book" by Simon Singh, the identity of German spy was Hans-Thilo Schmidt, envious of his elder brother's position of chief of staff of the Signal Corps and broke after his own soap business had failed. The elder brother had arranged a job for him at the Chiffrierstelle, "the office responsible for administering Germany's encrypted communications..." The Code Book is a great read. For another great read try Neal Stephenson's "Cryptonomicon," a fictional story concerning the adventures of a technically inclined codebreaking family over 50 years. Stepenson writes for people who enjoy knowing how things work. Alan Turing is a figure of haunting genius. I sometimes wonder if silicon valley might have happened in England had he lived. The US had so many of the pieces that would lead to mass production of the digital computer, but still... Turing's homosexuality became public knowledge and his security clearance revoked after he he had revealed his homosexuality to police during a burglary complaint. Good Turing site: http://www.turing.org.uk/turing/ Turing later committed suicide. As I remember, the British government apologized many years later. Yes, that is correct. The inventor even patented the machine so the internal workings were known to all sides. The Germans did modify the design to make it more secure. In the early 1930's a German working for the German government approached the French intelligence service and offered all sorts of information. Part of the information was the operations manual for the Enigma machine. The French offered the information to the English. The English refused. It was the usual French - English distrust. The French then offered it to the Poles. The Poles took it and ran with it. The Poles distrusted the Germans. The Poles invented the Bombe's as a result. The identity of the German spy has never been revealed. Pete. -- Chas M |
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Bletchley Park and the Enigma
fyi, the national security agency has a museum, open to the public, just outside the ft. meade facility along the washington-baltimore parkway. they have several (a dozen?) enigma machines of various configurations, and a bombe, along with lots and lots of other interesting stuff (wanna have a sit-down on a cray 1?). |
#23
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Bletchley Park and the Enigma
Barry Jarrett wrote:
fyi, the national security agency has a museum, open to the public, just outside the ft. meade facility along the washington-baltimore parkway. they have several (a dozen?) enigma machines of various configurations, and a bombe, along with lots and lots of other interesting stuff (wanna have a sit-down on a cray 1?). one interesting thing about Cray Supercomputers, the field engineers never had to tote a scope. each Cray had a scope and cart stored in the center area, along with a few maint parts/tools. neat. --Loren |
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Bletchley Park and the Enigma
"Roger Martin" wrote in message ... "Ken Davey" wrote in message ... I was not aware of this connection either.. It really is not relevant in the context of the book 'Churchilll's War'. To my recollection no reference to the 'Jewish question' enters this book. It is a remarkably scholarly work. Regards. Ken. I've only read a small amount about Irving but he certainly seems to cause a lot of controversy and has been denied visas to many countries because of his books. I find it hard that any sane person can deny what happened throughout Europe during the 1930s and 1940s. The problem I have is that if Irving remoulds history to suit his arguments, then all of his work has to be suspect. You make a valid point here. I have not read any other work by Irving. Churchill's War seems to be a very well researched work with extensive use of 'recently' de-classified documents, both British and American. Many brilliant people have had the mental defect of anti-senitism. I guess one can only be of a critical mind and try and accept the good while rejecting the evil. Regards. Ken. |
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Bletchley Park and the Enigma
Sounds like fun.
I have sat on a Cray - stood around many others. Even bought one for my department - and ordered 2 dozen disks in six-packs to fill up a cache of storage. Naturally only 1/2 of it was for us - the rest was for IT. What a rip! Martin :-) Fun days back then - lots of work but fun also. -- Martin Eastburn, Barbara Eastburn @ home at Lion's Lair with our computer NRA LOH, NRA Life NRA Second Amendment Task Force Charter Founder Barry Jarrett wrote: fyi, the national security agency has a museum, open to the public, just outside the ft. meade facility along the washington-baltimore parkway. they have several (a dozen?) enigma machines of various configurations, and a bombe, along with lots and lots of other interesting stuff (wanna have a sit-down on a cray 1?). |
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Bletchley Park and the Enigma
B.P.
If anyone wants a good read that gives some details about the inner workings of Bletchley Park (among other remarkable information about the entire war), The book "Churchill's War" by David Irving is marvellous (buy it if you can find it). I have pre-publication PDF fils (3) (totally legal btw) of this book and will send them to anyone on this ng who requests them. These files average 1.5 MB. They will be sent on request in three emails - one attachment each. The book is just short of 900 pages and makes for good entertainment/education on long winter nights. Another absolutely *awesome* book (which I've read 3 times) is called Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson. Very much a recommended book, in which Alan Turing is a lead character. -c. |
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Bletchley Park and the Enigma
Yup - Irving was really discredited and lost his libel suit.
