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Enigma Machine for Sale on eBay
RagingMaxx writes "An Italian antiques dealer has recently put to auction a mint condition, fully operational Enigma machine on eBay. The machine, dated circa 1938, will be sold to the highest bidder in just over a week, but after 30 hours of bidding the price has already surpassed $12,000 US. For those of you who can't afford the real thing, why not make your own?"
I hear that the MPAA is interested in purchasing the machine - as they've heard that it has unbreakable encryption.
Looks like it's only the 3 gear model. If it was the four gear model, I surely would have purchased it :P.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
I hope I can scrounge up enough pgems for it. Do you know how rare Jah and Ber runes are? My kingdom for a 15% archon plate...
does it run Linux?
It comes complete with instructions (cypher-text of course) on how to win the War on Terror. Ask DVD Jon for the key.
Now nobody will be able to understand what I'm saying.
Well, the low price must be due to the fact that you really have to have a set of two to use them......
I can see these being attached to every Blu-ray2 and HD-DVD2 player.....
That looks more like a commercial machine to me. Does anyone see anything that marks it as a military version? Military equipment usually comes with manuals labeled "Machine, Cypher, Field, Mark 5.4.3.12.a" not "Enigma".
sPh
d-r-i-n-k y-o-u-r o-v-a-l-t-i-n-e
Gaahhh! How do I outbid the current price of $XCCCX921 ???
It has the plug board, which means it was the military, not the weaker commercial, Enigma. And, there were no 4 gear models until the 40's.
I got a chuckle, but I'm not modding you funny for fear of getting moderated UNAMERICAN.
TFA is nothing more than an enigma wrapped in an ebay auction wrapped in a Slashdot article.
this page claims modern computers can crack an Enigma message in "a few minutes".
But a recent effort to crack some M4 messages using distributed computing estimated some 10,000 PC-hours to break a message.
There are plenty if you Google "Enigma Emulator" or "Enigma Simulator"/"Enigma simulation"
i gma_j.html
http://homepages.tesco.net/~andycarlson/enigma/en
If you want to build something mechanical try a remote control aircraft. Much more fun.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
Has anyone ported Linux to it? Which distro? :-)
[Insert pithy quote here]
In the interests of 'National Security', the British Govt. broke up the team that broke the Enigma codes, and 'classified' or destroyed the equipment that they had imagined, designed AND built to help. Thereby setting back the UK IT industry by - oh, let's say 10 years, IMHO.
Not gonna Karma-whore by posting a zillion Wikiped links, but it's all there if you're interested and don't know the story. Worth a read, newbies, since a lot of what you now take for granted was developed by these folks.
...Enigma machines were offered in 2003?, and offered on eBay in 2006."
Is there a regular market in these things? Or is this the same machine going through cycles of spiffing up and reselling? Either way, I'm not sure every Enigma that goes on sale is "stuff that matters."
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Okay, I can understand the whole antiques thing fetching great prices, but I'm marvelling that it's hit $14,000 in bidding already... and has yet to reach the reserve price on ebay. Surely it can't have cost that much to do up/whatever repairs have been done...
to me is not the Enigma machine itself, but the Allied response to it and other Axis crypto systems. If you haven't had the chance yet you should read up on the folks at Bletchley Park, it's one of the most fascinating programs of WW2. Without a doubt the people that worked there contributed as much to the effort as any other single organization and probably shortened the war considerably.
There is a pretty good artile on Wikipedia
load "$",8,1
Why play with an emulation when you can have a real, functioning, paper enigma machine in the time it takes to print and use a scissor?
http://mckoss.com/Crypto/Enigma.htm
If I would make one, it would be all electromechanical instead of electronic. The breaking of the enigma code (as excellently described in e.g. Simon Singh's The code book) was only possible by exploiting implementation details. Kodus to the makers of the electronics kit, but a machine with an implementation different to the original one, loses most of its appeal to me.
http://www.cybertelecom.org/security/crypto.htm
The argument that code breaking may have shortened the war by two years has one tiny problem. The Germans and Japanese were probably trying to break our codes. Given the secrecy involved, we may never know how successful they were. So maybe code breaking lengthened the war. Maybe code breaking caused the war. We'll never really know. What we can say is that code breaking was very important to the conduct of the war.
