Slashdot Mirror
Enigma Machine Stolen
bullgod writes "The BBC is reporting this story about the theft of one of the remaining three Enigma machines. Bummer! Presumably stolen to order -- I doubt you could fence one of these. Lets hope it's found & returned soon." You might also want to check out the Enigma displayed at the National Cryptologic Museum, run by the same folks who deny bringing you Echelon.
Nearly all the WW2 german crypto was broken a bletchly, I read a few pages on the NSA site with contradicted this, it's somewhat disheartening, GCHQ even alerted american forces to a batch of uboats which were heading for the east coasts (US), the warnings fell of dear eyes though, and about 160 ships were lost and many lives lost.
Whatever national propaganda portrays I don't think we can turn a blind eye to such minds as Alan Turner who worked at bletchley.
A lesser known fact; Public Key Cryto was also developed at GCHQ too, years before Duffie published his research papers, you can read about it at Wired
This is sorta off topic, but I was always wondering how /.'ers overcame this seeming contradiction. I don't know exactly how important the code-breakers from wwII were to the effort to win the war, but from the special I saw on the history channel and the stuff I've read over the net they seem to have played a major role. Almost to the point where the allies may have lost if these code-breakers did not exist. Now, fast-forward to today, every geek (who is aware of the above) advocates unmitigated access to powerful encryption. If some malginant power like the nazis came to rise today, would we still win w/o the code-breakers? From what I've seen, it seems no. The nazis came to power relatively quickly, psychological studies have already shown that basically everybody is suseptiable to following in similiar footsteps, and now we are giving away one of the critical peices that helped us win the war. Personally, I'm not so sure, at least not as I use to be, whether unfettered access to powerful encryption should be a 'right' especially considering consequences as drastic as the one mentioned. I rather be one step closer to 1984 than living in the a nazi utopia. I know that the technology is already wide spread and it really wouldn't matter what is done now, but I was wondering how other slashdotters resolve this conflict....
I would just like to know once and for all - from the Commander Himself - what the hell DoubleClick is doing on a site supposedly devoted to geeks. To me, this is the ultimate opportunism and hypocrisy. Must be the Commander is happy - and of course rolling in the dough - while DoubleClick continues to track everyone who visits this site.
Talk about the pot calling the kettle black! Brits should've returned the enigma machine over to Germany long ago along with any other stolen booty.
Xlation: It says, "G1v3 uz w4r3z, 0r th3 m@ch1n3 d13z!"
Hey, don't blame us Europeans for the Americans!
Or for a good nonfictional account, try the Alan Turing Biography, Alan Turing : the Enigma.
Ironic that arguably thousands of lives were lost in WW2 to preserve the ULTRA secret, and then 60 years later someone can just steal one.
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Fuck the system? Nah, you might catch something.
Hrm,
I saw what the merchant claimed was an "Austrian" enigma machine. It looked nearly identical to the pictures with 3 rotors and something like ciphermachine written on it (in German).
It was in excellent condition but the man wanted $7,000 for it. After searching my pockets, I decided to buy a 1938 austrian "zippo-style" lighter with an iron cross instead.
Anyway, this was probably six months ago but I have the guy's card still if anyone's interested.
Synaptic
Yeah, it was funny 20 or 25 years ago when it got published.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
I dunno, if there's fixers out there that are like the ones I usedta encounter in Shadowrun with my first GM, anything's possible.
;)
Why, you could just saunter down an alley, find some random wacky elf fixer with a few troll bodyguards, and fence anything imaginable, usually on the spot. Restricted VTOL military fighter craft? No problem. The president's daughter? No hitch. Random NASA space shuttle? Oh come on now, who doesn't have one of those?
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Nah, just scan ebay, I say ;-)
--
"Just believe everything I tell you, and it will all be very, very simple."
Oh, and here is Jon Katz's review of The Code Book by Simon Singh.
I've read the book & it's well worth it.
If Echelon's existance were admited... They would end up loosing it to any robber that is smart enough to pronounce the word.
--------------------------- Politics, Religion, and Sex... Which one do you practice most?
A buddy ran his "Bible Codes" program on your post, hoping to find a link to a new porn site, but he discovered the following surprising message instead:
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Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
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Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
> nostradamus eh? badass.
Come to think of it... N probably does deserve some kind of prize for "Best Security by Obscurity".
Also known as, "If It Ain't There, You Can't Crack It".
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Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
I think you mean Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon?
Come on guys. It doesn't take a a detective to figure out who took it. Havn't you seen any movies? The Nazis took it! Change all codes now!
One of the two remaining is in the reception of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in Whitehall. Not the most easy to see, but I do enjoy staring at it on the rare occasions I'm called there to tweak one of our systems.
Better check David Bowie's house for the missing one, then...