See here for mo http://www.guardian.co.uk/irving/ Regards, Marv Roger Martin wrote: "Ken Davey" wrote in message ... I was not aware of this connection either.. It really is not relevant in the context of the book 'Churchilll's War'. To my recollection no reference to the 'Jewish question' enters this book. It is a remarkably scholarly work. Regards. Ken. I've only read a small amount about Irving but he certainly seems to cause a lot of controversy and has been denied visas to many countries because of his books. I find it hard that any sane person can deny what happened throughout Europe during the 1930s and 1940s. The problem I have is that if Irving remoulds history to suit his arguments, then all of his work has to be suspect. |
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was: Bletchley Park and the Enigma
Eastburn wrote
I have sat on a Cray - stood around many others. Even bought one for my department - and ordered 2 dozen disks in six-packs to fill up a cache of storage. ^^^^^ well technically until the CRI T3 designs (which were not Seymour designs anyways T3Ds and T3Es), Cray never had a cache. Cray himself apparently didn't know how to design an effective cache. The 2 and the 3 which he did design had local memories which replaced 2 banks of registers which got put back into the 4. So a cache can be cited as a community joke (cache? what cache?). If you can't afford a complete memory of the same technology as the cache, a client had no business buying one of his machines. Barry Jarrett wrote: please learn to edit subject fields when changing topics fyi, the national security agency has a museum, open to the public, just outside the ft. meade facility along the washington-baltimore parkway. The exit coming from DC is under construction, be warned. Allow at least 2 hours if you are into detailed viewing. Think twice about putting your thumb on the biometric sensor. If the library is open, and you are really into historic documents, you could be there all day. Nice small museum, various historic machines, pieces of the Power's U-2 from Moscow, the flag from the USS Liberty, a replicated bug in a US seal, and other things. Best to read the Codebreakers and Bamford's two books before visiting to get the full impact of a visit. Nice small gift store (the warning they give: beware eBay-ers pawning off their artifacts at inflated prices (some of which are given away for free by the Museum)). they have several (a dozen?) enigma machines of various configurations, and a bombe, along with lots and lots of other interesting stuff (wanna have a sit-down on a cray 1?). Well technically, it's not a Cray 1. It was kind of a Cray-1M for a while and what is there now is designated an X-MP: S/N 115/102 National Cryptologic Museum (Ft. Meade) actually Cray X-MP http://www.nsa.gov/museum/cray.html |
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Bletchley Park and the Enigma
"AL A." wrote in message ... I saw a guy with several Enigma machines, complete with manuals, for sale at a ham radio flea market in New Hampshire last fall. He wanted 10 or 12 K for each, if I remember correctly. He was also selling copies of the manuals on CD, with english translation. $12K is a common price. They are occasionally on eBay. We tracked 2 there a couple of months back. "Peter Reilley" wrote: I am told that Enigma machines are relatively common. Yeah, something like 100,000 to 200,000 where made. One was sold to the US Army in 1928/9 for $250 for evaluation purposes, and the US said thats, but no thanks. After the war the Allies kept secret the fact that the Enigma code had been cracked. Until about 1974-75. The companies that made the original Enigmas kept on making them. Not quite the original companies. Well the Swiss made and used them up to 1990. There is a nice crypto web site based at CERN. Rotor machines are still in use to this day. I think. They are elegant simple little mechnical devices which should not be discounted. They are probably still used in ballistic missile subs (an x-ray of an older rotor (note: 36-pads)) in Keith Melton's spy book under the John Walker case. They were mostly sold to third world countries and used for their secure governmental and military communication. Some 30 years after the war, it was revealed that the Enigmas were cracked. All those governments stopped using them. That is the origin of most of the available Not quite. machines. They are authentic Enigma machines, there were not used by the Germans in the war however. Cracking isn't a simple process that novices do. Jeff Wisnia write: IIRC the Enigma was a German adaptation of a Swiss or Scandinavian code machine originally intended to safeguard commercial information sent by telegram. Is my recollection correct? Roughly. The Swiss machines are basically copies. Rotor machines/cyphers came into existence basically independently in 3 places in the world at about the same time after WWI: the US, Holland and Scandinavia. Hagelin, Scherbius, and what's his name. Part of the idea behind the machine is that the machine can fall into an opponent's hands, but you don't lose security. Didn't have enough peer review. You need to have a cryptographic discipline, and that was a contributing part of the problem when for the so called rigid Prussian discipline (not). "Peter Reilley" wrote: Yes, that is correct. The inventor even patented the machine so the internal workings were known to all sides. The Germans did modify the design to make it more secure. Well..... It was intended as business machine. They patented it to get royalities. The Germans modified it in a number of ways. 1) a version used the German 29-character alphabet (early navy). This is nothing to do with security. How many Americans know that Germans use 29 letters? What was that joke about bi- and tri-lingual? 