Slightly off topic: I read a comment by someone saying that asking our troops to pull out of Iraq is treason in time of war. OMG. WW2 was a war. Iraq is something else. In WW2 it was clear that our fate depended on winning the war. Everybody was involved in supporting the war. All our efforts were focused on winning the war. That was a real war. This Iraq thing doesn't come close.
Bletchley Park has Enigma kits for sale:
nigma-E
"Enables you to build your very own battery powered Electronic Enigma machine, based on those used by Bletchley Park codebreakers during WWII. DIY simulation of the 8 wheel M3 and M4 Enigma. All components are included. Features an alpha-numerical display, lamp panel and 26 key keyboard as well as seperate Stecker board. Requires only basic soldering experience, although basic knowledge of electronics may be required to understand the circuit description".£119.99
This will sell for over 50 thousand. Hey, it's e-bay. Count on it!
Life is not for the lazy.
Forget a DIY Enigma, how about a DIY Colossus? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossus_computer
It also has a great big military symbol on it ... bit of a giveaway, really.
I know this is slashdot...but does nobody look at the pictures before posting?
No sig today...
We never would've cracked the code if they'd been using a beowulf cluster of these things...
"Thereby setting back the UK IT industry by - oh, let's say 10 years, IMHO."
It still is.
A *very* interesting account of the Enigma's history from a postwar Polish perspective, translated in East Germany (I got my copy from the gift shop at the Rundfunkmuseum in Nuremberg). This is a translation from the Polish original.
German Translation: "Im Banne Der Enigma" (Under The Spell Of The Enigma)
Original title: "W krgu Enigmy", published in Warsaw in 1979
Author: Wladyslaw Kozaczuk
Translation published by: Militärverlag der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik
(translator's name not listed)
ISBN 3-327-00423-4
In addition to its rather interesting political perspective, the book has an extremely detailed account of the Polish Intelligence Service's work on Enigma, including material I'd not seen in most of the more accessible Western literature on Enigma. In essence, the Polish crypto boffins had Enigma cracked (including automated cracking machines) before the war even started, but lacked the resources to scale up their efforts as the machines were upgraded (addition of the plugboard and new rotors); that, and the German occupation of Poland and later France, led them to share their findings with Britain, and the history most folks hear about.
BTW, WRT the "Enigma-E" electronic Enigma machine, I highly recommend it. I still get a kick out of decrypting messages with the one I built (in its nifty wooden case). Well worth the cost for those who've gotten the "Enigma virus".
"My strength is as the strength of ten men, for I am wired to the eyeballs on espresso."
16k and reserve still not met, wow.
The fact that the US hadn't even entered the war at the time of the Enigma capture depicted in the movie is one little over dramatization!
The only reason the Enigma cracking program was successful is that they knew how to keep is secret. Today there are too many factions in the Congress, FBI and CIA who get a kick out of destroying intelligence programs by leaking them too the press.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
So you would pay $12,000 for an Enigma and a Rimjob?
Not to invoke Godwin's Law here, but I thought that eBay refused auctions of WWII Nazi German wartime memorabilia? Is it just those items that bear the symbol of the Third Reich? It's a cool object to geek sensibilities. I would say that today, it symbolizes a particularly crafty bit of code-busting on the part of the Allies against Nazi Germany, even moreso than the crafty bit of code-creating clock-engineering work on the part of the Germans. But it's still Nazi memorabilia on some level, which I thought was against eBay rules.
[
Your sarcasm is undetectable. You *were* being sarcastic, right?
THis place is _really_ worth a visit. The staff are all retired NSA staff and are glad to talk to you about the exhibits (now that the equipment is declassified!) They have an excellent exhibit on Cold War era supercomputers, with a Cray and a Connection Machine CM-5 on display.