If Bletchley Park had been less successful at promoting their exhibits, they might still have their machine...
Yeah, I think they did learn about Pearl Harbour at Bletchley. At least, from what I can remember from The Code Book by Simon Singh. Apparently the British warned the Americans, but the Americans refused to act on it, thinking it was a British plot to get them to come into the war.
However, one of the most surprising things I learnt from the book was that one of the scientists from Bletchley invented private-key-public-key years before the Americans did.
LOL, I meant it as a joke - it's a work of fiction :). Although, it does bring up an interesting hypothesis - maybe Stephenson had it stolen - I know he would enjoy owning one... Of course, by that logic, I would be a suspect as well... If I were rich enough. BTW, Cap'n Crunch really is good with whole milk, eaten out of a huge spoon - it just doesn't chew itself.
Become a FSF associate member before the low #s are used
If you don't know how these machines were cracked, you've obviously never read the Cryptonomicon. I highly recommend it for a factual approach to code-breaking. Incidentally, it is not possible to eat Cap'n Crunch in the way described - it does not chew itself. (Moderators, it's funny, not flamebait)
Become a FSF associate member before the low #s are used
Damn, and I thought I was cynical :>! Really, I can't imagine it being a publicity stunt--someone would swing if it turned out to be. Wonder if the theft can still be prosecuted under the Official Secrets Act :>?
I admit it. I needed it to decipher my tax forms.
Check out NOVA Online for the precedures for decrypting the message. Pre-1940 method.
Wheels: 213
Ring Setting 20,24,23
Stecker: AM,ET,BX,QT,RF
RXBXXJEUIKAPGI
KSMIV
XMLQT
LAGGS
JUFBL
PIONT
ZCHXD
TTCWG
IHTLC
XNQCK
V
:)
FunOne
FunOne
I Quote:
The machine was already stolen property when it was taken. Depending on who stole it, then your logic might even justify this theft as merely taking it back from the real thieves.
Now I don't know about the other two Enigma's but the one they used to crack the code first was not stolen. As everyone seems to think.
I watched a U-boat program on the History channel today. The first one was 'taken' from a German U-boat in the North Atlantic. As in captured or dead. In war times when you capture the enemy you do not return there tanks to them.
So if you still consider that theft then the U-boat people (Deutsche) better return the millions of tonnes of supplies they torpedoed.
Does the Brits having the Enigma machine after the war violate the legal rules of war? I doubt it. So unless you want to argue the 10 commandments as legal....
There is an old rusty U-boat sitting on a pier in England. I believe they fixed it up and put it in a museum now. Should they return that??
Foolish arguement.......
Too bad the timeline isn't contemporary w/"Titanic"...
Ceterum censeo Microsoftam esse delendam.
All you BeOS junkies with nice systems: What's a great system to run BeOS on? what kind of processor/vid card/sound card/do you use? I've been wanting to set up a box in my room for quite a while now. Im just now getting around to it. I think....but if you could help me on where to buy from, that'd be much appreciated.
I think there are more than three Enigma machines in existance. I think the BBC story has it wrong, as I personally saw two of the Enigma machines in just the last month. One of them at the Danish Resistance Museum in Copenhagen, Denmark (got pictures of it too, send me requests by running my e-mail backwards, of course). I saw a second of them at the Deutsches Museum in Munich And then here according to the NSA page, they've got one at the National Crypto Museum, AND there's the BBC article about Station X having one as well. Perhaps there are more of these things floating around than the BBC thinks. Anyone else seen one elsewhere?
BTW, the Deutsches Museus is a great museum for geeks. If you happen to find yourself in the Munich area of Germany, I definately recommend stopping in. It's very hands-on and instead of using models of planes, train, and cars, they actually have the full sized ones there. Pretty impressive. Over 10km walk if you make it around the whole thing (which I bet you couldn#t do in a day)
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"Defenestration" is to throw out of a window; what's a word for throwing 'Windows' out of something?
Netscape could not locate the server "www.nsa.gov"
Nobody knows where they're hiding...
Where is my mind?
mfspr r3, pc / lvxl v0, 0, r3 / li r0, 16 / stvxl v0, r3, r0
Check out Project Upper/Mute, an all-around awesome compiler fra
Cryptonomicon was the lead-up, the theft makes the press, and the movie with Harvey Keitel, Bill Paxton ("game over man!"), and Jon Bon Jovi caps it off:
http://us.imdb.com/Title?0141926
U-571 (2000)
Plot Outline: World War II action drama about a U.S. Navy submarine captain on a risky mission to swipe a decoding device from a stranded German ship.
- passion
you all might think that I am smokeing crack, but what if there is a little time travel involved here. think about this one, The US goverment could have sent people in the future to get the machine and then bring it back to the past and crack the code. this is just a story that me and my roommate thought of at 1am. let me know what ya'll think.