2) The German army not liking 3 rotor security added a plug board to transpose selected pairs of letters. This added a false sense of security and added little real security as code theory later proved. 3) Doernitz added a 4th rotor for his u-boats. 5 rotor versions also existed. And also non-Engima rotor machines. 4) other variations. In the early 1930's a German working for the German government approached the French intelligence service and offered all sorts of information. Part of the information was the operations manual for the Enigma machine. The French offered the information to the English. The English refused. It was the usual French - English distrust. The French then offered it to the Poles. The Poles took it and ran with it. The Poles distrusted the Germans. The Poles invented the Bombe's as a result. The manual doesn't do a lot for you. Actually the French did work with the English. At Bletchley there is a whole galley of stuff devoted to give the Poles Zygalski, Rejewski, and what's his name credit. They could have simply cross the Atlantic and borrowed the US Army's. I just recently saw a photo of one of the Polish reproductions of Engimas. Regular Engimas have a German QWERT (Z) keyboard. The Polish reproduction has an ABCDE keyboard sort of like a French Minitel (no relation, there were both merely being logical, actually lexical). It's not all mechnical. Some of it was done (my hat off to Zygalski) with sheets of paper with holes in them. Quite brilliant process of elimination. The Poles unlike the English or French didn't know that it could not be done. Before you feel smug about experts being wrong; it's because the Poles were mathematicians whereas the English and French were in large part traditional linguists and cryptanalysts. The guy who headed BP, and one of the guys who had a nervous breakdown, realized that cryptanalysts who were mathematicians were taking over. This changed the field forever. The identity of the German spy has never been revealed. Schmidt. Charles Morrill wrote: According to "The Code Book" by Simon Singh, the identity of Nice book. Met Singh at Keplers in Menlo Park. Unemployed physicist. For another great read try Neal Stephenson's "Cryptonomicon," a fictional story concerning the adventures of a technically inclined codebreaking family over 50 years. Stepenson writes for people who enjoy knowing how things work. I took the Cryptonomicon (only 2/3 done) with me on my first trip to England. I was in email contact with Neal at the time. And as I was getting on the train at Easton, I happened by chance to be reading the section about Euston. Weird. Coincidence. Good Turing site: http://www.turing.org.uk/turing/ Doubly. Alan Turing is a figure of haunting genius. I sometimes wonder if silicon valley might have happened in England had he lived. The US had so many of the pieces that would lead to mass production of the digital computer, but still... Turing's homosexuality became public knowledge and his security clearance revoked after he he had revealed his homosexuality to police during a burglary complaint. Turing later committed suicide. As I remember, the British government apologized many years later. It would have, no question. At the same time in Poland moving across Germany, through England were the Hungarians Teller, von Neumann, and others. Turing and co were peripheral. We build von Neumann architecture machines these days not Turing architecture (he was one stepping stone). And thermonuclear work was as much a driver as cryptanalysis (every one should presume that at some time some one from NSA/GCHQ will come upon this thread). The sad thing about Turing for me was that I think he had an out which would have worked for both the UK and US. I spoke with a couple of colleagues who knew him. Here, in the Valley, one can meet McCarthy who did LISP, and I know and correspond with Minsky (before email even). McCarthy hangs out in rec.arts.books, attends r.a.b.fests, I see him at local bookstores and in elevators at Stanford in Gates hall. Speaking with some of Turing's English colleagues, Turing could have been allowed to immigrate to the Castro in San Francisco (it was known gay back then before the term existed). GCCS/GCHQ wuold have made an arrangement with NSA and FBI to watch him. Turing could have been a professor at Berkeley, and might, had he found a partner be alive to this day so long as he survived the 80s and AIDS. The whole landscape of the computer world could have changed were he have been able to talk to others (some of his ideas had to be declared **** so that he could have gone on to refine them). And that's the thing which is sad. For a student to miss the opportunity to have visited him in his