Imagine one of these sitting inside your computer, clunking and whirring everytime you accessed SSL pages.
>>Thereby setting back the UK IT industry by - oh, let's say 10 years, IMHO.
>It still is.
Look, I'm doing my best here guys...
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
Darn, it's already slashdotted...
http://www.xat.nl/enigma-e/ - is an electronic *simulation*. That is no where close to 'making your own'.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
100 posts and nobody has bothered to point out that you need two to play? ;-)
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
to crack Curt Herzstark faster (or at all for that matter) which they probably could very well have done had the folks at Buchenwald prioritised it, and not tried to keep his invention under their own hats.
Would the world have had to deal with a 'pocket enigma' ?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curta_calculator
Just wondering where you'll find replacement light bulbs for it. And how about the batteries? If you have a machine like this, it would be fun to be able to actually use it.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
I wonder if I would be legally able to purchase this item from France. After all, this could be considered a nazi collector...
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
Actually that was already pointed out above, in a post on why buying only one of them might be so cheap. Perhaps you didn't decrypt that post properly.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Have to agree - the National Cryptologic Museum is a hidden gem in the long list of DC-area museums. You see real Enigma machines, can operate one, see historic and sort-of-recent crypto gear, get a tour from a dosant who knows what's really going on.
The (sort-of-interesting) downtown Spy Museum gives you the Disnified version. The (fascinating) National Cryptologic Museum has the real deal.
Driving by all the razor wire at Ft. Mead and the big threatening signs, as well as retired spy planes gives it a great setup, too.
Hey, they already know you're planning to visit, right?
"krgu" in the above post should have rendered as "kregu", where the "e" is actually a non-latin character -- an "e" with a tail below it. Not that anyone will actually search for that title, but it's best to provide accurate info where possible...
"My strength is as the strength of ten men, for I am wired to the eyeballs on espresso."
Apparently the starting price doesn't meet their suggested retail.
Not exactly the Enigma, but beautiful nonetheless.
you had me at #!
i must have it! who needs truecrypt now? muhahahaha
Aaron Miller
Aaron Miller Computers
How is this NEWS, you mother morons? Slashdot SUCKS.
What, you're really trying to set it back further?
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
The U-505 -now at the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry was captured in '43 near Africa and hauled to the Bahamas:
http://www.msichicago.org/exhibit/U505/index.html
I was there last week and it is a pretty cool exhibit -although the rest of the museum is pretty kids oriented. That enigma machine looks a little smaller and lighter than the one on eBay. The whole story of saving the sub from scrap and moving it from the Bahamas to Chicago is an interesting one too.
the sailors captured were held incommunicado in violation of Red Cross and international law because the US did not want the Nazis to know that we might have an enigma machine. Probably justifiable at the time, but one of those slippery slope-type situations like Lincoln jailing journalists under the sedition act....like Gitmo...
-I'm just sayin'
Bletchley Park not only has Enigma machines, they have recently completed a replica Bombe, and they're working on a replica Colossus.
Might that have anything to do with the fact that WW2 was a real war, while the War on Terror is just an excuse to expand the power of the executive branch?
Back then, they'd have been traitors. Now, they're desperately-needed whistleblowers.
an antique dealer with a 95.8% feedback is a joke. i wouldn't buy a silver dollar from him/her.
sigs suck
It was removed from eBay, it may have been this stolen one http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/958062.stm
When I followed the link I get this message: "This listing (270146164488) has been removed or is no longer available." Hoax anyone?
The link no longer works and I find one available for sale Buy it now for $50,000, but no pics.
Looks like eBay had other ideas as the item has officially been pulled from the listings. Hmmmm..... wonder why?!?
well this sale has been pulled! or so the linked in site says
EULA clearly stated that it was non-transferrable so the auction was pulled.
Not available on eBay anymore for some reason (probably a stupid one).
You can buy Enigma machines online - most have a few repro parts.
http://w1tp.com/4sale/