"011110010101111101110101 0110000101111001001100101 01100100011101010110110101100010 "
The Enigma machine. I think this is the coolest and most fitting name for a computer yet. When does the E-Machines version come out? All for a limited time offer of $499.99.
Our children will gaze on them in some distant time, years from now, and perhaps it will make them think a little - It is sad that an Enigma box was taken...i certainly hope they find the purps...but not for the same reasons you do.
They won't be doing much gazing at all if the only ones in existance are stolen for private collectors.
This type of encryption is a mechanical version of pgp but the key combinations are limited to a very low number, thus it was broken.
Are you some weird troll, or just drunk and/or high? You're talking about 3 completely unrelated things: SSL, PGP, and Enigma. If the Germans had the technology behind PGP in the 40s, Bletchly Park et al would have been screwed.
SSL and PGP were both created in the 90s, by Netscape and Phil Zimmerman (respectively). Rather late for use by the Germans in the 40s. And considering SSL and PGP both use public key cryptography (which was not invented until the 70s), it would have been a very spectacular achievement indeed.
They're looking for a better encryption algorithm for CSS.
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Could the whole thing be an elaborate(and twisted) April Fool's joke? Steal the Enigma, then send coded messages back to the authorities regarding its whereabouts?
David Andre
I think you are mistaken on this point. I'm fairly certain that the US information on Japanese war plans came from the US Navy's breaking of the Japanese diplomatic code machine, "Purple."
-JeremyH
And as has been stated I disagree with the conclusion in the article. Either the whole thing is a prank, it was stolen by somebody for his own personal use, stolen without a buyer in mind, or stolen to order.
One can not rule out a prank, especially because of the date, but I doubt it.
Stolen for personal use: Maybe. Certainly I cool thing to own, but if you had the where-with-all to have pulled this off perhaps you'd have targetted somewhere else.
The article suggested that the thieves may try to sell it over the net. I can't see it. With all the eyes watching, you'd be mad to try to post it on E-Bay.
Stolen to order must be favourite. It's the kind of thing that interests the 'private collector'.
It must be murder to try and shift, just think of the attention this theft is getting.
Best as I recall (I've got a book on Bletchley Park round here somewhere....) the std Enigma used 5 wheels, while the Naval one used 6. IIRC, the value of getting the submarine wasn't so much getting the Enigma, but getting a set of setting books. (The hassles of decrypting the Engima included: 1) figuring out which code wheels were used, in which slots. 2) determining the original position, 3) figuring out the plugboard arrangement. IIRC, this added a final set of substitution to the mess.)
One of the reasons the Enigma was cracked is that the Luftwaffe had terrible signals security. (This also got the Japanese, especially in the RED cipher.) The Luftwaffe used a set of weather ships in the Atlantic and sent the data encrypted. However, they used a common preamble to the messages, and if you had an idea of the weather in the area, you could guess the plaintext quickly. Knowing the plaintext makes getting the setting fairly easy, and that meant the Luftwaffe signals for the day were owned....
OTOH, the Navy was a lot more secure (paranoid) about security and didn't lapse into common preambles.
With respect to the Purple machine, I've got a book written by one of the guys who broke Purple. It's a bit short on technical detail, but the essense of how it was done is covered. It's
_The Story of Magic_ by Frank B. Rowlett, ISBN 0-89412-273-8. It was released in 1998, and a bunch of the stuff in the book had been recently released by the NSA just prior to publication.
FWIW, they got a lot of use out of IBM Accounting machines. Takes me back a few (3, precisely) decades when we had one of those dinosaurs in my high school.
In Gordon Prange's At Dawn We Slept he skewers the notion that we knew PH was going to be attacked and when. The most crucial part is that fact that the Japanese PURPLE code messages for the period had no information on the attack. Actually, the Japanese ambassador learned of the attack from the US secretary of state as he was delivering Japan's declaration of war.
The plans for the Pearl Harbor attack were developed in secret, and the Japanese Navy executed them extremely well, with complete radio silence.
Note that Admiral Kimmel (former CINCPAC) was trying to develop the "Roosevelt knew" theory to cover his own sorry tail. The US knew we were going to be attacked--somewhere. There was no solid evidence that Pearl was the target.
And yes, we did read the PURPLE declaration of war before the Ambassador delivered it, but there was no indication of the target. Japan had opened the Russian-Japan war in 190? with a surprise attack, and if the embassy had been able to decrypt and type up the message quickly enough, Pearl would have been attacked slightly after the message was delivered. As it was, the message was late, and it was a sneak attack. There's a moral to that story somewhere....
culturaltheftreallyblowsstopg estop
currentpositionisusaandienjoyusaculturestop
executethiefatoncestop
locatemissingenigmamachinesoicanencodethismessa
endoftransmissionstop
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRG!