office hour (he could have still consulted to NSA/GCHQ) and called him on his ideas. And it just simply never occurred to any one over the decades. Marv Soloff wrote: Koch, 49, of Delft Holland. In 1927 he assigned the patent to a German, Arthur Scherbius. Scherbius built a mechanical monstrosity in 1923 called the Enigma A and, with investors, founded Chiffiermaschinen Aktiengesellschaft (Cipher Machines Corp). The company was dissolved in 1934 without having any commercial success. The assets were transferred Scherbius died poor about 28/29 when he was run over by a cart loaded with machines. They were refined into the elegant little machines that they are. steamer wrote: -- the Enigma machine: I've often thought this would be a kewl project to model in some scale other than 1:1. Might be a chance for Model Engineer to stretch beyond endless articles on locomotives... :-) It has been done a number of times. If you locate the CERN web site, you can play with it in Java. --According to my sources even before the current hysteria it was very, very illegal to take one of these machines across a U.S. border. Merely illegal WITHOUT the appropriate export control paperwork; it's because of a 1930 munitions act which, what's his name who wrote The American Black Chamber, Yardley. "Gentlemen do not read each other's mail." Sec. of State Henry Stimson who fired Yardley So fill our your paperwork. The Fort, when I had to deal with ours (below) asked for photos of it and all accomplanying rotors. They wanted serial numbers. I usually shoot with slide film, I had to make prints. So I went to th 1-hour photo place in Mountain View, and the, I think Vietnamese guy behind the counter said: Ah! cryptologic device? And I was wondering who this photo guy was. Again, they will read this. Most people here, including Ed and myself, just civilians. We are of no, or at most limited interest to them. I got to see a borrowed one (on its way to a conference) close-up and there's nothing in there that couldn't be duplicated in a home shop with a little ingenuity. Finding dimensioned drawings, now, *that* would be a feat! :-) Been done. It's nothing exotic. First off the German's called a Lamp-box. It's a keyboard of switches, a battery, and 26 lights with corresponding windows with letters. It's electrical, it's not electronic. It contains no logic. Reader BTW: Blame steamer. He had me come in to be a "cleaner." That's me Victor the Cleaner. Marv Soloff ) wrote: Better to concentrate on the Hagelin rotor machine known by the US military as the M-209 Converter. Hundreds of thousands of these were made, Oh yeah, I just saw one of these again (the Museum has them) at the RSA conference (2 Enigmas there). Easier to make, less security, small parts (harder to make). |
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Bletchley Park and the Enigma
Then there is the school of thought (as far as I know, undocumented)
that Roosevelt and his advisors knew of the impending Japanese raid on Pearl Harbor and just let it happen to protect the JN25 "Purple" decode much in the same manner as Churchill knew that Coventry was going to be hit and did nothing about it. Regards, Marv Eugene Miya wrote: "Roger Martin" write: Message-ID: Most amusing you posting this thru Berlin I was always taught at school that the Brits had cracked the Japanese codes in 1940 and had warned the US that they were to be attacked in 1941. The warnings were ignored by Roosevelt's intelligence advisers as part of Churchill's campaign to get the USA to join the war against the German Axis. Lend-lease wasn't enough? The Brits and the US cracked many codes. I have 2 samples of raw Purple which I picked up for grins from NARA (both about 2 weeks before Pearl Harbor). I would not just say that there were warnings or that they were ignored. Part of the problem is that US law until this past year does not allow for pre-emption. There were indications of movements and a hole in certain communications, but if definitive proof exists it has yet to be found. The US was heavily hit by the Isolationist movement of the 30s and wanted to avoid Imperial entanglements. They explained how they broke the Japanese code. The JN25 code was cracked by the Americans, at Pearl Harbor. Perhaps a much lower level code, the Japanese Merchant's Code was cracked at B.P. Andrew wrote: The Brits had been cracking the Japanese codes since the expansionist activities threatened Singapore and the like, some time around the mid to late 30's. The JN codes changed frequently and JN25 was the latest of many. You refer to the recently published book The Emperor's Codes. Yardley published his part of this in the 30s in the Saturday Evening post and in his book The American Black Chamber. My honorable ancestors apparently were not impressed. The Enigma cracking was made a lot easier when examples the three wheel enigma machines got back to the UK early in the war. That's 1939/40 and not '41... There where different machines, not just different wheel's for different services. They would have saved a lot of grief were they able to talk to the US Army. Admiral Canares suspected some of the uboat codes Dornitz? where being broken, in fact most where, and implemented a 4 wheel Enigma which caused loads of grief. In