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  #1   Report Post  
Peter Reilley
 
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Default 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   Report Post  
Peter H.
 
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Default 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   Report Post  
Ken Davey
 
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Default 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   Report Post  
Grant Erwin
 
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Default 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   Report Post  
Roger Martin
 
Posts: n/a
Default 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   Report Post  
AL
 
Posts: n/a
Default 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   Report Post  
Roger Martin
 
Posts: n/a
Default 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   Report Post  
Ian Sutherland
 
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Default 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)
  #9   Report Post  
Marv Soloff
 
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Default 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.



  #10   Report Post  
Andrew
 
Posts: n/a
Default Bletchley Park and the Enigma

inch (Peter H.) wrote in
:


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.



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.

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. Admiral Canares suspected some of the uboat codes
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.

Another interesting Turing fact is that he apparently had a lot to do
with working out improvements in the math side of Radar in working out of
of height, range, speed, size, profile and the like and also in helping
figure out the German use of radio for positioning, first thought to be
some kind of coded traffic to agents in Britain.


  #11   Report Post  
Jeff Wisnia
 
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Default 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   Report Post  
AL A.
 
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Default 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   Report Post  
Paul K. Dickman
 
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Default 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---



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AL
 
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Default 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   Report Post  
Peter Reilley
 
Posts: n/a
Default 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.




  #16   Report Post  
Peter Reilley
 
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Default 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.


  #17   Report Post  
Ken Davey
 
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Default 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   Report Post  
Marv Soloff
 
Posts: n/a
Default 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   Report Post  
Marv Soloff
 
Posts: n/a
Default 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! :-)


  #20   Report Post  
steamer
 
Posts: n/a
Default 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   Report Post  
Charles Morrill
 
Posts: n/a
Default 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
  #22   Report Post  
Barry Jarrett
 
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Default 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   Report Post  
lcoe
 
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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



  #24   Report Post  
Ken Davey
 
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Default 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.


  #25   Report Post  
Eastburn
 
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Default 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?).



  #26   Report Post  
- = krusty = -
 
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Default 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.


  #27   Report Post  
Marv Soloff
 
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Default 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.



  #28   Report Post  
Eugene Miya
 
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Default 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


  #29   Report Post  
Eugene Miya
 
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"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).


  #30   Report Post  
Marv Soloff
 
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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.




  #31   Report Post  
Eugene Miya
 
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"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.

  #32   Report Post  
Eugene Miya
 
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Default 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.

  #33   Report Post  
Peter Reilley
 
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"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.


  #34   Report Post  
Eugene Miya
 
Posts: n/a
Default Bletchley Park and the Enigma

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.
  #35   Report Post  
Eugene Miya
 
Posts: n/a
Default 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.



  #36   Report Post  
Eugene Miya
 
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Default 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.

  #38   Report Post  
pete brooks
 
Posts: n/a
Default 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

  #39   Report Post  
steamer
 
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Default 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---
  #40   Report Post  
Marv Soloff
 
Posts: n/a
Default 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


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