Mesa HATING that joke!!!!!
"..Constructive critizism is always welcome however."
Hmm. A worthy rant. However, consider how England obtained their Enigma machines in the first place.
:)
Maybe the Germans stole it back.
Dahlmann tightly grips the knife, which he may have no idea how to use, and steps out into the plain.
I can crash a Linux machine, given enough time (with the system RAM these days, it'll take a while, but it happens!), with about as much.
void main () { while (1) { fork(); } }
And if you have max processes set, it'll at least DoS it. Beat that, fucker.
Btw, I can crash a DOS machine with three keys. Guess which three.
It takes a whole hand to fuck yer mom, though! Damn, that bitch is loose!
You shouldn't, of course. All the l337 ha><0rz use Perl on Amiga.
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I like to watch.
The Polish Bombes are long gone... But you can see one of the American ones at the National Cryptologic Museum, a stone's throw from NSA at Fort Meade. And of course, there's the Colossus rebuild at Bletchley Park, well worth the trip.
It is feared the thieves may try to sell the machine on the internet.
Say what? Surely the thieves selling the box on the net would be a Good Thing (tm) as it would make it easier for Law Enforcement to track them down.
I can hear the person who came up with that theory now - "Oh, a Bad Thing has happened, and it involves electronic equipment, therefore the Evil Internet must be involved somehow".
I wouldn't be too proud of that... It only takes 1 line, and some patience:
10 GOSUB 10
Try that in GWBASIC, and see what happens. :)
Not everyone deserves a 320i
I'm not sure this can be called cultural theft any more than stealing an airplane can be called cultural theft ("hey...it defines something about kittyhawk.") I'm sure that the Britts and Americans are pretty proud of cracking the Enigma code...as are many of the allied forces. But I'm sure than many germans don't feel the same. The point is that the Enigma machines are a really thought provoking antique - nothing more. Our children will gaze on them in some distant time, years from now, and perhaps it will make them think a little - It is sad that an Enigma box was taken...i certainly hope they find the purps...but not for the same reasons you do.
BTW - if it's not obvious, your comment about the U.S.A. is way off-topic, and wrong to boot. But that's another thread.
-FluX
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Your Ad Here!
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"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
It all was clear to me for a while there, then you came and you confused me, it's all very confusing, I am confused now!
You can't handle the truth.
This type of encryption is a mechanical version of pgp but the key combinations are limited to a very low number, thus it was broken. this one
You can't handle the truth.
Let's crack RC2-2 ultra-secret encoded messages with it.
It's sad to know that by robbing one of these Enigma machines, you don't really get anything useful.. but it'd be interesting to know if I can program it to crack RC4-128 stuff, though I'll have stopped being on the face of the planet for at least 10,000 millenias.
Perhaps the machine was not stolen. Perhaps it escaped.
InstaPundit! Ahead of the Curve Since 30 Minutes Ago
You must be on the right track!
This isn't really going to be a lot of help, since its based on a single story I heard, but it should allow some speculation.
When the Lorentz machine was being tested, StationX was listening. At one point, someone sent a long test message. The reply was essentially "Sorry, I didn't quite get that. Can you resend". The machine was then reset and then almost the same message was sent. Since the message was typed by a human, it obviously wasn't exactly the same, and the message diverged after the first difference. This wasn't the whole story, but it did give a clue about roughly how the machine worked. (e.g. a letter in position 344 maps on the Q. The same letter in either position 345 or 343 maps on to G)
Its worth remebering that although the Lorentz had a lot more wheels, it was very rare that a higher level wheel would actually change position.
Would you mind telling me where you got your info? Any good books/sites on world war II cryptography that you know of?
Checkout taccom my worl war II simulator
Anyone know enough about the internal workings of ENIGMA to code up an emulator? (Specifically, an open source emulator...)
No particular reason, of course, given that ENIGMA's functionality is well-known. It would just be fun to play around with.
blog |
Oh no, another British spy laptop goes walkabout ..........
Stephen Hawking has written another book. It's about time as well.
All my god, there was an Enema machine stolen, unclean colons for everyone!
At the end of World War II, their were probably a few thousand of these devices about. (The brits actually sold them to some of the new colonial gov'ts!). Quite apart from the hundreds of experimental replicas built by the Poles and British, the entire German Navy, Army, and Luftwaffe and some of the lower civil service were equiped with them. The value of this lies not in the fact it is a "nazi encryption machine" (to paraphrase), but in the fact that someone -- in this case, Bletchley Park -- preserved it.