the end a destroyer captured a U Boat intact , 4 Wheel enigma machine and all and accelerated the process. That was a British Destroyer by the way, in early '41 before Pearl Harbor and not as Hollywood and U-571 would have you believe. I have no idea why they chose the Nautilus hull number for that film. 571 gave credit to the various UK and US crews and the German hull numbers. Having a machine didn't buy you much except confirming that they did it was important. I have a a xerox from the National Archives of a memo from England of one analyst's possessions after D-day and he had various captured machines and code books some with blood. One of those German code books is in the Archives complete with leaded binding for sinking. You should write the writers care of the studio. Mick Jagger produced the movie Engima. I think he owns one. He certain owned the sub in the movie and he gave it to BP. "Peter Reilley" wrote: At Bletchley, the tour guide talked about this. When the Germans started using 4 wheel Enigma machines, all code cracking began to fail and the English did not know why. Then they intercepted a communication between two German subs. The message was not encrypted and said "Please resend your pervious message using a 3 wheel machine, we do not have a 4 wheel machine yet". This was the clue that the English needed. They realized that they needed to get their hands on a 4 wheel machine. The English had indications of the 4 wheel move. They knew it was merely a matter of time. 4 rotor machines had to be backwards compatible as many continued to have reasons to use 3-rotor machines. There were many of these kinds of cribs. Some of this was covered in a Horizon/Nova special. The real problem was resource, Bombes were in short supply. Ian Sutherland ) wrote: Hi folks, Just before I visited Bletchley Park in about June 2000, No kidding, I was there in negotiations with them at the same time. Tough budget problems for them. Their Enigma was stolen, I think from memory on April the first. No joke, there was quite a storm about how it could be stolen from there, I'm sure I read that it was eventually recovered. It was recovered. |
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Bletchley Park and the Enigma
"Roger Martin" write: Message-ID: Most amusing you posting this thru Berlin I was always taught at school that the Brits had cracked the Japanese codes in 1940 and had warned the US that they were to be attacked in 1941. The warnings were ignored by Roosevelt's intelligence advisers as part of Churchill's campaign to get the USA to join the war against the German Axis. Lend-lease wasn't enough? The Brits and the US cracked many codes. I have 2 samples of raw Purple which I picked up for grins from NARA (both about 2 weeks before Pearl Harbor). I would not just say that there were warnings or that they were ignored. Part of the problem is that US law until this past year does not allow for pre-emption. There were indications of movements and a hole in certain communications, but if definitive proof exists it has yet to be found. The US was heavily hit by the Isolationist movement of the 30s and wanted to avoid Imperial entanglements. They explained how they broke the Japanese code. The JN25 code was cracked by the Americans, at Pearl Harbor. Perhaps a much lower level code, the Japanese Merchant's Code was cracked at B.P. Andrew wrote: The Brits had been cracking the Japanese codes since the expansionist activities threatened Singapore and the like, some time around the mid to late 30's. The JN codes changed frequently and JN25 was the latest of many. You refer to the recently published book The Emperor's Codes. Yardley published his part of this in the 30s in the Saturday Evening post and in his book The American Black Chamber. My honorable ancestors apparently were not impressed. The Enigma cracking was made a lot easier when examples the three wheel enigma machines got back to the UK early in the war. That's 1939/40 and not '41... There where different machines, not just different wheel's for different services. They would have saved a lot of grief were they able to talk to the US Army. Admiral Canares suspected some of the uboat codes Dornitz? where being broken, in fact most where, and implemented a 4 wheel Enigma which caused loads of grief. In the end a destroyer captured a U Boat intact , 4 Wheel enigma machine and all and accelerated the process. That was a British Destroyer by the way, in early '41 before Pearl Harbor and not as Hollywood and U-571 would have you believe. I have no idea why they chose the Nautilus hull number for that film. 571 gave credit to the various UK and US crews and the German hull numbers. Having a machine didn't buy you much except confirming that they did it was important. I have a a xerox from the National Archives of a memo from England of one analyst's possessions after D-day and he had various captured machines and code books some with blood. One of those German code books is in the Archives complete with leaded binding for sinking. You should write the writers care of the studio. Mick Jagger produced the movie Engima. I think he owns one. He certain owned the sub in the movie and he gave it to BP. "Peter Reilley" wrote: At Bletchley, the tour guide talked