The idea that since it was once a German device (property of a gov't which legitimately and uncoditionally surrendered to Allied forces), it is somehow eternally German property, is, while sympathetic, silly. Why should someone in Britain be called a theif for buying one when they were common and taking the trouble to preserve it? Perhaps, in the interests of Germany's memory of the war, one should be given outright (as opposed to the usual touring arrangements), but what claim to WWII memorabilia (and trivial ones at that: this is really very sensationalistic) does Germany have above UK or US, or even the countries overrun: France or, for that matter, Poland. Would it not be equally theft if Germany had the Enigma machine, thus depriving countries who struggled hard to defeat Hitler, among other ways through codebreaking, of it. For example, the Poles, who perhaps equally should remember WWII, of a great part of their nat'l heritage (they broke into it first, realised it could be done), as well as the Brits and the French, and even, sortof, maybe the Americans. (They really had a small role... Just a contingent, started after it was worked out & set up).
What this really is is culture theft from the world, since it is unlikely to ever again resurface in public display, and one less is oneless. (Germany's quite close to the UK, too). While it is unfortunate that it can't be everywhere, arrangements for touring, sharing, etc. can/should be reached -- when legal owners are involved. (and people refrain from wild allegations of "theivery".)
If you ask me, the Brits, the French and (especially) the Poles have the greatest claim on the Enigmas, if it is that desperate that they have a "nazi-used" one (what a fascination with that we have...), since they are the countries which did the greatest and most daring part of the most interesting aspect of the whole affair: the codebreaking.
But a far more interesting monument by far would be a) one of the first Bombes, designed by Rejewski, Rozycki and Zygalski (Polish), or b) Collosus, the first programmable, interactive, w/ memory, "real" computer. (British, not used for Enigma but Geheimschrieber [ironically, what Enigma was once called] a digital based diplomatic security level cipher system). Even a reproduction of either of these...
__________
He who fights and runs away,
or whatever sub it was that they got the Kriegsmarine Enigma machine from (the naval ones had an extra wheel). It was an RAF Coastal Command aircraft that spotted the sub. They were British seamen on a Royal Navy Boat that disabled the sub. They were Britsh seamen who disabled the scuttling charges, & rescued the naval enigma from the sub - one died in the process. So why does Hollywood always have to change the facts to make the heros American - Remember the Great Escape, with Paul Newman (or was it Steve McQueen, I always get those to mixed up). Yet in reality their were no Americans involved in the Great Escape. Are Aamericans so insecure they can't handle it unless the hero in the Movies are yanks?
Oops. Sorry. I'm lazy too :)
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
Or (for those who were at the Geek Pride Festival when Rob Malda, aka CmdrTaco, spoke) the people at Slashdot are just lazy and only read the first paragraph. At least that's true for Rob...
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
oo my first post ever.. :) I think he was saying that he brought it back and gave it to the allies, and then went and said what happened to cause him to do this (the germans invented the atomic bomb, 550 million people died or whatever)..
I can crash a DOS machine with 3 lines of BASIC!!!!!
In any directory with more than one file:
echo n | deltree *.*
Kaboom!
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Do daemons dream of electric sleep()?
It was in Bletchley Park! Chosen, during the war, to be the most inconspicious and sleepy place in the whole of middle England. I wouldn't exactly say the machine was guarded. Nobody thought anyone would steal it anyway.
For an interesting fictional account of the Enigma etc, try Bruce Sterling's Cryptonomicon (or however it's spelled) - was reviewed on here a while back.
Bloody good read
Troc
Troc's dubious podcast and blog: http://www.trocnet.net
Yeah, that'll be it. Ooops :)
troc
Troc's dubious podcast and blog: http://www.trocnet.net
You know - I've love one of these....
I live in Armagh where there have been a couple of 'cultural' thefts recently - an Original Copy of 'Gullivers Travels' with handwritten notes by the author is probably the most famous. We're worried about this at the observatory where we have some really unique items - like the first anemometer, Earnshaw's first clock, and even the first copy fo the NGC catalogue.....
Still it's a shame that the really important historical artifacts related to the enigma were all destroyed in the name of secrecy. The Mechanical 'bombs' used for cracking and the collossus computers.... It's tragic that the UK had secretly built 10 electronic computers before the ENIAC grabbed headlines across the world, but they were all destroyed....
So... who are the real cultural thieves?
What I found most interesting about the article is the tidbit near the end about Mick Jagger owning an Enigma machine (of a different type than the one stolen). He may gather no moss, but antique crypto equipment is another matter.
--Jim
A lot of people have failed to recognize that this was a German Enigma, not one of the machines used by Turing and Friends at Bletchley Park to crack the codes.
I know who took them.The flying robots with the "Powered by Windows 2000" REALLY gave it away. Bill and friends took it over the weekend and paid the (foolish) thieves in MSFT shares, which stand to loose much of their value right away on Monday (thanks Judge Jackson!).