about this. When the Germans started using 4 wheel Enigma machines, all code cracking began to fail and the English did not know why. Then they intercepted a communication between two German subs. The message was not encrypted and said "Please resend your pervious message using a 3 wheel machine, we do not have a 4 wheel machine yet". This was the clue that the English needed. They realized that they needed to get their hands on a 4 wheel machine. The English had indications of the 4 wheel move. They knew it was merely a matter of time. 4 rotor machines had to be backwards compatible as many continued to have reasons to use 3-rotor machines. There were many of these kinds of cribs. Some of this was covered in a Horizon/Nova special. The real problem was resource, Bombes were in short supply. Ian Sutherland ) wrote: Hi folks, Just before I visited Bletchley Park in about June 2000, No kidding, I was there in negotiations with them at the same time. Tough budget problems for them. Their Enigma was stolen, I think from memory on April the first. No joke, there was quite a storm about how it could be stolen from there, I'm sure I read that it was eventually recovered. It was recovered. |
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Bletchley Park and the Enigma
"Peter Reilley" wrote:
In my recent trip to the UK, I had a chance to go to Bletchley Park where they cracked the Enigma code used by the Germans in W.W.II. Bletchley Park itself was just saved from being bulldozed for a housing development. It looks like a dump, but it was a dump during W.W.II. ;^) Did you want them to clean the place up a bit and then place a bull's eye visible from the air? ;^) There is one modest estate home but the rest of the buildings are mostly wooden shacks with pipes and wires running all over. Huts. They call them huts. The Enigma looked like a typewriter. When you push a key, it advances the first wheel one position and one of 26 lights is illuminated. No numbers. You had to spell numbers out. The light indicates the encoded letter. The operator would press a key for each letter of the message to be encoded and write down the corresponding encoded letter. It was a manual process, the Enigma machine does not have a motor. The machines are not heavy, probably 10 LBS. Huh? I think closer to 10 KG or 20 pounds if not heavier. Bletchley Park had an actual Enigma bolted to a table that you could operate. I like the Brits who dress up like a German signal corps unit. The Brits who dress up like American paratroopers were not there the weekend I was there. And there are a cadre of people who act as Station Y listeners in receiver rooms. Ms. Newton-John's mother started as one of these apparently. The Bombe machines were all destroyed after the war along with the documentation. They are building a working replica. They got the drawings from the US government under the Freedom of Information Act! I think 3 survived the war. 1 on display near DC. At the peak, there were over 200 Bombe's running in the UK. Codes were cracked in about 1 hour. This is when the Germans were using 3 rotor Enigma machines. Then the Germans changed to 4 rotor Enigmas and the Bombe's were not fast enough. The German codes could no longer be cracked. Hundreds were made. You have that right, mostly near Dayton Ohio. This led to the construction of the Colossus, the first electronic computer. The Colossus ran 5,000 times faster than all the Bombe machines. This allowed the German codes to be cracked again. Bletchley Park is also constructing a full working replica of the Colossus. That is about 1,500 tubes! Some number of them were apparently made as well with published numbers ranging from 1 unit to 3 dozen. All in all, a great place to visit if you are interested in cryptography. For metalworking content, you can see the workable Bombe that they are constructing. It's done. It was used in the film Engima if you want to see it (graphics rubber stamped it to appear like they had others). "Ken Davey" wrote: If anyone wants a good read that gives some details about the inner workings of Bletchley Park (among other remarkable information about the entire war), The book "Churchill's War" by David Irving is marvellous (buy it if you I have no idea who Irving is. The standard texts for the inner workings are Harry Hinley's book (I forget the name) and Gordon Welchman's Hut Six Story. |
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Bletchley Park and the Enigma
"Eugene Miya" wrote in message ... "Peter Reilley" wrote: In my recent trip to the UK, I had a chance to go to Bletchley Park where they cracked the Enigma code used by the Germans in W.W.II. Bletchley Park itself was just saved from being bulldozed for a housing development. It looks like a dump, but it was a dump during W.W.II. ;^) Did you want them to clean the place up a bit and then place a bull's eye visible from the air? ;^) They said that they were hit by 4 bombs. They blew out some windows and shifted a building off it's foundation but no serious damage. They think that the Germans were aiming for the rail junction in Bletchley town and not Bletchley park. There is one modest estate home but the rest of the buildings are mostly wooden shacks with pipes and wires running all over. Huts. They call them huts. The Enigma looked like a typewriter. When you push a key, it advances the first wheel one position and one of 26 lights is illuminated. No numbers. You had to spell numbers out. The light indicates the encoded letter. The operator would press a key for each letter of the message to be encoded and write down the corresponding encoded letter. It was a manual process, the Enigma machine does not have a motor. The machines are not heavy, probably 10 LBS. Huh? I think closer to 10 KG or 20 pounds if not heavier. I guessed at the weight. The actual one was bolted down so I could not lift it. Bletchley Park had an actual Enigma bolted to a table that you could operate. I like the Brits who dress up like a German signal corps unit. The Brits who dress up like American paratroopers were not there the weekend I was there. And there are a cadre of people who act as Station Y listeners in receiver rooms. Ms. Newton-John's mother started as one of these apparently. I was there on a Monday. During the week you cannot wander around, you must stay with the tour guide. Since the staff are all volunteers, they have regular jobs. On the weekend they have more staff and you can wonder around on you own. I did not know this before I went. Next time I will go on a weekend. The Bombe machines were all destroyed after the war along with the documentation. They are building a working replica. They got the drawings from the US government under the Freedom of Information Act! I think 3 survived the war. 1 on display near DC. At the peak, there were over 200 Bombe's running in the UK. Codes were cracked in about 1 hour. This is when the Germans were using 3 rotor Enigma machines. Then the Germans changed to 4 rotor Enigmas and the Bombe's were not fast enough. The German codes could no longer be cracked. Hundreds were made. You have that right, mostly near Dayton Ohio. This led to the construction of the Colossus, the first electronic computer. The Colossus ran 5,000 times faster than all the Bombe machines. This allowed the German codes to be cracked again. Bletchley Park is also constructing a full working replica of the Colossus. That is about 1,500 tubes! Some number of them were apparently made as well with published numbers ranging from 1 unit to 3 dozen. All in all, a great place to visit if you are interested in cryptography. For metalworking content, you can see the workable Bombe that they are constructing. It's done. It was used in the film Engima if you want to see it (graphics rubber stamped it to appear like they had others). When I was there 2 weeks ago they said that the actual working Bombe that they were constructing was not yet done. They had it opened so that I could see the mechanical workings. That looked done. The rotary switches did not look complete. They had a 4 or 5 Bombe props that were used in the movie. Pete. |
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In article ,
Marv Soloff wrote: Then there is the school of thought (as far as I know, undocumented) that Roosevelt and his advisors knew of the impending Japanese raid on Pearl Harbor and just let it happen to protect the JN25 "Purple" decode much in the same manner as Churchill knew that Coventry was going to be hit and did nothing about it. Amusing, Coventry came up in lunch discussion in the Stanford DB group last Friday. JN25 != Purple. Navy diplomatic codes I think the Emperor's Codes book has the list of the 3 dozen+ known codes in use toward the end of the WWII. Outsiders have documented, but it's likely wrong. Inaction is a difficult somewhat politically unpredictable act. This is why ships usually like to be underway even if slowly. Eugene Miya wrote: You don't need to attribute the earlier 118 lines. |
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was: Bletchley Park and the Enigma
In article ,
Eastburn wrote: So many that I saw or aided testing parts for / program aid - were Mil and NSA only type. One monster had SRAM (high speed) to cache the ECL ram and then they added DRAM (the size of disks) as additional level of cache before going on to the disks. Naw, Cray never uses the term cache in the proper sense. It may be a buffer, it may be a local memory, but its not a cache. The DRAM was in several bays of memory boards. 2s had 128 memory banks in 4 quadrants. Red skins. 1s had 16 banks. The site is logicallly compartmentalized for security so one can't see all features. They play for keeps, or hard ball. I never worked there - just supplied equipment for them to test parts to build machines. I have only visited and given a couple of lectures. I don't have a clearance, so I don't get to see the stuff on the curtained walls. "We have mutual interests." Had to sign a paper stating that I allow them to keep a file on me. This is not an NDA, but one is let to one's honor. I've used the ATM there. I've seen enough to confirm aspects of Bamford's second book. There are aspects which are best left undiscussed. Twenty years later, one member comes to meetings I go to on a quarterly basis - I'm in my third company now he has the same office. Both lucky. The future will be interesting. |
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Bletchley Park and the Enigma
In article ,