" Not only was that goal achieved, but the story of Station X is being turned into a £90m Hollywood blockbuster starring Harvey Keitel and Jon Bon Jovi. " - Who is playing Turing? Anyone have a link to more info?
2 April 2000 ENIGMA MACHINE STOLEN FROM BLETCHLEY PARK Yesterday afternoon, an Enigma three rotor cypher machine was stolen from the mansion at Bletchley Park, home of the world war 2 codebreakers and birthplace of the communications revolution. The machine, whose value is difficult to assess, appears to have been taken from a display case while the Park was open to visitors. It was used during the war to protect German secret messages. Enigma machines exchange hands for cash values starting at several thousand pounds. Trust Director Christine Large said, "This is a selfish act, calculated to deprive the visitors and students at Bletchley Park of the chance to enjoy and appreciate a unique piece of history. The Trust will be deeply grateful for any information that may lead to the return of the machine." Meanwhile, leading national security firm Polaris Telemetry, which has agreed to sponsor the installation and management of a comprehensive, high tech security system at Bletchley Park, is speeding up its plans to complete the work. Within the week, the first phase of the 'MicroLan' network on the Park will be in operation. All sensitive information and equipment will be asset-tagged. There will be infra red labelling and television monitoring both on the site and at the Polaris Telemetry control centre. For information: Christine Large - 07971 193546 / 020 7737 7220
I hate it when people cite this book without even getting the name of the main character right!
The author of the book is William SteVenson
The main character is William StePHenson
It always makes me worry about how carefully they read the book. When I read it (as a teenager, back in the 70's), the coincidence in names struck me immediately -- it's kind of hard to miss, no?
__________
If you can go to bed, knowing you did a valuable thing today, you're very lucky. If you can't... it's not bedtime
When I read the book, I was amazed by the ease and success with which this man moved between widely disparate fields. While this was common for the great polymaths of past centuries and was probably still possible in England in the mid 20th century (when social contacts were everything -- though they're still pretty bloody important today, in almost any nation) I felt a surge of envy at the 'good old days' for polymaths
But it really did strain credulity that this man knocked Baron von Richthoven out of the sky (Sir Stephenson was an ace, but with, I'm told, 8 kills not 26), helped develop a television system at Bell Labs, was key in developing an Allied jet engine (which didn't fit my recollection of jet engine history), pushed critical military technologies through (like the Spitfire), and kept a full plate of intelligence credits, any one of which would hav earned him a place in history on both sides of the Atlantic.
Clearly he was a major player in Anglo-US intelligence, but a lot of historians dismissed the book as 'historical fiction', and cited very specific objections.
In fairness, I have been told by a friend who keeps up on such things that records declassified in the 80's and 90's offer some justification for some (but not all) of the book's claims. I say "some justification" because the facts still don't quite jibe, but many of the new revelations were surprising enough that they are strong points in the book's favor.
It's fascinating reading, and gets many obscure details exactly right, but it's far from a history text (biographies seldom lack 'spin') and can still be accused of getting significant events quite seriously wrong.
I loved the book, but I was disturbed to hear the original poster claim that reading it mean he probably had his facts straight. The history of debate on this book makes it an unlikely contender for *that* comment
__________
If you can go to bed, knowing you did a valuable thing today, you're very lucky. If you can't... it's not bedtime
The "Hollywood Blockbuster" mentioned at the article is U-571, which looks like it's gonna be pretty cool. Doesn't it seem awfully coincidental that an enigma machine is stolen a mere 3 weeks before a movie about stealing an enigma machine opens? Hmmmm..... (play X-Files music here)
I can only assume that this machine was stolen to order. They are of limited usefulness for cryptographic purposes these days.
I think it's very sad. This is one of only three Enigma machines left. It was used by the Abwehr (SS), so it a particularly well-engineered machine. It's hard to imagine who would want one. The Bletchley museum was opened recently after a huge amount of work, largely by volunteers.
If any good can come from this, it may draw attention once again to the astonishing work done at Bletchley Park. As part of their efforts to break the Enigma cipher, they built some of the earliest electronic computers (some would say *the* first electronic computer)
Check here for more information.
According to the Deutsches Museum Enigma Page (in English), between 100,000 and 200,000 Enigma machines were built during World War II.
The Polish were breaking Enigma ciphers as early as December 1932 and January 1933, as mentioned in passing here - in fact it was Polish dissidents that delivered an Enigma to Bletchley Park.
This page has some recent Enigma selling prices in case you want to start saving up for one (prices start around $15000).
I wonder what's so special about the stolen one, and why there's only three of that type remaining...
Great games
Given the fact that there are only three of these things in the world, it probably won't be sold over the internet. Gee...there's an Enigma machine on Ebay, it wonder if it is the stolen one?