Peter Reilley wrote: They said that they were hit by 4 bombs. They blew out some windows and shifted a building off it's foundation but no serious damage. They think that the Germans were aiming for the rail junction in Bletchley town and not Bletchley park. Oh yes. They showed you "blast doors." Bombes not visible from outside doors. Know that junction well. Went thru it 4 times and once missed it and went to Milton Keynes. have a motor. The machines are not heavy, probably 10 LBS. Huh? I think closer to 10 KG or 20 pounds if not heavier. I guessed at the weight. The actual one was bolted down so I could not lift it. Ours is modestly heavy. I do not bring our wooden case. I will weighs ours the next time I get the chance. I was there on a Monday. During the week you cannot wander around, you must stay with the tour guide. Since the staff are all volunteers, they have regular jobs. On the weekend they have more staff and you can wonder around on you own. I did not know this before I went. Next time I will go on a weekend. I went first on a weekend which was closed, but the watchman allowed me to accompany him and we rode on an APC at the end. The Mil. veh. people were out and about. Came back the next weekend and spoke to the people who run the place except Chris. But I have exchanged with her over one of their ex-founders and the Fort. I muled stuff for 2 gift stories in the US behind fences. I leave it to those people to communicate and exchange exchange stuff (that is a deliberate double). They have a fine gift store. The major concern is that while it is nice to bring grandma back who worked there and didn't exactly know what she was doing and had to keep shut, they need to attract youth. This is a tough problem. It's not like England has a group like the Cypherpunks or other amateur cryptographers and cryptanalysts. The problem is long term and they have huge budgetary requirements. When I was there 2 weeks ago they said that the actual working Bombe that they were constructing was not yet done. They had it opened so that I could see the mechanical workings. That looked done. The rotary switches did not look complete. They had a 4 or 5 Bombe props that were used in the movie. Ah! We need to throw some data at it. I have samples. |
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Bletchley Park and the Enigma
Marv Soloff wrote:
Then there is the school of thought (as far as I know, undocumented) that Roosevelt and his advisors knew of the impending Japanese raid on Pearl Harbor and just let it happen to protect the JN25 "Purple" decode much in the same manner as Churchill knew that Coventry was going to be hit and did nothing about it. Regards, Marv The "Roosevelt knew it" school was given a lot of discussion in _At Dawn We Slept_, by, er, Gordon Prange. For a historian with no obvious ax to grind, he managed to devastate the arguement. The book is packed away, but the key points: Japanese security was tight to the point where no radio traffic about the raid occurred. (unlike Midway, where the Japanese Navy got really sloppy) Diplomatic messages said something was going to happen, but not where. There *was* a war warning, but both Kimmel and Short (Naval CincPac and the General of the Hawaii garrison) took measures to protect against sapatoge, not air attack. FWIW, Kimmel was at the forefront of the Roosevelt school--apparently in an effort to save his sorry tail. Pete Brooks |
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Bletchley Park and the Enigma
--Yes, but I'll let Eugene complete the sentence...
-- "Steamboat Ed" Haas : California: "The crap magnet Hacking the Trailing Edge! : in America's crankcase". http://www.nmpproducts.com/intro.htm ---Decks a-wash in a sea of words--- |
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Bletchley Park and the Enigma
I was of the opinion that Kramer and his people at OP20G(Z) had the
decode of Circular 2353 (November 19), the telephone conversation Kurusu/Yamamoto (November 27), and the the decode of Circular 2445 (December 2), all pointing to Pearl Harbor, delivered to Roosevelt and Hull. (From Kahn, The Codebreakers). I've heard of the Prange book but have not read it. Regards, Marv pete brooks wrote: Marv Soloff wrote: Then there is the school of thought (as far as I know, undocumented) that Roosevelt and his advisors knew of the impending Japanese raid on Pearl Harbor and just let it happen to protect the JN25 "Purple" decode much in the same manner as Churchill knew that Coventry was going to be hit and did nothing about it. Regards, Marv The "Roosevelt knew it" school was given a lot of discussion in _At Dawn We Slept_, by, er, Gordon Prange. For a historian with no obvious ax to grind, he managed to devastate the arguement. The book is packed away, but the key points: Japanese security was tight to the point where no radio traffic about the raid occurred. (unlike Midway, where the Japanese Navy got really sloppy) Diplomatic messages said something was going to happen, but not where. There *was* a war warning, but both Kimmel and Short (Naval CincPac and the General of the Hawaii garrison) took measures to protect against sapatoge, not air attack. FWIW, Kimmel was at the forefront of the Roosevelt school--apparently in an effort to save his sorry tail. Pete Brooks |