My guess it that it was meant to be a prank, or someone who on a whim thought, "That will look cool in my flat!" and grabbed it. My fear now would be that since such a big deal was made about the theft, the thief will try to destroy the evidence, rather than return it.
Dana
Gee, what part of "whole or partial" didn't you understand?
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http://www.funet.fi/ftp/pub/crypt/
ftp://ftp.ox.ac.uk/pub/crypto/misc/
Bill Stewart
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The standard Enigma machine used 3 rotors, but came with a selection of 5 to choose from.
Naval enigma used 4 rotors with 8 (IIRC) to choose from.
Ignore Alien Orders
I used a 3-rotor machine at the NSA's crypto museum in VA and didn't find it difficult. Perhaps the NSA's machine is better maintained.
Ignore Alien Orders
So, there you are, the real history of the ENIGMA
Why is it, that whenever you see that sort of phrase, you just know it's going to be wrong ?
The Colossii weren't for solving Enigma, nor did Stevenson solve it single-handed (neither did Welchman either, despite his book). Bletchley Park didn't touch Purple and certainly didn't know about Pearl Harbour. The Polish Enigma work and the invention of the Bombe pre-dated Heydrich.
If you're going to claim accuracy in a posting like this, then at least get the facts right. After all, there's enough authorative information out on the Net to do it easily (and Bletchley's own site is a good start).
I was one of BTS '82 at Horwood House / Bletchley Park - any other BTS out there ?
This is rather bizarre. With only three machines, this will have no value to any legitamet collector. I question the purpose of this crime. Conceivably, someone just walked off with it, but you would think that robbing a guarded museum would be difficult and require SOME sort of planning.
This is obviosly the work of a mobster. Some bigwig in organized crime with a private museum. Law abiding wealthy people wouldn't take the risk, so it is obviously a crime lord who wants it.
It probably wasn't really guarded. Either the guard swiped it, or somebody took it while a guard was asleep. They probably figured it was valuable, and didn't realize that there were only three. Assuming that hundreds were made, they probably figured that it would net a small fortune on the black market to people that would sell it to collectors... Start checking nearby pawn shops.
The part that bothers me about this crime is the mention of the Internet. With absolutely no evidence to back this up, they blame technology for creating a market for stolen items. As a result, they will motivate technophobes to blame technology and increase regulations... despite technology playing no role in this...
Alex
from the bead-it-just-bead-it dept.
A break-in at the Museum of Old and Useless Stuff at Cambridge last night resulted in the theft of a priceless Intel Abacus, dating from the fiteenth century. This particular abacus belonged to Intel's first line of 64-bead Abacuses, which changed the mathematics world forever, by providing unparalleled performance gains in both adding and subtracting. Until the University is able to buy the abacus back on E-bay, the professors will have to research their physics theories using the even more ancient Fingers'N'Toes technology.
Professor Hawking, unable to move his fingers or toes, will have his nurse jack him off into a paper cup until the abacus is returned.
In related news...
Enigma Machine Stolen
from the man-timothy-must be bored-dept.
The BBC is reporting the theft of one of the remaining three Enigma machines. A CIA spokesman is quoted as saying, "We could break the cyphertext with a $5.99 pocket calculator. Britain may have lost a priceless museum piece, but the theif has gained a handy footrest. Oh, and this press release doesn't exist."
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I like to watch.
I have _The Story of Magic_ and the information is not nearly enough to implement a realistic attack on PURPLE. An appropiate analogy would be Feynman's "Six Easy Pieces" versus something like "The Large Scale Structure of Space-Time" by Ellis, Hawking or Misner, Thorne, Wheeler's "Gravitation." You would be able to handwave a description of gtr with the first one, but you wouldn't be able to anything quantitative. Likewise, _The Story of Magic_ leaves out the all-critical details about the reconstruction of the V->V and C->C tables.
Fight Spammers!
I found it strange the article mentions that "ever more complicated" versions of the Enigma were cracked - including the "naval" version.
My understanding of the Enigma, was that the Naval version was so incredibly hard to crack, a German U-Boat had to be disabled and boarded so the Naval version could be stolen and reverse engineered.
Ace
VAS IST DAS?!? EIN ENIGMA MACHINE HAST FALLEN INTO THE HANDS OF DER ALLIES!!! Schweinhunden!!! VE MUSHT GET IT BACK AT ONCE! IF HIMMLER HEARS OF ZIS VE ARE ALL DEAD MEN!!!!
Hang on...what year is it again?
Never mind. I just get these spells.
Obergruppenfuhrer Jones
It's hooked up to one of the Distributed.net projects!
From what I heard there were up to 10 electropnic computers operating at Bletchly park.... plus of course all the mechanical crckers.
So the eniac wasn't even in the first 10 computers....
Even better - it makes IBM's assertion that there was a worldwide market for at most 5 computers even more ludicrous since twice that many had already been built.
There are only three enigmas of the same type as the one that was stolen.
Here is a cool applet that simulates an enigma machine.
... and this is how it works.
I used to get into arguments with self-professed experts about this all the time, and seeing as i've read the biography of the man that put the whole project together, almost singlehandedly, i was inclined to believe i had my facts straight.
I haven't read the book for a long time, but A Man Called Intrepid is what it is, written by William Stevenson, about Sir William Stevenson, the master spy code-named Intrepid. Stevenson was a canadian, and served as Churchill's liason to the US during the US's neutrality and helped Bill Donovon, Roosevelt's main inteligence man, create the OSS (precursor to the CIA). Stevenson was behind everything the british did in the Secret War, trained all the spies, helped design most of their equipment. From Russia With Love actually gives some really good examples of this gear, and guess where Ian Flemming got all his inspiration? He was one of Intrepid's men.
But, back to the Enigma. The British built Collosus, the 1st computer (yes, it predates ENIAC) at Bletchley to crack the Enigma, but very few people know that in august, 1939 an Enigma was smuggled out of Poland. The Czechs attacked a convoy that was being escorted by Heydrich. Intrepid had his agents blow up a typewriter and scatter the parts so the germans thought that the machine was destroyed. The allies paid dearly for that however, since Heydrich went on a killing spree untill he was assasinated by Intrepid's ppl.
All transmissions that were intercepted by the Bletchly people were codename ULTRA. One of these ULTRA interceptions allowed the British to organize the evacuation at Dunkirk. Tonnes of equipment was lost on the beaches, but without that pre-warning, there's no way the British could have mobilized enough transport to get those men out. As it was, only the rear guard that were swarmed by the Germans were captured.
Through ULTRA, the US knew about the planned attack on Pearl Harbour. This is a sorely contentious issue, and many contend that the Japanese attacked sooner than expected. However, the official reasons for tho coverup were to not reveal the source (PURPLE was the code that the Japanese used, basically similare to ENIGMA), and to serve as a match to stir the US to war.
So, there you are, the real history of the ENIGMA. They remained secret until 1972, 10 years after the defection of Philby, a top BSC exec, and a deeply planted Russian spy. Philby was, ironically, in charge of anti-Soviet operations.
A naval Enigma was found as well. A U-boat got torpedoed, and the crew thought it was sinking, and the crew hopped ship, figuring it went down. but the british (or americans, don't remember which) got a crew of 3 on, found it wasn't sinking that fast, so they sent a prize crew on and got the Enigma, charts etc, while the German crew were shipped off to a POW camp.
I only take a drink on two occasions - when I'm thirsty and when I'm not.
I only take a drink on two occasions - when I'm thirsty and when I'm not.
Brendan Behan
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OFTC: By the community, for the community
But it's also sad, to me, when a culture is gone. Just disappears, killed or murdered or died. Like the passenger pigeon, extinct. There goes a bit of wisdom, as somebody wrote in "Ishmael," that we'll never have again. A system of knowing, a chunk of wisdom about how to live in this world. We can never get that particular wisdom back.
I'm Indian-American, and I KNOW that there is value in American culture and that there is value in Indian culture. I don't think Mohandas Gandhi was literal when he responded to the newspaperman --
"What do you think of Western civilization?"
Gandhi: "I think it would be a good idea."
No, both have value -- more or less, I don't want to judge. But the Westerners have, as my ex-PoliSci TA says of the British, "that nasty little conquering habit." There are drives in certain cultures that make it difficult for them to coexist peacefully with other cultures. Might that destructiveness lower that culture's value? Maybe.
Anyway, I think you misread the person's comment on the Western habit of destroying and replacing other cultures. Visit Bangalore, visit Paris, visit any city that has a proud history of its own. More people speak English, more people have "Western values" and dress and watch and listen and all that -- looking to the US. Or, at least, a global monoculture will be / is more influenced by Protestant individualism than by Hinduism. Maybe that's not so optimal for wisdom and balance.
That's all.
Ceterum censeo Microsoftam esse delendam.
This is just nuts. I saw at least three Enigmas when I was at the Bletchley Park museum of cryptography, and I read not too long ago of a cryptologist/collector here in California who has over twenty whole or partial Enigman machines. Who says there are only three???
Where can I download this Enigma thing?
-- "I can't tell the future, I just work there." -- The Doctor
It's suprising the Germans fielded such a mechanical turkey, especially since they also used the minature Hagelin C-52, a pocket-sized all-mechanical crypto machine with a printer. Due to a dumb advancing mechanism, that little machine had weak cypher strength, but it could have been smartened up.